Bachelor of Arts in American Studies - Material Culture and the Built Environment

Students in this concentration study the complex interrelationships among the arts, craft, design, ideas, places, and social and cultural life in America. This concentration allows for the encyclopedic study of things in their historical context, drawing on methodologies and approaches from art and design history, economic history, history of technology, philosophy, anthropology, archaeology, and geography. The curriculum combines two broad approaches: giving objects prime importance and placing objects in wider social and intellectual contexts. Some courses raise issues related to media, techniques, aesthetics, production and consumption, historiography, and theory, while others focus on the role objects and places play in people's lives: the planning of cities, parks, and gardens, the design of buildings, interiors, and furnishings, clothing, jewelry and body adornment, the material culture of food, decoration, and ornament, illustration and the graphic arts. Students will explore the ways in which Americans have been shaped by and have shaped their physical environments, from nature to the urban environment.

Final Transcripts/Proof of Degree Completion - Admitted students are required to submit final secondary school (high school) transcripts and/or proof of degree completion (A-Levels, WAEC, CBSE, High School Certificate, etc.) before enrolling at DePaul.

If your transcripts/secondary school exam results were issued in a language other than English - In addition to the original language documents, you will need to submit word-for-word English translations for all pages submitted. If your transcripts and/or secondary school exams results were issued by the school or testing agency in English, you do not need to submit additional translations. IELTS - 6.5, TOEFL - 80 on the IBT TOEFL with no subsection lower than 17, PTE Academic - minimum English academic score of 53