American Studies

Professor Kim Marra leading a lecture course.

Cultural Experience

Helping students acquire a broad familiarity with the dynamics of cultural experience and explore aspects of life in the United States, such as sport, popular and fine arts, institutions, values, gender and ethnic relations, artifacts, and the everyday life of a diverse citizenry.

Students participating in a group exercise during a lecture by Professor Naomi Greyser.

American Studies is committed to the study of American culture. In our scholarship and teaching, we model interdisciplinary inquiry and stress the central role of power and struggle. We prepare students for a wide range of careers in the arts, education, and public service.

American Studies

Professional athlete kneeling during the national anthem.

Sport Studies

Course work provides students with the critical skills necessary to understand the cultural significance of sport as it relates to the media, the economy, the political system, and the educational system. A focus on the race, class, and gender differences in the sport experience is central to the major.

Sport Studies

Native and Indigenous Studies

Students examine the diversity within indigenous literatures, material culture, belief systems, languages, political and social organization, and economies. Students critically examine popular stereotypes of Native peoples, and develop a clearer understanding of the complex connections between past and present that shape the achievements, needs, and resources of Native American communities.

Native and Indigenous Studies

News and Announcements

Vogan interviewed for article about the boxing film Rocky III

Friday, March 3, 2023

American studies and Journalism & Mass Communication professor Travis Vogan was interviewed for an article about the movie Rocky III.

Read the article here https://www.msn.com/en-gb/entertainment/movies/why-rocky-iii-is-still-the-boxing-movie-to-beat/ar-AA188RM1

PhD candidate Dongilli earns prestigious fellowship

Thursday, March 2, 2023

American Studies PhD candidate Dominic Dongilli has earned a prestigious Smithsonian Institution Predoctoral Fellowship. He will be spending 2023-24 conducting research and completing his dissertation at the Smithsonian Zoo in Washington DC, studying in the archives and engaging the animals there.

The Smithsonian Institution Fellowship Program offers opportunities for independent research or study related to Smithsonian collections, facilities, and/or research interests of the Institution and its staff. Fellowships are offered to graduate students, predoctoral students, and postdoctoral and senior researchers to conduct independent research and to utilize the resources of the Institution with members of the Smithsonian professional research staff serving as advisors and hosts.

PhD candidate Larsen interview on KCRG

Friday, January 27, 2023

American Studies PhD candidate Peter Larsen, who is also a practicing attorney, was interviewed by KCRG on January 26 about the effects of HF 2. Iowa HF2 is a bill for an act relating to public contracts, public fund investing, and lending practices with certain companies that engage in economic boycotts based on environmental, social, or governance criteria, and including effective date and applicability provisions.

View the story here: https://www.kcrg.com/2023/01/26/financial-boycott-bill-introduced-into-legislature/

The Department of American Studies acknowledges the university’s origins in land grants from the Ioway, Sioux and Pottowottami, Ho-Chunk, Meskwaki and Sauk peoples; we acknowledge that, like almost all property in the United States, university land has been obtained or extracted from indigenous people. While recognizing that these origins cannot change the past, the Department works to create a future where the past is thoroughly understood in support of human flourishing, democratic values, ethical action and social justice.

The University of Iowa Acknowledgement of Land and Sovereignty represents an official and public recognition that the institutions where we work and learn today are built on Native lands.

Cultural Experience