Publications: Directory of Graduate Programs

New York University
American Studies Program

Degrees Awarded: MA, PhD

Academic System: Semester

Deadlines: Admissions and financial aid 1/4

Financial Aid: Grant support, University fellowships, tuition remission, teaching assistantships in other departments

Affiliations and Internships: The libraries and collections of New York City

Program Specializations: 20th century, urban studies, social and cultural history

The Program in American Studies offers courses of study leading to the degrees of Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy. It is designed to prepare students for advanced work and teaching in American Studies through courses in the departments of anthropology, cinema studies, comparative literature, English, fine arts, history, music, performance studies, philosophy, politics, psychology, and sociology. An individual course of study, drawing on departmental offerings, is arranged with the director and members of the committee. The program interprets “American” in a broad sense to include the role of the U.S. in the Americas, and in world affairs. Because of its regional location, special attention is given to urban New York, a global city that comprises many world cultures.

MA Requirements: 32 points are required of all candidates for the MA degree (with at least 24 points in residence at New York University). Students are required to take a core seminar, and submit a research essay. They must also participate in a group study as part of the work of the seminar. Reading proficiency in a foreign language is also required.

PhD Requirements: To qualify for the doctorate, students must satisfactorily complete graduate studies totaling at least 72 points, with a minimum of 32 points of doctoral level in residence at New York University, pass a qualifying examination, and present; an acceptable dissertation. Students who have completed relevant graduate courses elsewhere may request that such courses be credited to degree requirements, but only after completing three courses at New York University.

American Studies Faculty

Core Faculty

DAVILA, Arlene (PhD, CUNY, 1996) Cultural Anthropology; race and ethnicity, popular culture, nationalism, media studies, globalization, the politics of museum and visual representation, urban studies, consumption, political economy, the Caribbean, Latinos in the U.S.

DUGGAN, Lisa (PhD, Univ. of Pennsylvania) Assistant Professor of American Studies and History; lesbian and gay studies, history of women and gender, critical journalism

GREEN, Adam (PhD, Yale University, 1998) Assistant Professor of History and American Studies; urban studies; critical race theory and comparative racial politics; cultural economy, transnational studies

HARPER, Phillip Brian (PhD, Cornell Univ., 1988) Professor of English and American Studies; 20th century literary and cultural studies, African-American literature and culture, Africana

JOHNSON, Walter (PhD, Princeton, 1995) American history; commerce and culture on the nineteenth-century Mississippi River, Southern and African American history

MILLER, Toby (PhD, Murdoch, 1991) Professor of American Studies, Cinema Studies, and Latin American and Caribbean Studies; screen studies; new media; class; gender; race; sport; cultural theory; citizenship; social theory; cultural studies; political theory; cultural policy

PARIKH, Crystal (University of Maryland, 2000) Assistant Professor of English; Asian American literature and studies; Latino/Chicano literature and studies; feminist and race theory; postcolonial studies; 20th-century American literature

ROSS, Andrew (PhD, Univ. of Kent, 1984) Professor of Comparative Literature, Director of American Studies Program; media and cultural studies, intellectual history, social and political theory, urban studies

YÚDICE, George (PhD, Princeton Univ., 1977) Professor of American Studies and Spanish and Portuguese; transnational politics and culture, globalization, civil society, social movements, Latin American intellectual and literary culture, the avant-guardes in a global context, comparative study of race and ethnicity

ZALOOM, Caitlin M.; Cultural anthropologist whose ethnographic research examines cities, capitalism, risk, technology, and the production of neoliberal actors and institutions

Affiliated Faculty

BENDER, Thomas (PhD, Univ. of California, Davis, 1971) Professor of Humanities; American cultural history, cities

DIAWARA, Manthia (PhD, Indiana Univ., 1985) Professor and Director of African Studies; African literature and film, African American film and cultural studies

DUSTER, Troy (PhD, Northwestern, 1962) Professor of Sociology; science, public policy, race and ethnicity, deviance

FERRER, Ada (PhD, Univ. of Michigan, 1995) Assistant Professor of History; Latin America and Caribbean, Cuba, nationalism and independence

GINSBURG, Faye (PhD, City Univ. of New York, 1986) Professor of Anthropology and Director of Media & Culture Program; social anthropology, ethnographic film, gender and reproduction, social movements in the U.S.

