Doctoral Programme, Graduate School of North American Studies

The Graduate School particularly promotes research in the areas of North American Culture, Literature, History, Politics, Economics, and Society. Under the general title "The American Century and Beyond," the following fields of research will be focused on:

• American Exceptionalism in the Present Context;
• Nations, Ethnicity, Diaspora and Border Lands;
• The Conservative Revolution and New Social Movements;
• The Role of Religion in American Public Life;
• Art, Aesthetics and American Culture;
• Neo-Liberalism as Economic and Cultural Paradigm;
• Globalisation and the "American Centuries".

The Graduate School aims at achieving a balance between specialisation in a field of choice and an in-depth interdisciplinary training. The curriculum is designed to support these goals by offering three interdisciplinary courses, team-taught by representatives of different disciplines from the social sciences and the humanities, and three courses on disciplinary research methods. In addition, the research training of the Graduate School is dedicated to providing students with key qualifications such as didactic and teaching skills as well as essential management skills pertinent to the students' future careers.