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American Studies Senior Research Symposium

American Studies Senior Symposium

Poster for the 2019 American Studies Senior Research Symposium

2019 American Studies Senior Research Symposium

Every student in American Studies writes a senior thesis on a topic of their own choosing.  The thesis is the capstone of the major.  Students do original research with primary sources and draw on American studies scholarship to develop their own insights and arguments.  The range of topics is wide, reflecting the varieties of student interest.  Recent senior theses have included focusing on the Christian diet industry, social networking and privacy, Major League Baseball and neo-colonialism, gentrification and Spanish Harlem, war veterans and trauma, the ideology of gender in Miss America, student activism in challenging rape culture on a college campus, and the representation of hoarding by the media.  Students write a prospectus in the fall semester and in the spring write their theses. As an aid to their scholarship, the Department sponsors a senior symposium in March where students present their research to an audience of faculty, friends, and their peers.  The feedback students receive gives them new questions to ask and scholarly discoveries to make.

The 2021 American studies senior symposium will be held Thursday, March 11, 2021, 4:00 p.m. via Zoom.  For more information, please contact the American Studies department:  amstud@dickinson.edu