American studies began, as a young field, with historians and literary scholars addressing dual concerns. They saw the need, on one hand, to distinguish between American and European history and culture, and on the other hand, to consider American cultural concerns in an interdisciplinary fashion.

Scholars and teachers such as Mary Turpie, Tremaine McDowell, Mulford Q. Sibley, and Bernard Bowron helped build a foundation for American studies at the University of Minnesota that has continued to launch contemporary academic projects. Early scholars in American studies often explored what is now criticized as ñexceptionalism,î the notion that United States has a unique place in world history, culture, and politics. Many American Studies scholars then and now cast the field in multicultural terms, searching for interdisciplinary methods and approaches for studying diverse peoples and their interactions in the United States.

Thus American Studies at Minnesota has taken a lead over the last decade, diversifying its traditional curriculum in disciplinary terms -- embracing feminist studies, media studies, popular culture, anthropology, sociology as well as history and literature -- and by the pluralist cultures to which the word 'American' refers, including African American, Chicano/a and Hispanic, Native American, and Asian American perspectives in its scholarly inquiries.

The Department of American Studies is currently a leader in advancing these areas of inquiry. At the same time, it is one of the oldest and most highly regarded American Studies programs in the nation. It is usually ranked among the top four in the country, along with Harvard, Yale, and Brown. We draw our current graduate students from the Ivy League and other highly regarded colleges and universities.

The Department of American Studies has made a strong commitment to recruiting minority graduate students and we are currently aligned in a confederation of research and teaching with Chicano, American Indian, African American & African Studies, and the Asian American Studies Program. Faculty in these programs teach in our graduate program, as do faculty from every major discipline in the College of Liberal Arts. The American Studies Program is, and for fifty years has been, one of CLA's -- and the University's -- strongest and most well-known assets in the humanities.