Comparative American Studies

Departmental Faculty
Shelley Lee, Professor of Comparative American Studies and History, Chair
KJ Cerankowski, Assistant Professor of Comparative American Studies and Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies
Wendy Kozol, Professor of Comparative American Studies
Gina Pérez, Professor of Comparative American Studies, (on leave)
Meredith Raimondo, Associate Professor of Comparative American Studies (on administrative leave)

Faculty by Courtesy
Yveline Alexis, Associate Professor of Africana Studies and Comparative American Studies
Rick Baldoz, Associate Professor and Chair of Sociology
Janet Fiskio, Associate Professor of Environmental Studies and Comparative American Studies
Meredith Gadsby, Associate Professor of Africana Studies and Comparative American Studies
Jennifer Garcia, Assistant Professor of Politics 
Pablo Mitchell, Professor of History and Comparative American Studies 
Renee Romano, Professor of History and Comparative American Studies 
Harrod Suarez, Associate Professor of English and Comparative American Studies

Visit the department webpage for up-to-date information on department faculty, visiting lecturers and special events.

Comparative American Studies examines the range and diversity of experiences, communities, and identities in the United States. Through inter and multi-disciplinary study, students explore social, political, economic and cultural processes relating to the production and contestation of power and inequality, and consider the United States locally, nationally, and globally. The department invites students to consider the relationship of different communities to both the nation-state and to each other, ranging from issues of settler colonialism and empire building to social justice movements. Courses investigate power and agency through analysis of intersecting structures of race, gender, class, sexuality, ability and citizenship. Central to these studies are examinations of the relationship of theory and practice in various historical and contemporary contexts.

Comparative American Studies is aligned with the fields of ethnic studies, LGBTQ studies, and American Studies, and its core faculty have expertise in the areas of visual culture studies, gender studies, LGBTQ studies, Asian American Studies, and Latina/o Studies. Affiliates and courtesy faculty from departments such as Africana Studies, English, Sociology, and Politics, further enhance the topical and methodological breadth that students can attain through the CAS major.

See information about Research, Internships, Study Away and Experiential Learning (RISE).

Explore Winter Term projects and opportunities.

Majors and Minors

• Comparative American Studies Major  
• Comparative American Studies Minor  

Courses

• CAST 050 - Cleveland Immersion Program
• CAST 100 - Introduction to Comparative American Studies
• CAST 150B - Sign o’ The Times: Music, Crisis, and Generational Response
• CAST 200 - Theories and Methods in American Studies
• CAST 201 - Latinas/os in Comparative Perspective
• CAST 202 - Visible Bodies and the Politics of Sexuality
• CAST 207 - Introduction to Queer Studies
• CAST 208 - Which American Life?
• CAST 209 - American Identities and Popular Culture
• CAST 210 - Sanctuary, Solidarity, and Latina/o/x Practices of Accompaniment
• CAST 211 - Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Identities
• CAST 214 - Friends, Foes, and Feminism: Relationships in Contemporary US Novels
• CAST 217 - Introduction to Feminist Science Studies
• CAST 223 - Surviving America: Introduction to Native Studies
• CAST 231 - The Coalition of the Future: How We Combat White Nationalism and Weave the Fabric of Democracy
• CAST 232 - History of Race in American Cities and Suburbs
• CAST 235 - Debating Citizenships
• CAST 238 - Self and Sovereignty in Global Indigenous Literatures
• CAST 242 - Asian American Literature at the Crossroads
• CAST 243 - Promise and Peril: Race and Multicultural America
• CAST 256 - Immigration in U.S. History
• CAST 260 - Asian American History
• CAST 267 - The Nature of Sexualized Identities: Gender, Race, Queerness, and Environmental Justice
• CAST 270 - Latina/o History
• CAST 279 - Imagining Borders
• CAST 284 - Disability and Queer Community Health in a Time of Pandemic
• CAST 289 - Japanese American Internment and Public History
• CAST 300 - Field Based Research
• CAST 301 - Practicum for Field Based Research
• CAST 302 - American Agricultures
• CAST 303 - Research Seminar: Text Based Research
• CAST 309 - Performing America
• CAST 310 - Where Do I Fit In?: Placing Identities in Contemporary US Literature
• CAST 311 - Militarization of American Daily Life
• CAST 312 - Cultures of Surveillance
• CAST 313 - Archives and Affects
• CAST 315 - Brown TV
• CAST 317 - Transgender Cultural Studies
• CAST 318 - Seminar: American Orientalism
• CAST 319 - Sexual “Absences”
• CAST 333 - Trans*Gender Studies
• CAST 335 - Latinx Oral Histories
• CAST 382 - Afro-Asian America: Intraminority Connections in Historical Perspective
• CAST 403 - Queer Trauma Narratives
• CAST 405 - Age of Fracture: The United States since 1973
• CAST 406 - Gender and Geography: Literatures of Appalachia
• CAST 408 - Race, Religion and Citizenship
• CAST 411 - Seminar: Ethnic and Racial Minority Mental Health
• CAST 416 - Taste the Nation: Culture, Consumption, and American Identities
• CAST 427 - Borderlands
• CAST 443 - Colloquium: Crisis of Confidence: American History and Culture in the 1970s
• CAST 447 - Queer Positions
• CAST 500 - Capstone Research Seminar
• CAST 501 - Senior Honors
• CAST 502 - Senior Honors
• CAST 995F - Private Reading - Full
• CAST 995H - Private Reading - Half