We often divide the liberal arts into different disciplines (for example, history, literature, philosophy) in order to make teaching and studying them easier. In truth, they interconnect, which means that it is impossible to obtain a thorough knowledge of one without at least some knowledge of the others.
Founded in 1956, the interdisciplinary program in Humanistic Studies presents the liberal arts as a unified, interrelated body of knowledge. It explores the various elements that have molded and expressed culture by interweaving the study of history, literature, philosophy, theology, and art so that the student perceives the shape of culture as a whole.
The program consistently stresses Christianity’s dynamic role in forming Western thought, society, and art. To broaden the student’s cultural perspective, the program also recognizes the vital contributions of global and non-Christian societies. Works by and about women receive special notice as well.
To develop skills in critical and creative thinking, reading, writing, and speaking, students meet in small classes that stress reading and discussion. They write often and in a variety of styles. Over the years, our graduates have successfully used their education as a preparation for a broad range of careers, including law, education, business, data analysis, communications, the creative arts, and health care.
Saint Mary’s has a long history of providing quality international programs as an essential part of our educational mission—forming women leaders who will make a difference in the world. As this world becomes increasingly interdependent, the College offers an expanding range of semester, year, semester break, and summer study and service programs in a wide variety of countries, and encourages students to take advantage of them. Learn more about the various Study Abroad opportunities.
Many students combine a major in Humanistic Studies with a major or minor in another discipline such as economics, English, political science, history, philosophy, psychology or religious studies. With careful planning, students have double-majored in the fine arts, science, or business.
Jessalynn Bird
152 Spes Unica Hall
574-284-4494
L. Williamson Ambrose, J. Bird, P. Hicks
This course examines how humans have used imagining potential futures and ideal societies as ways to identify and propose solutions for contemporary social problems. Students will analyze films (Metropolis, Blade Runner, Black Panther) and historical and literary accounts of experimental communities (ranging from Plato’s Republic and Thomas More’s Utopia to the Communist Manifesto and Fordlandia to works of science fiction, such as Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower and Kazuo Ishiguro’s Klara and the Sun). While encountering debates on topics such as the rights and responsibilities of various genders, reliance on robots and AI, the control of human thought and reproduction, and concerns for the environment, students will research a community (living or historical) to identify and evaluate proposed solutions to social injustices and, simultaneously, through a concrete action plan, will consider ways in which more just communities might be constructed through individual agency in the twenty-first century.
This introductory course explores the interaction of people from the past with their cultural milieu through a study of works that have cultural or historical importance.
This course studies the ways people talk about the past, specifically (in)famous women, through myths, legends, and history by focusing on subjects such as Eve, Mary, the Amazons, Cleopatra, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Joan of Arc, and Columbus, among others.
An introduction to encounters between and mutual influence of western cultures and the cultures of China, Korea, and Japan. Texts include travel accounts and translations of Asian literature.
This course looks at the lives of women such as Joan of Arc, Elizabeth I, and Abigail Adams, and places them in the tradition of exceptional women. It examines that tradition as a form of both women’s history and feminist argument, from Roman antiquity to the present.
Study 1,000 years of English history as high society lived it. This course presents a history of aristocracy and monarchy, from King Arthur to Princess Diana (Harry’s mum). Topics include aristocratic women, chivalry, the Tudors, and the modern royal family. This is a discussion-based course with lectures, role-plays, and videos.
This class will help you connect the dots between your love of books and your curiosity (anxiety?) about life after college, between analyzing a text and analyzing a data set. It will equip you with answers to big questions like what do we mean when we say the "humanities" and what can you do with a humanities degree?
This course surveys some of the myths and misunderstandings about Islam, then delves into its origins and expansion and explores its impact in multiple regions of the globe: the Middle East, Europe, Africa, Central Asia, the Far East, and the Americas. We will also explore the economic, political and cultural opportunities available to and the accomplishments of particular individuals and groups, with a special emphasis on women’s voices and gender roles in multiple regions and eras. Students will be introduced to the religions, literature, artwork, and history of the many cultures influenced by Islam, and assess Islam’s influence in the past and present in shaping identities and cultures around the globe.
