Why Iowa?
Explore how American institutions, values, gender and ethnic relations, artifacts, popular and fine arts, and everyday life have developed over time to define what we know as America.
See yourself here
Critically examine the complex connections between past and present culture and history to understand the impact people have on American society.
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Prepare for a wide range of careers in the arts, education, and public service through interdisciplinary inquiry into the central role power and struggle have played in American culture.
News and announcements
Professor Eric Vazquez releases podcast "Political solidarity and state power"
Tuesday, May 19, 2026
The thwarted Central American revolutions during the latter half of the twentieth century marked a watershed in what had become a global anti-imperialist movement striving for a more egalitarian future. Examining a range of documentary, literary, and artistic works, including Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, Héctor Tobar, Jennifer Harbury, and Horacio Castellanos Moya, States of Defeat looks at how left-wing intellectuals in the United States reckoned with the fallout from these defeats through wide-ranging creative expressions of indignation, cynicism, and grief.
In Memoriam: Dr. Lauren Rabinovitz
Monday, September 15, 2025
The Department of American Studies mourns the passing of our cherished colleague and friend, Dr. Lauren Rabinovitz.
Elizabeth Rodriguez Fielder receives funding to continue research and writing her manuscript
Tuesday, June 17, 2025
Elizabeth Rodriguez Fielder is an assistant professor in the Department of English and in the Latinx Studies Program. She is a scholar of the 20th and 21st century transnational American literature and culture.
She will continue research and writing her manuscript Corporis Fabrica: Encountering the Body through the Book, which seeks out the relationship between the development of anatomy science and moveable books. Rodriguez Fielder argues that their interconnected history has shaped how we understand our bodies.
