Key information
- Duration:
- 4 years full time
- Typical A-level offer:
- AAB-ABB
- UCAS code:
- TL7F
- Start date:
- September 2020
- 3rd in the UK for graduate prospects in American Studies (The Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide 2019)
- Top uni in the UK for the best political scene (Which? University 2018)
An understanding of modern politics cannot be complete without considering the influence of America.
With our American Studies and Politics BA, you’ll explore the literature, history and culture of a global powerhouse. You’ll also learn from leading political experts who influence debate on topics ranging from corruption to international governance.
You’ll join a politically engaged community in one of the UK’s most politically diverse cities. During your year abroad, you’ll gain first-hand experience of American culture and politics. We’re proud to have more prestigious American partner institutions – including UC Berkeley and Georgetown – than any other programme in England.
I chose Sussex so that I could learn from academics who have made groundbreaking contributions to their fields.”Oliver Hypolite-Bishop
American Studies BA
Our staff
American Studies
Dr Anne-Marie Angelo
Senior Lecturer In American History
Research interests
African American history, African diasporas, American History, Archives, black British history, Cultural History, history of creativity, Middle East and North Africa, Migration, Photography History, Theory and Practice, postcolonial studies, race and ethnicity in global perspective, Television History, Theory and Criticism, Transnational history
Prof Stephen Burman
Professor of American Politics & History
Research interests
American History, British Foreign Policy, International Studies & Relations, US foreign policy, US Politics
Dr Natalia Cecire
Senior Lecturer in English & American Literature
Research interests
19th and 20th century visual cultures, American Studies, Biopolitics, childhood, English and American literature, Environment, epistemic virtue, Experimentalism, Feminist theory, Gender and Sexuality, Gilded Age, Historicisms, History and Philosophy of Science, History of the 19th and 20th-century life sciences, History of the 19th and 20th-century social sciences, media theory, Michel Foucault, minor knowledges, Modern and contemporary American poetry, Novel theory, Poetics, psychoanalysis, Temporality
Prof Robert Cook
Professor of American History
Research interests
History, Political History
Prof Richard Follett
Professor Of American History
Research interests
African American history, African diasporas, American History, Atlantic History, Caribbean History, Historical Demography, Plantation Societies, Public Health (Eighteenth & Nineteenth Centuries), Race Relations, Slavery, Sugar, Transatlantic Slave Trade, USA, West Africa
Dr Doug Haynes
Reader in American Literature and Visual Culture
Research interests
Affect Theory, American Modernism, American Visual Art, Critical Theory, Economic Theory, Fictions of Threat, Ideas of pornography, Ideas of security, Marxism, Modern and contemporary American literature, Postmodern Literature, Psychic phenomena as types of literature, Thomas Pynchon
Dr Michael Jonik
Senior Lecturer in English and American Literature
Research interests
African American literature and culture, American Philosophy, American Studies, Continental Philosophy, Critical Theory, Critical Theory and Marxism, Deleuze, Early American Literature, Emerson, English and American literature, Foucault, Henry James, History of science, Intellectual History, Melville, Nineteenth-Century American Literature, psychoanalysis, systems theory, Systems Theory; Control, The Transatlantic Enlightenment, Theory of mind, Thoreau
Prof Daniel Kane
Professor of American Literature and Culture
Research interests
Modern and contemporary American poetry, Popular Music, US cinema and popular culture
Prof Maria Lauret
Professor of American Literature and Culture
Research interests
20th C Americanisation in the US, African American literature and culture, Alice Walker, American feminist literature, American identity, American immigrant literature, American immigration, Bharati Mukherjee, Junot Diaz, multilingual literature, Richard Rodriguez, Second Wave feminism in the US
Dr Melissa Milewski
Lecturer in Contemporary Political History
Research interests
19th and 20th c. U.S. History, African American history, American Studies, Civil rights movement, History of Women and Gender, Legal History, Mass Incarceration, Race and the law in U.S. History, Reconstruction, U.S. South
Dr Katharina Rietzler
Lecturer in American History
Research interests
20th C history, American History, charity & philanthropy, Diplomacy & International Relations, History of international law, history of the social sciences, history of think tanks and expertise, International History, International Organization, International theory, Liberal internationalism
Prof Clive Webb
Professor Of Modern American History
Research interests
Anglo-American relations, Political violence, race and ethnicity
Dr Tom F. Wright
Senior Lecturer in English
Research interests
American Studies, citizenship, Cultural History, Media & Communication Studies, Nineteenth century literature and culture, Theatre and performance studies
Politics
Dr Rekha Diwakar
Senior Lecturer in Politics
Research interests
comparative politics, electoral politics, Indian politics and public policy, party politics, Politics, Research methods in political science
Dr Neil Dooley
Lecturer in Politics
Research interests
Brexit, Comparative political economy, Domestic Politics of European Integration, EMU, EU, euro, european political economy, eurozone, Financial Crisis in Greece, Germany, global economic crisis, hegemony, International Relations, Ireland, Politics of Europeanisation, Portugal, Uneven and Combined Development, varieties of capitalism
Dr James Hampshire
Reader in Politics
Research interests
british politics, citizenship, comparative politics, european union, governance, Immigration, immigration policy, liberalism, Migration, political theory, Politics of asylum and migration, race and racism
Prof Dan Hough
Professor of Politics
Research interests
Corruption, Devolution, Germany, Political Parties, The GDR/east Germany
Mr Francis Mcgowan
Senior Lecturer in Politics
Research interests
Energy, EU Policy, Regulatory Politics
Dr Jonathan Moss
Lecturer in Politics
Research interests
anti-politics, british politics, gender, Mass Observation, Modern British history, oral history
Dr Emily Robinson
Senior Lecturer in Politics
Research interests
British party politics, Memory, Modern British history, Nostalgia, Political identities, Progressivism, Temporality
Dr Adrian Treacher
Lecturer in International Politics
Research interests
International security
Prof Paul Webb
Professor of Politics
Research interests
British party politics, democracy, Political participation, Voting & elections
