Months after America celebrated its 250th anniversary, the American Studies program at Stanford commemorated a milestone of its own. For a program aiming to examine the complexities of America’s past and current culture, the 50-year mark gave the department an opportunity to celebrate its own history on Saturday. 

During the 1970s, a group of students pushed for the creation of the American Studies major. Today, the interdisciplinary program also offers a minor and secondary major, teaching courses in history, literature, art, race and ethnicity. Program Director and Senior Lecturer Beth Kessler lauded the program’s role in training students to consider diverse perspectives on the country. 

“There’s a consistency about American Studies,” Kessler said. “Ambitious students are doing creative things, bringing together different ways of thinking, different fields of study and combining them together to create new and interesting approaches to thinking about what it means to be American.”

The department celebrated the milestone with a reunion and reception at Margaret Jacks Hall for current students, faculty and alumni visiting for homecoming. Alumni mingled over breakfast, embracing former professors and catching up with classmates. Posters and a TV slideshow displayed student testimony, projects and the department’s past events — including symposiums on Mark Twain, Latino art and politics and Native American rights.

“American Studies gave me an opportunity to explore the country and the society and the culture that I live in in a much deeper way,” Alexei Koseff ’12 said. “I really appreciate how it pushed me to ask questions and understand the context that I was living in, and so I think I’ve tried to take that curiosity forward with me in my work as a journalist.”

The program has expanded in the 50 years since its inception. Students now design their own thematic concentration to pursue their own interests. 

Koseff took classes on Hollywood musicals and stand-up comedy for his 20th century popular culture concentration. Now he does accountability and enterprise reporting for The Washington Post’s Congress team. 

“American Studies was a great training ground for [my reporting] because it challenged me to look backward at where we’ve come from as a country and understand that as a way to think about where we’re going as a society,” Koseff said. 

The reception brought alumni together across generations, like father and daughter Dennis Romero ’80 JD ’83 and Gabriela Romero ’19 JD ’25, both former American Studies majors who went into law. 

“My practice is very interdisciplinary,” Gabriela Romero said. “I’m doing everything from higher education law to Congressional hearing prep to litigation in between. American Studies really helped me to develop that interest and skill.”

Both Romeros agreed that American Studies also developed their love of reading and writing, which carries over into their careers. Dennis Romero studied a dual concentration of history and literature. By the time his daughter joined the program, students could design their own concentrations, and she chose 19th-century history, culture and politics in the U.S.

“It’s delightful. It’s such a joy to be able to celebrate and to have this many people who want to celebrate,” Associate Director of American Studies Judith Richardson said. “It generates a lot of love because people feel it’s their own, and they got great advising and got to take all these exciting courses and make connections between them.”

The program is developing an oral history project with the Stanford Historical Society, collecting stories across generations by interviewing alumni who helped found the program. Alumni at the reception also signed up for interviews. So far, the team has conducted around a dozen, according to Richardson.

“I still feel so happy to be able to introduce people to this program, which I think is special, and I also think is really important in the world as a way of keeping eyes open and historical awareness and perspective on things happening in the world, in the country,” she said. 

Alongside the project, Richardson has been researching the program’s history in Stanford archives. She found proposals for American Studies from decades before the program was founded and learned of an American Studies theme house, closed around 2000, that is now Robert Moore South, also known as BOB. Richardson said she hopes to add to the program’s recorded history through the interview project and connect alumni with current students.  

Looking back on the past 50 years, faculty and alumni agreed that American Studies connects them across fields and generations. “We’re going to continue to be our creative, interdisciplinary selves,” Kessler said. “You can find a place to really build a strong foundation in American history, literature and culture, but you can also find a way to shape it to your interests and concerns.