After taking a course on the US in the world and seizing a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to study abroad in South Africa, senior Abby Yates has become fascinated by the politics of music. Now, she studies music ambassadors to uncover just how much power music has on politics in the United States.

The Department of American Studies will offer a new program next year that will allow doctoral students to pursue indigenous studies. Karen Ho, associate professor of anthropology, says the American Indian Studies Department hopes to create its own graduate program in the future. “We want to solidify long-standing work that the University has done in this field," Ho says.

The Department of American Studies is one of the oldest and most renowned departments of its kind in the country. Founded over 60 years ago, our early faculty and students found a freedom of expression in interdisciplinary work. Today, our faculty pursue a wide range of scholarly projects as they write award-winning books, receive teaching and public engagement awards, and garner acclaim both nationally and internationally.

"What happened during Japanese American incarceration is not coincidental at all—it's just how US settler colonialism has always and continues to function," says Hana Maruyama, whose grandmother and nearly 14,000 others of Japanese ancestry were displaced to Heart Mountain, the same place where the Apsáalooke American Indian Nation had been wrongfully relocated from years before. Maruyama is pursuing a PhD in American studies to further her research on the connections between Japanese American incarceration in the context of US settler colonialism.