Topics in Humanistic Studies not covered in regular department offerings. May be repeated with a different topic.
Explore love, friendship, sex, art, misogyny, and gender in ancient Greece and Rome in a global context. This course affords you the opportunity to examine, discuss, and write about some of the “great books” and art of the ancient world. Do contemporary films and television programs get it right in their depictions of the ancient world? What is the legacy of the ancient past? Readings include Homer’s Odyssey, Sappho’s poetry, Greek tragedy, Ovid’s Metamorphoses, and more. Students will write in traditional, creative, and digital environments.
A social, political, intellectual, and artistic history, from Greco-Roman antiquity to the High Middle Ages, focused on Europe in a global context with special attention paid to the role of Christianity. Topics include the “golden age” of Athens, the cultural influence of the Roman Empire, the rise of Christianity and Islam, monasticism, the medieval world view, the rise of royal government, the twelfth-century cultural revolution, and Gothic architecture. Corequisite: HUST 323.
A social, political, intellectual, and artistic history, from the Late Middle Ages to the Italian Renaissance, focused on Europe in a global context with special attention paid to the role of Christianity. Topics include the Black Death and its impact, the power of Italian city-states, Renaissance humanism, the cult of the individual, Europe's global interaction, and the evolution of Renaissance art. Corequisite: HUST 324.
Major literary works from Greco-Roman antiquity to the High Middle Ages. Readings may include Homer’s Odyssey, Sophocles’s Antigone, Virgil’s Aeneid, Augustine’s Confessions, the Life of Muhammad, The Song of Roland, and The Romance of Tristan. Corequisite: HUST 321.
Major literary works from the Late Middle Ages to the Renaissance. Readings may include The Travels of Marco Polo, Dante’s Divine Comedy, Petrarch’s My Secret, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, Boccaccio’s Decameron, and Castiglione’s Book of the Courtier. Corequisite: HUST 322.
Topics in Humanistic Studies not covered in regular department offerings. May be repeated with a different topic.
A political, intellectual, and artistic history, from the Northern Renaissance to the Age of Napoleon, focused on Europe with special attention paid to the role of Christianity. Topics include the Reformation, English constitutional history, baroque culture, the Enlightenment, and the French Revolution. Corequisite: HUST 463.
A political, intellectual, and artistic history, from the nineteenth century to the present, focused on Europe with special attention paid to the role of Christianity. Topics include ideology in the age of industry, the modernist movement, the world wars, the Cold War, and the post-modern outlook. Corequisite: HUST 464.
Major literary works, from the Northern Renaissance to the Age of Napoleon. Readings may include More’s Utopia, Montaigne’s Essays, Shakespeare’s Othello, Voltaire’s Candide, Aphra Behn's Oroonoko, Equiano's Interesting Narrative, and Wollstonecraft’s Vindication of the Rights of Woman. Corequisite: HUST 461.
Major literary works, from the nineteenth century to the present. Readings may include Romantic poetry, Turgenev’s Fathers and Sons, Freud’s Civilization and Its Discontents, Woolf’s To the Lighthouse, Camus’s The Plague, and Allende’s The House of the Spirits. Corequisite: HUST 462.
Topics in Humanistic Studies not covered in regular department offerings. May be repeated with a different topic.
Independent study for outstanding students. May be repeated.
Practical experience in a field related to Humanistic Studies. Graded S/U. May be repeated.
Humanistic Studies examines literature, people, events, art, and ideas from antiquity to the present. Students complete eight discussion-based classes over the course of four semesters in which ‘great books’ seminars are paired with cultural history courses (see “upper-level tandems”). The major is easy to combine with just about any other major on campus and adapts well to study abroad plans since students can begin the major in either their sophomore or junior year. Students interested in the major typically enjoy reading, writing, and discussing, want a major that combines ‘everything’, and are interested in how different academic fields fit together to form the ‘big picture.’
