About Us

American Culture Studies is the flagship program for interdisciplinary study in the humanities and social sciences at BGSU and a leading international innovator in cultural studies. From its inception, the ACS program had a strong interdisciplinary focus, drawing faculty from across the BGSU campus and attracting students from across the US and world.

In 1957, an undergraduate interdisciplinary Bachelor of Arts program in American Studies was established under the direction of Dr. Alma Payne of the Department of English, who was named as the first faculty joint appointment in English and American Studies. This program was expanded in 1964 to include a Master of Arts. The B.A. and M.A. in American Studies were the first two non-departmental, interdisciplinary degrees offered at BGSU.

BGSU established the American Culture Studies Ph.D program in 1978, among the earliest of its kind. The program draws on the expertise of full-time and joint-appointed faculty in the program as well as affiliated faculty. Particularly, the program relies strongly on affiliated faculty from the other units in the School of Cultural and Critical Studies: the Department of Popular Culture, Department of Ethnic Studies, and the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program. The program also draws on expertise from, and interdisciplinary collaborations with, faculty in Art, English, History, Media and Communication, Philosophy, Political Science, Theatre & Film, Sociology, Sport and Leisure Studies, and other units across BGSU.

Bowling Green State University is the only university in the United States to implement a graduate department devoted to the scholarly study of popular culture. Dr. Ray Browne's early efforts in the Department of English led in 1973 to the establishment of the Department of Popular Culture as an M.A. program, followed with the establishment of the undergraduate major a year later. By expanding literature course offerings to include the research and analysis of detective fiction, romance fiction, westerns, and other so-called genre fiction, and by developing coursework on popular film, popular television, popular music, and folklore and folklife, the Department of Popular Culture opened students to a consideration of cultural forms that they were familiar with in their everyday lives, but had not reflected upon critically. Through the consideration of popular materials, students confronted issues concerning the relationships of commerce to art, the popular media to society, and the popular use of the mass media. Very quickly, a high student demand for popular culture courses developed on both the graduate and undergraduate levels. Students found them relevant, meaningful, and challenging. In 1977, the Department of Popular Culture became a founding and contributing member of the American Culture Ph.D. at Bowling Green State University and has actively offered courses in the BG Perspective, Honors, and BG Experience programs.

Previously, in 1967, Dr. Browne had founded the Journal of Popular Culture; and in 1969 he founded the scholarly association for the study of popular culture, the Popular Culture Association. Through these innovative curricular and programmatic developments and the research and other professional activities of the faculty, the department has established its national reputation as the leader in the study of popular culture. Since the initiation of the department at Bowling Green, popular culture courses have been developed in other universities throughout the United States and internationally as well. Many of these institutions have modeled their courses on those at Bowling Green; indeed, many of them have adopted the textbooks edited by faculty members Christopher D. Geist and John G. Nachbar (1983 and 1992) for their courses.

The Department of Ethnic Studies was the result of 30 years of continuous evolution and development. Emerging at the end of the 1960s and borne out of demands for Bowling Green State University to seriously address national issues of race and ethnicity, an Ethnic Studies Committee was formed, by then-President William T. Jerome, in the Spring of 1970. Chaired by John Scott, who was then an instructor in Theatre, the result of the committee's work was the formation in July 1970 of the Ethnic Studies Program/Center, directed by Dr. Robert L. Perry. The stated purpose of the program was to "provide multicultural education and to improve racial balance in university course offerings" and an undergraduate degree program in Afro-American Studies was subsequently approved by the university's Academic Council in October 1971. As was the case with many nascent Ethnic Studies programs of the late 60s and early 70s, the primary concentration and focus of Bowling Green's Ethnic Studies curriculum was initially the African American experience. However, over the following few years the program addressed the broad spectrum of American ethnicities, and graduated its first class in the spring of 1975. Becoming a full department in the College of Arts and Sciences in 1979, Ethnic Studies increased and maintained its high profile and consistent efforts to encourage BGSU as an institution to respond to issues of diversity and multiculturalism. In 1985 Bowling Green's then President Paul Olscamp established a Minority Studies Committee which was chaired by Ethnic Studies Professor Ernest Champion and included both Dr. Rolando Andrade and Dr. Win Stone as serving members. The result of the Committee's report was the establishment in 1992 of the University's Cultural Diversity requirement that all students at BGSU take a class in multiculturalism. ETHN 1010: Introduction to Ethnic Studies, amongst other courses offered by the department, plays a significant role in allowing students to fulfill this requirement.

Having chaired the department for almost two decades, Dr. Perry retired in 1997. His replacement was Dr. Michael Martin, chair of the Department of Africana Studies at Wayne State University for six years. Dr. Martin came to the department with the intention of continuing and expanding the legacy of nearly thirty years of Ethnic Studies at BGSU. Just as the department evolved from a concentration on African American Studies into a broader emphasis on Ethnic Studies as a field, the department is now evolving from a focus on ethnicity and race in the United States to a broader comparative focus embracing the issues of globalization and international migrations, so increasingly important to understanding domestic issues.

There is, then, an important history and legacy which should inform what we are trying to do within the Ethnic Studies program. Our goals should be understood within this history of social change at the university and within society generally. At its best, our teaching of Ethnic Studies should be an encouragement to both our students, and ourselves, to think in new ways about old things such as: intergroup relations, identity, belief systems, history, politics, and society.

The field of Women’s Studies began in the 1970s, and today, most colleges and universities offer Women’s Studies courses and degrees.  The professional association for Women’s Studies is called the National Women's Studies Association.

The academic discipline of Women’s Studies began in the 1970s, and is currently a staple at most colleges and universities across the country. The Women’s Studies Program at BGSU began in 1978.  Today, our department is called Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and we are part of the new School of Cultural and Critical Studies in the College of Arts and Sciences.  However, students from all Colleges take our courses to fulfill various aspects of the General Education Curriculum.

Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies at BGSU is interdisciplinary, meaning that our students learn how a variety of disciplines approach women’s lives, gender, and sexuality.  Faculty from Education, Sociology, Popular Culture, English, Service Learning, Ethnic Studies and other fields participate in the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies program by offering classes, serving on our Steering Committee, advising students, and promoting the field of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies locally and globally.