美国研究是一个跨学科的研究领域，植根于对国家政治和大众文化的全面，多维分析。我们的部门在美国文化以及塑造这些文化的跨国联系和全球背景下具有强大的实力。我们的美国研究文学硕士课程建立在这些优势的基础上，使人们能够接触到过去和现在的美国广泛的社会，文化和政治现象。该计划培养批判性思维，对社会正义与奖学金之间关系的认识以及公众参与。我们的学生继续攻读竞争性博士课程，法学院，非营利性工作，研究职位，中学教学，新闻，行动主义和公司职位，他们为在有意义的本地和全球环境下实现自己的工作做好了更好的准备。
American Studies is an interdisciplinary field of study, rooted in the comprehensive analysis of national and transnational political and popular culture. Dating back to the 1940s, the work of American Studies bridges discipline-bound departments and divisions in the modern university. Our scholarship and our teaching extend beyond campuses to communities of all sorts, and beyond nations to transnational populations, here in the United States and elsewhere. Our department began as a graduate program in 1945 and consistently ranks at the top. Our graduate training focuses especially on social justice, community engagement, structural racism and inequality, recovery of historical silences, American empire, public art, and public history, to name a few thematic foci. Our pedagogy embraces work that moves beyond the textual to the visual, material, and performative. And our faculty are engaged teachers and dynamic mentors. Building on these strengths, our MA program is cohort-centered and community-based. Our students come from across the country and generally complete the degree in one year while in residence here in Providence. They seek to explore a particular specialization in scholarship, add intellectual depth to their existing professional or academic life, determine if they want to continue on to a Ph.D. program, or to prepare for doctoral work.