Curriculum

Program Requirements

• EN 203 Major Writers: American or EN 366 American Literature to World War I 
• HS 102 Making of the Modern World: United States I or HS 103 Making of the Modern World: United States II
• An interdisciplinary capstone project (AH, EN, HS or PS 490) 
• Three electives (9 credits total) 

Note: No more than two courses from the same department may count toward the minor, and at least three courses must be taken at the 300- or 400-level.

Course List

Listed below are all courses that currently count toward an American Studies minor. If a course is not listed, but you think it should qualify for the minor, encourage the instructor to submit the Request for Course Inclusion form (pdf format).

Note: Several courses will count on a section-by-section basis. These courses are listed below.

• AH 207 African-American Art
• AH 307 African-American Art
• AH 318 American Art: Art for a Democracy (same as HS 356)
• AH 349 Baltimore: Its History and Architecture (same as HS 349)
• AH 351 American Urban Culture: A Tale of Four Cities
• AH 391 The American West in Art and Literature (same as EN 391)
• AH 402 Special Topics

• CM 302 Free Speech, Free Expression
• CM 305 Media and the Political Process
• CM 306 Popular Culture in America
• CM 342 Media, Culture, and Society
• CM 360 Literary Journalism

• DR/MU 210 American Musical Theatre: Uptown and Downtown
• DR 360 Classic Hollywood Film

• EC 210 American Economic History

• EN 203 Major Writers: American
• EN 366 American literature to World War I
• EN 367 Topics in American Literature
• EN 378 Multiethnic Literature of the United States
• EN 379 Gender in American Literature
• EN 388 Seminar in Multiethnic Literature of the United States
• EN 391 Special Topics in American Literature (e.g., The American West in Art and Literature; Race and Law in American Literature)
• EN 397 Seminar in American Literature

• HS 102 Making of the Modern World: United States I
• HS 103 Making of the Modern World: United States II
• HS 343 American Environmental History
• HS 344 American Women’s History
• HS 345 The Peoples of Early America
• HS 346 Revolutionary America
• HS 348 The Civil War and Reconstruction
• HS 350 World War II in America
• HS 352 America Since 1945
• HS 353 History of Violence in America
• HS 356 American Art: Art for a Democracy (same as AH 318)
• HS 358 African-American History through the Civil War
• HS 361 Merchants and Farmers, Planters and Slaves: The Roots of American Business, 1600-1850
• HS 363 A Century of Diplomacy: U.S. Foreign Policy Since 1890
• HS 364 The Old South
• HS 366 The Civil Rights Crusade
• HS 367 Black Women in the Atlantic World
• HS 372 The Vietnam War through Film and Literature
• HS 423 Disasters in American History
• HS 425 Modern American Social Movements
• HS 426 Propaganda, Culture, and American Society: 1780-1830
• HS 427 The Era of Good Stealings? Gilded Age America, 1865-1900
• HS 441 The United States and the Arab-Israeli Conflict (same as PS 441)
• HS 460 Seminar: American Progressivism
• HS 463 Seminar: Colonial British America

• ML 340 “Xicanismos”: An Introduction to Chicano/a Culture
• ML 351 U.S. Latino/a Film and Literature
• ML 363 Voices Across America: A Symphony of Thought

• MU 208 American Roots Music

• PL 340 Public/Private Distinction in American Life
• PL 390 American Philosophy
• PL 392 William James

• PS 102 American Politics
• PS 314 Public Opinion and American Democracy
• PS 316 American Political Parties
• PS 318 Media and Politics
• PS 319 Interest Groups in American Democracy
• PS 321 Religion and Politics in America
• PS 325 Introduction to Public Policy
• PS 326 Congress: The Legislative Process
• PS 327 Congressional Politics
• PS 329 The Modern American Presidency
• PS 330 Strategic Intelligence and American Democracy
• PS 331 Political Responses to Crisis
• PS 334 American Judicial Process
• PS 341 Constitutional Law: Power in the National System
• PS 342 Equal Protection Law
• PS 343 Crime, the Individual, and Society
• PS 344 Civil Liberties I
• PS 345 Civil Liberties II
• PS 359 Approaches to American Foreign Policy
• PS 367 The Cold War
• PS 368 The Vietnam War
• PS 384 American Political Thought
• PS 389 African-American Political Thought
• PS 410 Seminar: Modern Constitutional Theory
• PS 420 Seminar: American Political Development
• PS 421 Seminar: Legislative Peculiarities
• PS 441 The United States and the Arab-Israeli Conflict (same as HS 441)
• PS 476 Intelligence, Secrecy, and Governmental Reform
• PS 488 Research Seminar: National Policy-Making

• PT 279 Silent Cinema

• SC 103 American Society
• SC 204 The Family
• SC 205 Social Problems
• SC 207 Protest: Legacy of the Sixties
• SC 271 Race and Ethnic Relations in America
• SC 307 Male and Female Roles
• SC 331 Deviance and Social Control
• SC 332 The Sociology of Crime and Criminals
• SC 333 Juvenile Delinquency
• SC 334 Criminal Justice
• SC 361 Social Inequality
• SC 365 Neighborhood and Community in Urban America
• SC 370 Population Studies
• SC 430 Seminar: America in the Twenty-First Century
• SC 471 Minority Group Conflict

• TH 220 The Catholic Church in the United States
• TH 262 African-American Religious Thought
• TH 274 Religion, Poverty, and the American Health System
• TH 313 Ethics: Being Moral in America
• TH 316 Ethics: Catholic Spiritual Life in the United States
• TH 324 Faith and Film: The Apostle’s Creed in the American Cinema
• TH 336 Catholic Intellectual Life in the United States: Two Hundred Years of American Catholic Opinion
• TH 338 Catholic Literature and American Culture in the Twentieth Century

• WR 350 The Art of Prose: E.B. White
• WR 351 The Art of the Essay: Women Writers
• WR 354 Writing about the Environment
• WR 385 Writing about Music and Culture
• WR 385 Comics in America

Section-Specific Courses

Specific sections of the courses listed below may count toward the minor, depending on course content. The course must contain at least 50% American-related material and address the "Americanness" of that material in some meaningful way.

Students who are enrolled in one of these courses who would like to count it toward the minor should either ask the professor teaching the course to submit a Request for Course Inclusion form (pdf format) or contact the American Studies Committee (contact Jean Lee Cole at jlcole@loyola.edu).

• EN 365 Seminar in Literature and Catholicism
• EN 368 Critical Methodologies (Post-1800)
• EN 371 Postmodern Fiction
• EN 377 Topics in Twentieth-Century Literature
• EN 382 Topics in Literature and Film Studies
• EN 383 Seminar in Modern Twentieth-Century Literature
• EN 386 Seminar in Literature and Film
• EN 387 Seminar in Post-Modern Twentieth-Century Literature
• EN 389 Seminar in Literature and Gender
• EN 399 Seminar in Literary Topics after 1800
• EN 409 Senior Honors Seminar

• DR 362 Special Topics in Dramatic History/Literature

• MU 306 American Jazz

• SC 349 Special Topics in Gender and Sexuality Studies

• WR 320 Art of the Argument
• WR 352 Biography and Autobiography
• WR 353 The Contemporary Essay
• WR 358 Advanced Nonfiction Prose
• WR 400 Senior Seminar: New Writers