American Studies

The American Studies Center at the University of Warsaw is an interdisciplinary research and higher education institution that offers a full-time liberal arts undergraduate program in American Studies. This program is one of the largest in Europe and is unique in Poland as it is an all-English program that includes a comparative perspective on the US vis-à-vis Latin America. The faculty members of the American Studies Center specialize in various fields of knowledge about the United States and the Western Hemisphere, including culture, literature, arts, film, media, history, economy, politics, history of ideas, society, and law. The program covers both humanities and social sciences, with cultural studies being the leading one.

The American Studies Center provides an excellent learning environment with a comfortable building located in Powiśle, equipped with computer equipment, internet access, and a wireless network available throughout the building. The ASC Library collection is highly valued by students, researchers, and journalists in American studies, containing materials on both the United States and Latin America in humanities and social sciences.

The program includes obligatory courses introducing students to the five major disciplines, as well as elective courses that help students expand their knowledge within individual disciplines. The program provides courses on research methods in humanities and social sciences, as well as courses in academic writing in English. Research grants allow the best students to travel abroad for research purposes to other American Studies libraries in Europe or the United States and conduct empirical research there.

Graduates of the program are awarded BA degrees in American Studies and have knowledge allowing them to understand various cultural phenomena, particularly those of the United States of America. They are trained to understand various cultural phenomena and institutions, seeking employment in the media, cultural institutions, foundations, institutions of state administration, local governments, and other public institutions.

The American Studies Center at the University of Warsaw aims to develop skills most sought by employers on today’s job market. The graduates know how to formulate and address various research problems, identify, understand, interpret, explain, and analyze the causes and dynamics of cultural processes and phenomena observable in the US, use various resources, employ several research methods and tools developed in humanities and social sciences. They have all the necessary skills and competences to collect, evaluate, and sort various facts of culture and society, and to draw conclusions. In short, they know how to carry out work done by researchers, entrepreneurs, journalists, teachers of humanities and social sciences, social activists, and specialists working at various public institutions. Thanks to the interdisciplinary program, graduates can not only recognize and understand basic phenomena and processes but also collect, connect, and interpret them and offer autonomous judgments and opinions based on their findings.