Sample Course Descriptions

HUMANITIES PROGRAM: GET THE WHOLE PICTURE. These courses are open to everyone, including first-year students. They engage the mind and open doors for ideas applicable to any field. They are among the finest of a liberal arts experience. They can be applied to General Education Requirements for Divisions 2, 3 or 4; to the Humanities Minor; and to other requirements, including language in context and various majors and minors--consult with your advisor.

The Humanities Program is an innovative interdisciplinary course of study designed especially for College students. The Humanities Program curriculum gives students the opportunity to explore pivotal events and ideas in Western and world history, and to engage with cultural issues relevant to the present across academic disciplines. Students have found the breadth and depth of the Humanities Program Minor to be invaluable to contextualizing and complementing their major.
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Western Humanities:
HUM 11/CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY (fall 2007, 4 credits). Experience the classics in an interdisciplinary way! Sample topics include the poetry of Sappho, Red & Black vases, the drama of Aristophanes, the Oracle at Delphi, History & Myth, Alexander the Great, Virgil's Aeneid, Roman sculpture, Ovid, Christian maryrs. . .Sample themes include Love, Heroism, Doubt, war & Peace, Civic Order. . .and what's at stake in the question.
Taught by Professors Pechilis (Humanities, Religion) and Poe (Art History).

HUM 11/ CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY: ART AND LITERATURE (fall 2003, 4 credits)
Ancient Greece and Rome gave us the humanities as we know them in the West, providing the rock bed of our culture. Humanities 11 will be arranged thematically to bring out the great issues of ancient and modern life. Engage yourself, e.g, with Homer, Athena, the Acropolis, Plato, Socrates, Oedipus, Aphrodite, Alexander the Great, Virgil, the Colosseum, Augustus Caesar, & Stoicism.
Taught by Professors Henry-Corrington (Art) and Lenz (Classics)

HUM 12/THE EUROPEAN MIDDLE AGES. (spring 2006, 4 Credits).   This course brings to life the dynamic era of the Middle Ages, ca. 400-1400, through a series of interrelated topics, including: Religious and Political Authority (e.g., monastic institutions; the royal court of King Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine), Popular Life (e.g., romance stories; the Crusades), and West Meets East (e.g., the Silk Road; encounter with Islam).  Join us for an enlightening look at this special period in Western history. Includes field trip to the Cloisters.
Taught by Professors J. Hala (English) and K. Pechilis (Religion/Humanities)

HUM 12/ EUROPEAN MIDDLE AGES IN ART AND LITERATURE (spring 2004, 4 credits) We will focus on the four major domains of medieval life–MONASTERY, MANOR, CHURCH, AND TOWN, using literature and art to explore medieval experiences and representations of religion, knighthood, love, politics, learning, and daily life.
Taught by Professors Hala (English) and Henry-Corrington (Art).

HUM 13/FORMS OF HUMANISM: RENAISSANCE TO ENLIGHTENMENT (FALL 2006, 4 credits). Did you know?  Many aspects of the present day Western world were established in the dramatic era of the Renaissance to Enlightenment (c. 1400-1800), including: secularism, the scientific revolution, individualism, Protestant and Catholic identities, mass printed books, capitalism, the modern state and imperialism, human rights, and fine arts and literature.  This period in Western history is many people’s favorite because of the profound changes in knowledge and the refined development of arts and letters; join us in our wide-ranging, comprehensive exploration of it.
Taught by Professors Occhiogrosso (English) and Pechilis (Humanities, Religious Studies).

HUM 14 001/ THE MODERN AGE IN THE WEST: SELF AND SOCIETY IN THE WEST 1848-PRESENT. 4 Credits.   Open to all students.  This course explores the modernist revolution’s emphasis on the questioning self rather than the conventional self, and current attempts to think beyond time’s domestication of their critique.  Themes include modernism, postmodernism, alienation, work, expressionism, stream of consciousness, icon, and postcolonial literature.  Field trip to the MoMA plus other events.
Taught by Professors C. Valdez (English) and K. Pechilis (Humanities/Religion)

Comparative Humanities:
HUM 16/ISLAM AND THE WEST (fall 2007, 4 credits). An interdisciplinary inquiry into religious, literary and cultural issues that have shaped images of “the other” in the complex interactions between the Islamic world & the West.
Taught by Professors Ready (English) and Taylor (Religion, Middle East Studies)

HUM 17/AFRICAN, AMERICAN, AFRICAN-AMERICAN (Fall 2005, 4 credits), Thursdays 7:00-9:30 p.m.  A Comparative Humanities course.  This course explores the diversity and commonality among African cultures through novels, films, and scholarship on religion, history, and culture.  Of special interest is the interaction between colonialism and traditional African cultures:  Has colonialism’s exploitive `civilizing mission’ of yesterday destroyed African culture, contributed to the internationalization of African culture, or some combination of the two?  What did Westerners and Africans learn from the encounter?  What opportunities and challenges exist today for the mutual understanding between African nations and the U.S.?  
Taught by Professors Addo (Pan-African Studies, Religion) and Pechilis (Humanities, Religion)

HUM 17: AFRICA & THE WEST; CONTRASTS & INTERACTIONS (fall 2003, 4 credits). Africa and the West offer marked contrasts and some surprising similarities regarding myths of origin, gender, family, rule, space, religion, art, and music. We will explore these through art and ethnology as well as through the changes and mixtures wrought by Colonial and post-Colonial interaction in Africa, Europe, and the U.S.
Taught by Professors Henry-Corrington (Art) and Peek (Anthropology).

