The BA in American Studies within the New College of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences enables students to look at the experiences of North Americans and their environment from a variety of historical and contemporary perspectives. Courses are grouped into four emphases: (1) American systems, dealing with political, economic, religious, and legal institutions; (2) American cultures, concentrating on systems of belief and their symbolic expression in literature, art, philosophy, and regional and popular cultures; (3) American lives, exploring the ways in which categories of race, ethnicity, class, and gender intersect with individual and community experience; and (4) writing, stressing critical writing skills and training students to pursue careers in which writing is a major activity. Students learn to think and write critically, to conduct research, and to appreciate the changing and diverse nature of American life.