Graduate Director: PROFESSOR PAUL LAUTER
The Master’s program in American Studies offers students the opportunity to study many aspects of the culture of the United States, including its history, literature, and arts. The program draws upon the methods and insights of several disciplines, as well as those distinctive to American Studies, and emphasizes the history and culture of Hartford and of the Connecticut Valley. It is intended to serve people interested in culture and history, teachers, curators of local collections, and others who desire an interdisciplinary approach to the study of the United States at the graduate level. The program has several features that distinguish it from other graduate programs in the humanities and the social sciences.
First and foremost, the American Studies program is interdisciplinary. A fundamental aim is to enable students to integrate the knowledge of historians, scholars of American literature and culture, art historians, museologists, and other specialists, to achieve an understanding of American life and letters that no single discipline can provide. The program is meant to be both flexible—it allows students wide choice among electives in many fields; and focused—it directs interdisciplinary learning to the goal of illuminating the American experience.
In addition to these features, the program also takes advantage of the rich resources for American Studies located in Greater Hartford. Students are encouraged to combine classroom learning with research and internships in the excellent libraries, museums, archives, and other institutions in the Hartford region. The following are among the resources available to students in the program:
African-American Cultural Center (Yale)
Antiquarian and Landmarks Society of Connecticut
Connecticut Historical Society
Connecticut State Library
Hartford Public Library
Hill-Stead Museum
Mark Twain Memorial
Mashantucket-Pequot Museum
Munson Institute of American Maritime Studies (Mystic Seaport)
New Britain Museum of American Art
Old State House
Real Art Ways
Harriet Beecher Stowe Center
Wadsworth Atheneum
Watkinson Library of Trinity College
Webb-Deane-Stevens Museum (Wethersfield)
West Hartford Historical Society
Whenever possible, courses in the program draw upon the collections of these institutions. The program gives special attention to artists and intellectuals who made their homes in Hartford; to the ethnic communities of this region; to the experience of women; and to the topics that can be explored in depth by the use of research collections in or near the city.
Museums and Communities
The American Studies Program of Trinity College also offers a concentration in Museums and Communities within the course of study leading to the Master of Arts degree.
Museums, Archives, and the communities they serve have emerged as a major area of interest in the field of American Studies but, more importantly, in the public culture of the United States. A striking example is provided by the huge success of the Getty Center, which opened in Los Angeles on December 16, 1997. In the first three months, the Center, and particularly its museum facility, attracted over 500,000 visitors; by May, the number of visitors had passed one million, almost double the initial estimates. Similar statistics could be cited not only for "blockbuster" fine art shows, like those of Vincent Van Gogh and Pablo Picasso, but for exhibitions like those on diamonds and on Voodoo at the American Museum of Natural History.
These details suggest at least two things: first, Americans and visitors to this country have come to see museums not as places for a small cultural elite but as venues of mass entertainment and education. And second, museums need both larger staffs and volunteer corps, and a broader understanding of their new roles in a changing cultural environment.
The concentration in Museums and Communities within the American Studies Master’s program at Trinity is designed to respond to those changing needs. It offers students a regular fall course on “Museums in American Culture” as well as a changing set of courses often directly related to the exhibitions that are part of the rich resources of the greater Hartford area.
Master's degree students will continue to take an introductory course titled "Approaches to American Studies" (AMST 801) and a research methods course (AMST 802). In addition to the courses directly related to museums and archives, students will be able to focus a thesis or an independent term project on research or other forms of work related to the concentration. They will also undertake an internship at a museum or archive in the region.
Students wishing to specialize in the Museums and Communities concentration will be expected to take the following courses, in addition to the regular American Studies requirements:
o Museums in American Culture. One credit
o Varieties of Museum and Archive Practice (focusing on current exhibitions at Hartford area institutions). One credit
o Internship or Research Project (at an archive, historical society, or area museum). One credit.
Students concentrating in Museums and Communities, as well as other American Studies students, may also wish to enroll in:
o Minorities and Museums
o Hartford Architecture
o Sports in American Life and Culture
All candidates must complete a total of 10 courses.
Required Courses for American Studies:
American Studies 801 Approaches to American Studies 1 course
credit
American Studies 802 Research Methods in American Studies 1 course
credit
Either a Thesis (American Studies 954-955) 2 course
credits
or an Independent Research Project (American Studies 953) l course
credits
Total 3 or 4 course credits
Elective Courses for American Studies:
For students choosing to write a Thesis:
6 courses, with at least 1 emphasizing historical approaches,
1 emphasizing literary or cultural approaches, and
1 focusing on art, architectural history, or museum studies...... 6 course
credits
For students choosing to do an Independent Research Project:
7 courses, with at least 1 emphasizing historical approaches,
1 emphasizing literary or cultural approaches, and
1 focusing on art, architectural history, or museum studies...... 7 course
credits
All candidates must complete a total of 10 courses
The degree requirements are fulfilled in three phases:
The basic American Studies seminars, American Studies 801 and 802, serve to introduce the American Studies field by applying some of its leading methods and concepts to selected problems. American Studies 801 is the “entry” course; students must successfully complete it in order to become degree candidates. Ordinarily, though not necessarily, American Studies 802 will be taken in the semester immediately following completion of American Studies 801.
After these two American Studies seminars, students may choose electives that examine the American experience either within American Studies or from among the graduate courses offered in subjects related to American Studies by other graduate programs at Trinity, or by the Hartford Consortium institutions (Hartford Seminary, Rensselaer of Hartford, St. Joseph College, and the University of Hartford). Students may, with the approval of the Graduate Director, count up to two graduate courses (2 course credits) taught at other institutions. Students may take as many as two course credits of Independent Study.