GOODWIN, Jeff (PhD, Harvard, 1988) Assistant Professor of Sociology; social theory, social movements and revolutions, nationalism

GORDON, Linda (PhD, Yale, 1970) Professor of History; twentieth-century US social, political, and social policy history; women and gender, family, US Southwest

HARRINGTON, Christine (PhD, Univ. of Wisconsin, 1982) Professor of Politics; American politics, public law

KIRSHENBLATT-GIMBLETT, Barbara (PhD, Indiana Univ., 1972) Professor of Performance Studies; cultural performance, performance theory, Jewish folklore and ethnography, food as performance

MARTIN, Emily (PhD, Cornell, 1971) Professor of Anthropology; religion, ideology, politics, models and explanations in social anthropology; political economy of health; gender; anthropology of science; China; the United States

MARTIN, Randy (PhD, CUNY, 1984) Professor of Art, Society,and Public Policy; Associate Dean of Faculty and Interdisciplinary Programs; performance studies, Marxist theory, cultural policy, financialization of daily life, the corporeality of cities

McCARTHY, Anna (PhD, Northwestern, 1995) Associate Professor of Cinema Studies; Media and Television studies; film genres

McHENRY, Elizabeth (PhD, Stanford, 1993) Assistant Professor of English; African American literature

MUÑOZ, José (PhD, Duke Univ., 1994) Assistant Professor of Performance Studies; ethnic studies, lesbian and gay studies, mass culture, performance art and contemporary visual culture

NYONG’O, Tavia (PhD, Yale University, 1993) Assistant Professor of Performance Studies; black diasporic, feminist, and queer studies; theories and histories of performance; visual culture; comparative American cultures

PATELL, Cyrus (PhD, Harvard, 1991) Assistant Professor of English; American literature and culture; minority discourse, cultural studies

POSNOCK, Ross (PhD, Johns Hopkins, 1980) Professor of English; American intellectual and cultural history, 1850-present; pragmatism; African-American intellectuals; cosmopolitanism; the relation between politics and aesthetics

RAPP, Rayna (PhD, Univ. of Michigan, 1973) Professor of Anthropology; gender, reproduction, science and technology, health and culture, contemporary US and Europe

STAM, Robert (PhD, Univ. of California, Berkeley, 1976) Professor of Cinema Studies; Third World film, Brazilian film, semiotics, literature-film relations, American independent film

TCHEN, John Kuo Wei (PhD, New York Univ., 1992) Associate Professor of Asian Pacific American Studies; racialization and identity formation, theorizing public cultural practices (museums, multimedia, etc.), the cross-cultural history of New York City & globalization

WALKOWITZ, Daniel J. (PhD, Univ. of Rochester, 1972) Professor of History and Director of Metropolitan Studies; American social history, public history, film and history

WILLIS, Ellen (AB, Barnard College, 1962) Associate Professor of Journalism; cultural reporting and criticism, feminism and sexuality, personal writing

YOUNG, Marilyn (PhD, Harvard, 1963) Professor of History; US foreign relations, U.S.-East Asian relations; Third World women and gender

Contact

American Studies Program
285 Mercer St., 8th Floor
New York, NY 10003
Phone: 212/998-8538
Fax: 212/995-4371
E-mail:
www.nyu.edu/gsas/program/amerstu/

Chair/Director: Walter Johnson
Director of Graduate Studies: Adam Green

Admissions

New York University
Graduate Admissions-GSAS
GSAS-Graduate Enrollment Svcs
Faculty of Arts & Science
One-Half Fifth Ave.
6 Wash. Sq. No. GL
New York, NY 10012- 5806
Telephone: 212-998-8050
Fax: 212-995-4557
e-mail:
http://www.nyu.edu/gsas/Admissions/