HUM 18: EAST MEETS WEST (spring, 2007 Note: Comparative Humanities courses are usually offered in the fall). 4 credits. A thematic and historical consideration of Asia, Europe, and America, through judicious comparisons and instances of contact. Themes include the Hindu Temple and the Gothic Cathedral; God/s, Goddesses, and saints; the erotic in art; Buddhism and psychotherapy; the mandala and Mondrian. Taught by Professors Henry-Corrington (Art History) and Pechilis (Religion, Humanities)

HUM 19: LATIN AMERICA: CULTURES, REVOLUTIONS, AND SOCIAL CONFLICTS (fall 2004, 4 credits). This interdisciplinary course examines different societies, ideologies  and cultures in Latin America through theoretical, comparative, historical and cultural studies, as well as literary texts and movies. We will also examine the circumstances, principles and events of the three major revolutions in the region during the 20th century: México (1910), Cuba (1959), and Nicaragua (1979-90) as well as some revolutionary movements like the Zapatista Movement (México, 1994- ), the Guerrilla movement in Colombia (1953- ) and The “Bolivarian Revolution” in Venezuela (1999- ).
Taught by Professors Noguera (Spanish/Latin American Studies) and Pechilis (Religion/Humanities)

Current Issues in the Humanities: (a half-course option)
HUM 20/CURRENT ISSUES IN THE HUMANITIES: THE FAMILY (spring 2007) Course meets first 6 weeks of the semester.  2 credits. Open to all students.  An interdisciplinary consideration of the most complex foundational institution ever invented.  The Issues course is a great introduction to several academic disciplines and the interdisciplinary connections among them.  
Taught by Professors C. Killian (Sociology), J. Olmsted (Economics), R. McLaughlin (Theater), K. Pechilis (Humanities/Religion), T. Windfelder (Biology)

HUM 20/CURRENT ISSUES IN THE HUMANITIES: FREEDOM.  (spring 2006) Course meets first 6 weeks of the semester. 2 credits. FREEDOM:  What does it mean to you?  Would you make the ultimate sacrifice for it?  Would you ask others to?  Join us for an engaging discussion of this powerful ideal.
Taught by Professors L. Edwards (History/Pan African Studies), S. Lee (Philosophy), K. Pechilis (Religion/Humanities), A. Talentino (Political Science), B. Smith (Economics) 

HUM 20/CURRENT ISSUES IN THE HUMANITIES: THE BODY (spring 2005) Course meets first 6 weeks of the semester. 2 credits. Your first marriage is to your body, but how well do you really know your `spouse'? This discussion-based course explores the body as materiality and metaphor through interdisciplinary readings and lectures, with an emphasis on current research on the topic.
Taught by Professors Addo (African/African-American Studies), Kolmar (English and Women’s Studies), McKittrick (Biology and Neuroscience), Nair (Music), and Pechilis (Religion and Humanities)

HUM 20/CURRENT ISSUES IN THE HUMANITIES: MODERN SCIENCE AND THE HUMANITIES (spring 2004, 2 credits) This half-semester course will explore the impact of modern science on how we know ourselves and how we represent ourselves; on what we dream, and what we believe. Six professors from five fields will open up case studies on such topics as science & modern art; human nature & apes; science fiction & cyborgs; the new cosmologies & religion, and complexity theory & creativity in art and music. Lots of discussion, juicy reading, journal notes, two short papers, no exams. Meets the first 6 weeks of the semester.
Counts for: Humanities Minor.
Professors: Several.

HUM 21/CULTURE AND EXCHANGE. Spring 2006; Course meets for the second half of the semester.  2 credits. This course introduces students to the idea of exchange as the basis for all human interaction by comparing ideas about and principles of exchange through different disciplinary lenses: exchange in the arts (patronage, sales, publication, criticism), economics (barter and money economics, credit), anthropology and religion (gift-giving, marriage, ritual) and linguistics (language per se) are all possible avenues of investigation and comparison.
Taught by Professors R. Greenwald (Business, Society and Culture), S. Henry-Corrington (Art History), J. Hala (English), W. Kolmar (English/Women’s Studies), and P. Samuels (English)