The minor consists of 5 courses (excluding HUST 497, 499), including 6 credits from one of the four tandems (co-requisites): HUST 321/323, HUST 322/324, HUST 461/463, HUST 462/464. The remaining 12 credits can be introductory electives or upper-level tandems.
HUST 103: Lives and Times
Instructor: Prof. Laura Williamson Ambrose
What’s your place in the world? How will you tell your story? This lively discussion-based class will introduce you to the power of storytelling in our own lives and in the lives of those from the past. You will be introduced to a range of fascinating individuals, both real and imagined, as their stories appear in memoir, film, fiction, and art. We will ask: Why does place have such a powerful effect on who we are in the world? Why is the question “where are you from” often impossible to answer? In what way do ethnicity, race, and gender make you who you are? How do we learn from the stories of the past, and, more importantly, how do we tell stories of the future? Students will have an opportunity to write in analytic, digital, and creative formats.
HUST 103: Lives and Times
Instructor: Prof. Philip Hicks
This course features lively classroom discussion and introduces you to a wide range of fascinating people throughout history, whether powerful or downtrodden, famous or obscure, free spirited or straight laced. To see what makes these people tick, we will read a variety of works taking us to the core of their beings: novels, autobiographies, and memoirs. We try to answer the sorts of questions that we all have to ask ourselves: What makes a good life? What do I owe my parents? What place does spirituality have in my life? How do I balance the need to be my own person with the need to belong to the group?
HUST 197: Myth, Legend, and History
Instructor: Prof. Jessalynn Bird
Truth or fiction? This course explores different ways of seeing (in)famous women from Eve to Cleopatra, Mary to Joan of Arc. Through class discussions, interdisciplinary readings (fiction and nonfiction, literature and history), art, lectures, and film, we will study what myths and legends—both ancient and modern—tell us about the past and about ourselves.
HUST 212: High Society
Instructor: Prof. Philip Hicks
Study 1,000 years of English history as high society lived it. This course presents a history of aristocracy and monarchy, from King Arthur to Princess Diana (Harry’s mum). Topics include aristocratic women, chivalry, the Tudors, and the modern royal family. This is a discussion-based course with lectures, role-plays, and videos.
These plans are for purposes of illustration only; a student’s actual course schedule would depend on her choices of classes in the Sophia Program and the availability of courses in any given semester. In both scenarios, a student might elect to apply for a HUST summer study abroad scholarship between her 3rd and 4th year (which may cover 20-85% of the total cost).
HUST Major (and Rome Program) Plan
HUST / HISTORY double-major Plan
First Year | ||
---|---|---|
First Semester | Credits | |
HUST 103 Lives and Times | ||
or HUST 197 (W) Myth, Legend, and History (W) |
||
or HUST 212 High Society |
||
Gen Ed | ||
Gen Ed | ||
Gen Ed | ||
Gen Ed | ||
Credits | 0 | |
Second Semester | ||
HUST 103 Lives and Times | ||
or HUST 203 East Meets West |
||
or HUST 205 History of Famous Women |
||
Gen Ed | ||
Gen Ed | ||
Gen Ed | ||
Gen Ed | ||
Credits | 0 | |
Second Year | ||
First Semester | ||
Fall: Rome | ||
Gen Ed | ||
Gen Ed | ||
Gen Ed | ||
Gen Ed | ||
Elective | ||
Credits | 0 | |
Second Semester | ||
Spring: Rome | ||
Gen Ed | ||
Gen Ed | ||
Gen Ed | ||
