An introductory course to the interdisciplinary analysis of the arts and humanities, with a focus on the urban environment from ancient Greece to 16th century Europe.  Through a close examination of significant literary works and monuments from specific periods, students will examine the distinctive styles of expression and creativity within a broad historical and cultural framework.  The principal issue to be considered is the relationship between the creative impulse and community life.

A survey of the main developments in Western culture from 1600 to 2000, the course provides a foundation for the areas of concentration (aesthetics/creativity and studies in culture) in the Humanities graduate program. The course will examine important works, artists, and thinkers of this period, consider the ways in which they are interrelated, and  how they create in significant and innovative ways the cultural context. 

This course provides an integrative, interdisciplinary experience that balances and complements the emphasis on specific disciplines or cultural periods in the Humanities program. It seeks to define the humanities and considers various critical approaches to its study. The course demonstrates how the interrelationships between disciplines and specialized areas of interest can give shape and meaning to a cultural period. In addition, it will focus on methods and theories in interdisciplinary thinking and research, emphasizing: (1) the interrelationships of the disciplines, (2) the theoretical approaches to synthesizing art, theatre, literature, music, philosophy, and religion in a cultural context, and (3) the critical examination of issues arising from fields outside the humanities that have significant impact on and synergy with the humanities.

Nine seminars will alternate over three years. One seminar will be offered each semester; students select two for their program of study.

An interdisciplinary seminar on the classic literary fairy tale. The course will bring a wide range of disciplines and methodologies—history, religion, politics, aesthetics—to bear on the classic children’s genre.  Emphasis on the fairy tale’s origins, its role in culture, and the reasons for its continued vitality.

This seminar provides an interdisciplinary investigation of the role that language plays in contemporary models of cultural semantics. Within the context of the sociology of knowledge, participants in this course are asked to investigate the frameworks of cultural anthropology, cultural materialism, cultural phenomenology, representation theory, and cultural ideology theory and integrate them into a coherent model of language and culture.

This seminar investigates the anatomy of metaphor and discusses its theoretical foundations within the context of cultural metaphors. This involves an integration of theoretical knowledge on metaphorical types (iconic, illustrative, cardinal, and transitional) and processes (metaphorical blending, analogical reformulation, and linguistic creativity).

The role that structures play in the interpretation of sentences, texts, literary expression and other forms of discourse is investigated within the theoretical frameworks of structuralism, deconstruction theory, phenomenology, and existentialism. The various schools of hermeneutics are discussed with the intent of creating an integrated interdisciplinary model of hermeneutics for the humanities.

The seminar will address in a comparative cultural manner the understanding of personal identity in the modern world as informed by philosophy, psychology, literature, and art.  In addition to the philosophical, psychological, literary and aesthetic, the African perspective to the comparative study of personal identity in the modern world will make references to the vast cultural anthropological resources in and through which outlines of African views about person have been described.

This course focuses on the ways in which feminist concerns have influenced research questions in the humanities.  Students will do readings on gender issues as they relate to power; representation; race, ethnicity, and class; and sexuality.  Readings in the four content areas will be drawn from the disciplines of history, philosophy, religious studies, cultural studies, and literary studies.  Through readings, discussion, and research projects, students will become familiar with significant questions raised by the humanities disciplines in each of the four content areas, and with the different methodological approaches of the disciplines. Time and space are the necessary foundation of all experience, according to Kant. As such they can provide a theoretical framework in the modern period and create a basis for analysis of cultural developments. After Darwin, Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud gave birth to new ways of thinking about self and meaning, forms of literature and artistic expression shifted. Artistic naming and the gesture of critique (fundamental to Modernism) generated new art movements which are studied along with literary texts.

The Postmodern examines the artistic--particularly literary and cinematic--productions of postmodernism as a response to the cultural condition of postmodernity. The course also includes studies of and references to postmodern visual art and architecture, and readings by representatives of the following disciplines and fields:  Philosophy (Derrida), History (Foucault), History of Consciousness (Donna Haraway), Sociology (Baudrillard, Stuart Hall), Geography (David Harvey), Rhetoric (Judith Butler), Women's Studies (Tania Modeleski), Gender Studies (Butler, Haraway), Afro-American Studies (Appiah), Postcolonial Studies (Appiah, Stuart Hall), and Cultural Studies.

Hum 671/672                                                                                Annette Allen, Humanities 

Seminar on Creativity  

Creativity is a valuable human resource that exists in all populations, ethnicities, and cultures across time and place. Although culture mediates the expression of creativity by what is valued, supported, or stifled, humans continue to explore creativity, its nature, source, and development by reading the theories of eminent theorists, philosophers, and researchers. In addition, on the level of being, we will examine the creator, the creative process, product, and cultural conditions by looking through the eyes of creative artists themselves who will speak to the class.     

   1) Aesthetics and Creativity 

   2) Studies in Culture

Graduate courses from departments within the humanities may be taken to meet the requirements in Areas of Concentration.  

An individually arranged and committee approved internship, combining a volunteer experience in an Arts or Humanities organization or agency with a related academic concentration of the student's doctoral program or a teaching experience with a professor on the Graduate Faculty.  A student may substitute this course with another course in the graduate curriculum to meet the required number of courses to graduate, if he or she can document college teaching within the last five years.

 A symposium for candidates completing their content course work during an academic year. Each student will be responsible for preparing and delivering a seminar presentation which incorporates the interdisciplinary course of study he/she has pursued, and for critiquing and reviewing the reports of the other students and faculty participants.