Introduction
The RCAS does not currently offer an undergraduate or graduate program in American Studies. We are, however, in the process of concentrating undergraduate courses in the U.S. field, broadly understood, with the aim of establishing a Minor in American Studies within the next few years, or partnering with the School of Indigenous and Canadian Studies to offer a Specialization in North American Studies for inclusion in the new Bachelor of Global and International Studies (BGInS). We also have our own students, in different departments and faculties, who study and research the United States from a variety of disciplinary perspectives. This section of the website profiles some them and their work.
Graduate student defences, 2018
Carlie Visser (M.A. Thesis, Institute of Political Economy 2016-18), “Re-examining Tricky Dick and the Pink Lady: Helen Gahagan Douglas, Gender, and New Deal Liberalism in the United States Senate Election in California, 1950.”
Dany Guay-Belanger, (MA (with S. Graham), 2016-18), “Deadplay: A Methodology for the Preservation and Study of Videogames as Cultural Heritage Artifacts.”
Graduate student defences, 2015-16
Evan Sidebottom (MA), “The Man Who Could Go Either Way: The Many Faces of Cowboy Masculinity in 1950s American Film and Advertising.” (2016)
Graduate student defences, 2014-15
Lee Benson (M.A. Thesis, History, supervised by Andrew Johnston and Jim Opp): “Making Motoring American: The Integration of the Working Class in Automobile Film Advertising of the 1930s.”
Tyler Sinclair (M.A. [MRE] History, supervised by John Walsh and Andrew Johnston): “Sight Lines and Cross Flows: The Turn of the Century Planning of Philadelphia’s Benjamin Franklin Parkway, 1890-1920”
Alana Toulin (M.A. Thesis, History, supervised by Andrew Johnston): “Unease and nostalgia: the marketing of “Pure Food” in the United States, 1890-1920.”
Graduate student defences 2013-14
Guy Massie (MA History) recently defended his thesis entitled, “Masculinity, science, and the mastery of primitive spaces in turn-of-the-century America, 1880-1930.”
Maureen Mahoney (Ph.D. History) defended her doctoral thesis in late 2013 and was awarded her degree in Spring Convocation. Here thesis was entitled, “When Europe Re-Built the Neighbourhood: City Beautiful, the Settlement Movement, and the Emergence of American Internationalism, 1890-1920.”
Ph.D. defences, September 2012
Brian Foster and Jessica Dunkin (both History) successfully defended their Ph.Ds in History. Brian Foster (supervised by Andrew Johnston) has written on American Social Science and Liberal Internationalism, 1865-1919. Jess Dunkin (supervised by John Walsh) wrote a thesis with the title: Canoes and canvas: the social and spatial politics of sport/leisure in late nineteenth-century North America.