MA- US Studies, Iasi, Modern Languages

MA in American Cultural Studies


The program was set up in 1999. It is interdisciplinary, with courses offered by professors from the Department of English as well as from other faculties such as: the Faculty of Political Sciences, the Faculty of Philosophy and the Department of Journalism.


During this program, students will:

- Acquire skills in critical and creative thinking and operate with fundamental concepts in various disciplines such as literature, linguistics, history, cultural anthropology, religion, philosophy, economics, arts, sociology and psychology.

- Be introduced to interdisciplinary research strategies through flexible and modern approaches.

- Develop communication and social interaction skills in view of tolerance and mutual respect, tolerance and openness to diversity and new ideas.

- Participate in similar parallel programs in Romania and abroad.

- Be familiarized with the "old" and the "new" paradigms, as well as understand social processes (historical evolution, political institutions), semiotic systems (class, race, ethnicity, gender, nation / nationality, language), processes of identity formation (mentalities, norms, values, social roles) and their interaction.

- Operate with critical and theoretical instruments as well as with a corpus of materials that will allow them to explore, interpret and relate the American experience to the world cultural, social, political and historical context.

- Understand the process of cultural and linguistic hibridization through literary and linguistic analyses.

- Have a better understanding of the cultural diversity of America through such concepts as class, ethnicity, gender and race and through the analysis of major theories on these notions: "melting pot", "salad bowl", "mosaic", multiculturalism and interculturalism.


The MA program offers the following courses, 6 credits each.
American studies: "Old" and "New" Paradigms

- American Typologies

- American studies: "Old" and "New" Paradigms

Multicultural Perspectives

- Ethnicity: Asian-Americans and Afro-Americans

- Multicultural Perspectives. Minority Voices: The Latino/a and the Jewish-American Cultures

Critical Thinking - Literary Thinking

- American Poetics

- Critical Thinking / Creative Thinking

- Modern and Postmodern Aesthetics

- Under the Sign of Diversity: American Prose Writers at the End of the Millennium.

American Linguistics

- American Dialects

- Introduction to the Philosophy of Language

- The Language of American Advertisements

Cultural Contact Areas

- America from a Canadian Perspective

- Contemporary Frontiers, Continuums and American Extremes. A Canadian Perspective.

Philosophical and Political Thinking

- American Transcendentalism

- American Philosophy

- Political Issues of the Contemporary World

Arts

- "New" American Theatre: characteristics, forms, impact

- Genres in American Cinema

Regionalism

- Regionalism / The American South

- The American West

American Mass Media


Source: website- Faculty of Letters, University of Iasi, Romania


PERSONAL OBSERVATIONS

READ "US STUDIES" INSTEAD OF "AMERICAN STUDIES".
SOME SUBJECTS MUST BE READ NOT AS "AMERICAN" BUT AS "US-BASED".
GOOD LUCK!