What you’ll study

A shelf of disciplines

American Studies is a cultural-studies degree: you read novels, watch films, argue about elections, and follow how a country tells its own story. Below is every field the programme covers — the courses that carry it, and the people who teach them.

  1. American Literature

    From the nineteenth century to last year’s fiction, read chronologically and then against the grain — canon, counter-canon, and the arguments between them.

    • BA · year 1 19th Century American Literature Taught by Prof. Roxana Oltean
    • BA · year 2 American Literature: 1900–1945 Taught by Dr. Diana Benea
    • BA · year 2 American Literature: 1945 to Date Taught by Dr. Mihaela Precup
    • BA · year 2 Representations of the Legal System in American Literature Taught by Dr. Raluca Andreescu
    • BA · year 3 Elective II: Contemporary American Drama Taught by Dr. Diana Benea
    • BA · year 3 Transnational Relations in American Literature and Culture Taught by Dr. Dragoș Manea
    • BA · year 3 Philosophical Undercurrents in American Literature Taught by Prof. Roxana Oltean
    • BA · year 3 Elective II: American Utopias Taught by Prof. Roxana Oltean

  2. U.S. History & Politics

    How the republic was built and fought over: the Constitution, two centuries of history, and the political doctrines still in play.

    • BA · year 1 American Life and Institutions Taught by Dr. Ruxandra Rădulescu
    • BA · year 1 U.S. Constitution Taught by Dr. Laurențiu Gheorghe
    • BA · year 2 U.S. History to 1898 Taught by Dr. Bogdan Antoniu
    • BA · year 2 20th Century U.S. History Taught by Dr. Bogdan Antoniu
    • BA · year 3 Political Doctrines Taught by Dr. Laurențiu Gheorghe
    • MA · History & Politics History, politics and systems of government I Taught by Roxana Oltean
    • MA · History & Politics History, politics and systems of government II Taught by Liviu Andreescu
    • MA · History & Politics Euro-American relations I Taught by Roxana Oltean
    • MA · History & Politics Euro-American relations II Taught by Roxana Oltean

  3. Film & Visual Culture

    American cinema and the wider visual field around it — what a country looks like when it is looking at itself.

    • BA · year 1 U.S. Society and the Visual Arts Taught by Dr. Mihaela Precup
    • BA · year 3 Film Studies Taught by Dr. Dragoș Manea
    • MA · Society & Communication Image and media culture Taught by Mădălina Nicolaescu

  4. Media Studies

    Newsrooms, networks and the image economy: how American mass media makes meaning, and what it makes of its audience.

    • BA · year 2 American Mass-Media and the Culture of the Image Taught by Dr. Dana Mihăilescu
    • BA · year 3 American Theories of Communication Taught by Dr. Adina Bleotu
    • MA · Society & Communication Media communication I Taught by Dana Mihăilescu
    • MA · Society & Communication Media communication II Taught by Maria-Sabina Draga Alexandru

  5. American Civilization

    The groundwork: institutions, everyday life, and the long habits of a culture, taught alongside the theory that lets you read them.

    • BA · year 1 Introduction to Cultural Studies Taught by Dr. Diana Benea
    • BA · year 1 Introduction to American Literature and Civilization Taught by Dr. Dragoș Manea
    • BA · year 1 American Life and Institutions Taught by Dr. Ruxandra Rădulescu
    • BA · year 2 Introduction to Cultural Anthropology Taught by Dr. Raluca Andreescu
    • BA · year 3 Lexicology and American Culture Taught by Dr. Adina Bleotu
    • MA · Culture & Values American Studies: theories, strategies and practices I Taught by Rodica Mihăilă
    • MA · Culture & Values American Studies: theories, strategies and practices II Taught by Rodica Mihăilă
    • MA · Culture & Values Cultural anthropology Taught by Ruxandra Rădulescu

  6. Race & Ethnicity Studies

    Who counts as American, and who decides — ethno-racial identity read through law, literature and the archive.

    • BA · year 2 Ethno-Racial Identities Taught by Dr. Dana Mihăilescu
    • BA · year 3 Ethnic Literatures Taught by Dr. Maria-Sabina Draga Alexandru
    • MA · Culture & Values Identity constructions II: narratives of diasporic identity Taught by Maria-Sabina Draga Alexandru
    • MA · Society & Communication Society, difference, diversity I Taught by Mihaela Precup
    • MA · Society & Communication Society, difference, diversity II Taught by Dana Mihăilescu

  7. Native American Studies

    A dedicated first-year course — rare anywhere in Romania: Indigenous literatures, sovereignty and self-representation, from first contact to the present.

    • BA · year 1 Native American Studies Taught by Dr. Cornelia Vlaicu

  8. African-American Studies

    Taught inside the courses rather than beside them: the African-American tradition runs through ethnic literature, ethno-racial identity, and the postwar survey.

    There is no separate African-American Studies course in the catalogue — the field is carried by the three courses above.

    • BA · year 2 Ethno-Racial Identities Taught by Dr. Dana Mihăilescu
    • BA · year 2 American Literature: 1945 to Date Taught by Dr. Mihaela Precup
    • BA · year 3 Ethnic Literatures Taught by Dr. Maria-Sabina Draga Alexandru

  9. Memory Studies

    Not a course but a research strand: how America remembers violence, migration and trauma. Two nationally funded projects at the Center were built on exactly that question.

    Memory studies reaches the classroom through MA seminars and thesis supervision rather than a fixed course.

    No course of its own

    Research at the Center on this

See it semester by semester

The list above is the short version. The full curriculum lays out every course in the order you take it, semester by semester.

BA curriculum MA curriculum