Publications: Directory of Graduate Programs

Trinity College
American Studies Program

Degrees Awarded: MA

Academic System: Semester

Affiliations and Internships: Antiquarian and Landmarks Society of Connecticut, Connecticut Historical Society, Connecticut State Library, Hartford Public Library, Mark Twain Memorial, Munson Institute of American Maritime Studies (Mystic Seaport), Mark Twain Memorial Collection at Trinity College, New Britain Museum of American Art, Noah Webster Foundation, Stowe-Day Foundation, Wadsworth Atheneum, Watkinson Library (19th-century Americana), Webb-Deane-Stevens Museum (Wethersfield), Wethersfield Historical Society

Program Specializations: The Master’s program in American Studies offers students the opportunity to study many aspects of the history and cultures of the United States, including its literature, arts, and exhibitions. The program draws upon the methods and insights of several disciplines, as well as those distinctive to American studies, and emphasizes the history and cultures of Hartford and of the Connecticut Valley. It is intended to serve people interested in culture and history, teachers, curators of local collections, and others who desire an interdisciplinary approach to the study of the United States at the graduate level.
The program has several features that distinguish it from other graduate programs in the humanities and the social sciences. First and foremost the American Studies program is interdisciplinary. A fundamental aim is to enable students to integrate the knowledge of historians, scholars of American literature and culture, art historians, and other specialists, to achieve an understanding of American life and letters that no single discipline can provide. The program is meant to be both flexible—it allows students wide choice among electives in many fields; and focused—it directs interdisciplinary learning to the goal of illuminating the American experience.

The American Studies Program of Trinity College offers a concentration in Museums and Communities within the course of study leading to the Master of Arts degree. The program gives special attention to artists and intellectuals who made their homes in Hartford; to the ethnic communities of this region; to the experience of women; and to the topics that can be explored in depth by the use of research collections in or near the city.

MA Requirements: The degree requirements are fulfilled in three phases:
The sequential American Cultures seminars, American Studies 801 and 802, serve to introduce the field of American cultural studies by applying some of its leading methods and concepts to selected problems. American Studies 801 is the “entry” course; students must successfully complete it in order to become degree candidates. Ordinarily (though not necessarily), American Studies 802 will be taken in the semester immediately following completion of American Studies 801.
After these two American Studies seminars, students may choose electives that examine the American experience from among the graduate courses offered in American Cultures; American History and American Literature by other graduate programs at Trinity; or by the Hartford Consortium institutions (Hartford Seminary, Rensselaer of Hartford, St Joseph College, and the University of Hartford). Students may, with the approval of the Graduate Adviser, count up to two graduate courses (2 course credits) taught at other institutions in the region.

When students have completed both American Studies seminars and all electives, they are expected to design and complete their own interdisciplinary research projects, in the form of either a Master’s thesis, American Studies 954-955 (2 course credits) or a shorter independent project, American Studies 953 (1 course credit).
American Studies Faculty

Core Faculty

CHATFIELD, John I.H. (PhD, Columbia Univ., 1988) Associate Professor of History; colonial American history, American social history

FIGUEROA, Luis (PhD, Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison, 1991) Assistant Professor of History; Americanization on Puerto Rican popular culture in the early 20th century, Puerto Rican history, historical memory, national identity

GREENBERG, Cheryl L. (PhD, Columbia Univ., 1987) Associate Professor of History; African American history, race and ethnicity, 20th century social history

LAUTER, Paul (PhD, Yale Univ., 1958) Allan K. Smith and Gwendolyn Miles Smith Professor of English; canon formation and reformation, multiculturalism and American ethnicity, international American Studies

LEACH, Eugene E. (PhD, Yale Univ., 1977) Professor of History and American Studies; 19th century cultural and intellectual history, working-class history, multiculturalism in American social thought

PERKINS, Margo (PhD, Cornell Univ., 1995) Assistant Professor of English and American Studies; African American literature
and culture, 20th century autobiography, 1960’s activist/countercultural movements, race, class and gender issues

PFEIL, John Frederick, Professor of English (MA, Stanford, 1973), American fiction and activism.

RIGGIO, Milla C. (Ph.D., Harvard, 1972), American and world drama and fiction.

Affiliated Faculty

ANDREWS, Gregory, MA, Hartford Architecture.

CARBONELL, Bettina, Visiting Assistant Professor, Ph.D., New York University: museum studies, visual and literary arts, exhibition and exclusion.

COHN, William, Visiting professor, Ph.D. Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison: historical and cultural studies in 20th-century America.

CURRAN, Kathleen (PhD, Univ. of Delaware, 1986) Associate Professor of Fine Arts; 19th century architecture, American decorative arts

FITZGERALD, Ann K., Visiting Professor, M.A. Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison: museum exhibition, museum studies.

GOLDSTEIN, Warren, Visiting Professor, Ph.D., Yale, Sports in American Life and Culture.

LAWSON, Rob, Visiting lecturer, Ph.D Vanderbilt Univ: African-American music and culture, research methodology.

MCCOMBIE, Mary E. (Mel), Visiting lecturer, Ph.D. University of Texas (Austin): museum studies, visual arts, history of design, history of photography

PENNYBACKER, Susan (PhD, Cambridge Univ., 1985) Associate Professor of History; modern Britain, racial politics in the Atlantic World of the 1930s, metropolitan urban history, Anglo-American history, history of immigration and documentary photography.

PETERSON, Betsy Bahr, Visiting lecturer, Ph.D. Hagley Fellowship Program, University of Delaware: Exhibition design, American Indian cultures, museum administration.

WALSH, Andrew, Associate Director, Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life; M.A.R.-Yale Divinity School; Ph.D.-Harvard University: Hartford Studies.

Contact

American Studies Program
300 Summit Street / McCook 123
Hartford, CT 06106
Phone: 860/297-2303
Fax: 860/297-5258
E-mail:
http://www.trincoll.edu/depts/amst/

Graduate Director: Paul Lauter

Admissions

Trinity College
The Office of Graduate Studies
300 Summit Street
Hartford, CT 06106-3100
Telephone: 860-297-2527
Fax: 860-297-2529
e-mail:
http://www.trincoll.edu/depts/gradstud/