American Studies (Joint Honours)

When can you start this course? | UCAS code | Fees | Course length | Entry requirements

You can also start this course in January

What is joint honours?

With joint honours, you can study for an honours degree in two or even three subjects. Find out more about joint honours, including what subjects you can combine with this one.

Why choose this course?

You can combine American Studies with one or two other subjects to create a varied and interesting joint honours degree.

You can choose from a stimulating, challenging and innovative range of integrated and multidisciplinary modules.

You'll get opportunities to study at one of our partner universities in the USA.

You'll learn in a friendly and supportive academic environment.

About the course

You can combine American Studies with many subjects but the most popular ones include: Creative Writing, English, History, Film and Television Studies and Sociology.

American Studies will help you deepen your understanding and knowledge of the culture, history and society of the USA while providing a range of skills crucial to success, both in university and in the world of work. We'll create a friendly and supportive academic culture in which our enthusiasm, knowledge and active involvement with the subject as teachers and researchers foster an awareness of various issues - such as ethnicity, identity, class, gender, representation and power - that are relevant to both the study of America and your own wider experience of life.

Through a multi-disciplinary exploration of cultural, historical and socio-political themes and issues, an understanding of the different ways in which the American nation defines and represents itself to the world will be developed. Over the duration of your degree, across a range of stimulating modules, this work will develop and build your own skills, knowledge and ability.

Top ten reasons to study this course may be of help to you whilst you are deciding which course is right for you.

Find out more about what subjects and modules you'll be studying...

We're particularly strong in literature, film, and history and we also look at a range of different aspects of culture in the United States to give you a comprehensive view of this subject.

You can study US film, television, literature, history, politics and music as part of the programme, with plenty of opportunity to work on independent projects as you grow in confidence throughout the course. Our course has a modern emphasis, examining the USA from the nineteenth century onwards. In the early stages of your course you'll get a good grounding in the major elements of the subject and move on to more focused, thematic modules as you progress.

You'll be taught by our experienced and research-active staff. Many of us have written key books on these subjects including: American Cultural Studies (Routledge, 2006), American Visual Cultures (2006), The Cultures of the American New West (Edinburgh, 2000), Issues in Americanisation and Culture (2004), American Youth Cultures (Edinburgh, 2004). So you're being taught by people who are really passionate and active in these subjects.

You'll study a total of 120 credits per year. This will be made up of single or double modules.

Stage one

You'll choose from these modules:

American Cultural Studies: An Introduction
Freedom's Conflicts: An Introduction to American History
Reading American Literature
Introduction to Hollywood Cinema
American Democracy
Introduction to American Television

Stage two

You'll choose from these modules:

American Popular Music
Cultures of the American West
Radiant Hour: Versions of Youth in American Literature
Research Project
American Youth Cinema
American Television in the 1950s and 1960s
United States Foreign Policy
Work-based Learning in the Cultural and Creative Industries

Stage three

You will study one of these modules:

American Studies Independent Study (double module)
Work-based Learning (double module)

And you'll choose from these modules:

Contesting Cultures: American Popular Culture in the Contemporary World
Culture and Counter-Culture
America Noir: Dark Tendencies in American Culture
Cultures of the War on Terror
Contemporary American Cinema
American Studies Independent Study (double module) or Work-based Learning (PDP) (double module)

Your career

Our graduates get jobs in teaching, journalism, advertising and marketing, and retail management, both in the UK and abroad.

You'll also develop transferable skills which are valued by employers, including the ability to work to deadlines, effectively communicate and carry out independent research.

On our course, you'll need to work both within and across different disciplines, making you more adaptable, flexible and critically insightful - skills that will make you more employable.

Read more about what some of our past students have gone on to do since graduating.

Start dates

If you're from the UK or EU you can apply to study this course in:

September 2012
January 2013

If you're from a country outside the EU you can apply to study this course full time in:

September 2012
January 2013

UCAS code

Popular courses that can be combined with American Studies include:

History
Psychology
English
Theatre Studies
Film and Television Studies
Geography
Marketing
Popular Music Production
Law
Broadcast Media

Fees

This is a classroom based subject.

UK/EU students

Full time:

If you combine this subject with another classroom based subject or a resource intensive subject it will cost £6,995 per year.
If you combine this subject with a specialist subject it will cost £7,495 per year.

Part time:

You usually take 18 of these modules in total for your course

Modules from classroom based subjects will cost £875 per module.
Modules from resource intensive subjects will cost £935 per module.
Modules from specialist subjects will cost £1,000 per module.

International students

Full time:

If you combine this subject with another classroom based subject or a resource intensive subject it will cost £9,700 per year.
If you combine this subject with a specialist subject it will cost £9,975 per year.

*These fees apply if you're starting this course between September 2012 and August 2013. We recommend you check fee details with us though, as they can change. Costs can increase each year.

More information about our fees for September 2012 and the support available