The Program in Humanistic Studies announces the Fall 2021 courses which are open to students from all concentrations. HUM courses are broad-based, interdisciplinary, and often team-taught. They have no prerequisites and fulfill requirements towards the interdisciplinary Humanistic Studies certificate.
For full course descriptions and all other HUM courses, visit the Humanistic Studies website.
New Fall 2021 Courses
HUM 450 / ARC 450 / ART 482 / ECS 450
EMPATHY AND ALIENATION: AESTHETICS, POLITICS, AND CULTURE
Brigid Doherty (Art & Archaeology, German) Spyros Papapetros (Architecture)
A seminar addressing the dynamics of empathy and alienation across a range of discourses and artifacts in European culture.
HUM 470 / CLA 470 / MUS 470
INTERDISCIPLINARY STUDIES IN THE HUMANITIES: ABANDONED WOMEN
Denis Feeney (Classics)
Wendy Heller (Music)
A team-taught interdisciplinary seminar which traces the fates of a series of abandoned women in ancient literature, interweaving their stories with responses in operatic and musical formats from the modern world.
Core Courses
HUM 216 – HUM 217
INTERDISCIPLINARY APPROACHES TO WESTERN CULTURE I: LITERATURE AND THE ARTS, HISTORY, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION
Moulie Vidas (coordinator, Religion)
Matthew Delvaux (History)
Barbara Graziosi (Classics)
Daniel Heller-Roazen (Comparative Literature)
Beatrice Kitzinger (Art & Archaeology)
Jhumpa Lahiri (Creative Writing)
An intensive year-long exploration of the Western intellectual tradition taught by a team of faculty drawn from across the humanities and social sciences.
HUM 233 / EAS 233 / COM 233
EAST ASIAN HUMANITIES I: TRADITIONS AND TRANSFORMATIONS
Martin Kern (East Asian Studies)
Brian Steininger (East Asian Studies)
An introduction to the literature, art, religion and philosophy of China, Japan and Korea from antiquity to ca. 1400.
HUM 247 / NES 247
NEAR EASTERN HUMANITIES I: FROM ANTIQUITY TO ISLAM
Johannes Haubold (Classics)
Daniel Sheffield (Near Eastern Studies)
A focus on the Near East from antiquity to the early centuries of Islam, introducing the most important works of literature, politics, ethics, aesthetics, religion, and science from the region.
HUM 335 / EAS 376 / HIS 334
A GLOBAL HISTORY OF MONSTERS
Federico Marcon (East Asian Studies; History)
An analysis of how different cultures imagine monsters and how these representations changed over time to perform different social functions.
HUM 365 / PSY 365
FREUD ON THE PSYCHOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS OF THE MIND
Susan Sugarman (Psychology)
What moves us to think and act? What is it to think and act? A close study of texts with particular attention to the underlying structure of the arguments.
