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.