Elective | ||
Elective | ||
Credits | 0 | |
Third Year | ||
First Semester | ||
HUST 321 or HUST 461 |
Cultural History I: Ancient and Medieval Culture or Cultural History III: Early-Modern Culture |
3 |
HUST 323 or HUST 463 |
Colloquium I: Ancient and Medieval Literature or Colloquium III: Early-Modern Literature |
3 |
Gen Ed | ||
Gen Ed | ||
Elective | ||
Credits | 6 | |
Second Semester | ||
HUST 322 or HUST 462 |
Cultural History II: Medieval and Renaissance Culture or Cultural History IV: Modern Culture |
3 |
HUST 324 or HUST 464 |
Colloquium II: Medieval and Renaissance Literature or Colloquium IV: Modern Literature |
3 |
Elective | ||
Elective | ||
Elective | ||
Credits | 6 | |
Fourth Year | ||
First Semester | ||
HUST 461 or HUST 321 |
Cultural History III: Early-Modern Culture or Cultural History I: Ancient and Medieval Culture |
3 |
HUST 463 or HUST 323 |
Colloquium III: Early-Modern Literature or Colloquium I: Ancient and Medieval Literature |
3 |
Elective | ||
Elective | ||
Elective | ||
Credits | 6 | |
Second Semester | ||
HUST 462 or HUST 322 |
Cultural History IV: Modern Culture or Cultural History II: Medieval and Renaissance Culture |
3 |
HUST 464 or HUST 324 |
Colloquium IV: Modern Literature or Colloquium II: Medieval and Renaissance Literature |
3 |
Elective | ||
Elective | ||
Elective | ||
Credits | 6 | |
Total Credits | 24 |
Note: Upper-level cultural history courses in HUST fulfill the History major’s Europe requirements.
First Year | ||
---|---|---|
First Semester | Credits | |
HUST 103 Lives and Times | ||
or HUST 197 Myth, Legend, and History |
||
or HUST 212 High Society |
||
HIST 103W World History I | ||
Gen Ed | ||
Gen Ed | ||
Gen Ed | ||
Credits | 0 | |
Second Semester | ||
HUST 103 Lives and Times | ||
or HUST 205 History of Famous Women |
||
or HUST 203 East Meets West |
||
HIST 104 World History II | ||
Gen Ed | ||
Gen Ed | ||
Gen Ed | ||
Credits | 0 | |
Second Year | ||
First Semester | ||
Gen Ed | ||
Gen Ed | ||
Gen Ed | ||
Elective | ||
Elective | ||
Credits | 0 | |
Second Semester | ||
Gen Ed | ||
Gen Ed | ||
Gen Ed | ||
Elective | ||
Elective | ||
Credits | 0 | |
Third Year | ||
First Semester | ||
HUST 321 or HUST 461 |
Cultural History I: Ancient and Medieval Culture or Cultural History III: Early-Modern Culture |
3 |
HUST 323 or HUST 463 |
Colloquium I: Ancient and Medieval Literature or Colloquium III: Early-Modern Literature |
3 |
HIST 201 United States History to 1865 | ||
HIST 312 Recent America: 1960 to the Present | ||
Gen Ed | ||
Credits | 6 | |
Second Semester | ||
HUST 322 or HUST 462 |
Cultural History II: Medieval and Renaissance Culture or Cultural History IV: Modern Culture |
3 |
HUST 324 or HUST 464 |
Colloquium II: Medieval and Renaissance Literature or Colloquium IV: Modern Literature |
3 |
HIST 202 United States History Since 1865 | ||
Gen Ed | ||
Elective | ||
Credits | 6 | |
Fourth Year | ||
First Semester | ||
HUST 461 or HUST 321 |
Cultural History III: Early-Modern Culture or Cultural History I: Ancient and Medieval Culture |
3 |
HUST 463 or HUST 323 |
Colloquium III: Early-Modern Literature or Colloquium I: Ancient and Medieval Literature |
3 |
HIST course | ||
Elective | ||
Elective | ||
Credits | 6 | |
Second Semester | ||
HUST 462 or HUST 322 |
Cultural History IV: Modern Culture or Cultural History II: Medieval and Renaissance Culture |
3 |
HUST 464 or HUST 324 |
Colloquium IV: Modern Literature or Colloquium II: Medieval and Renaissance Literature |
3 |
HIST 384 Africa Since 1800 | ||
Elective | ||
Elective | ||
Credits | 6 | |
Total Credits | 24 |
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