NOTE: This requirement is part of the previous Core, and only applies to students on the 2023-24 or prior Bulletin years. Please see the current Core and graduation requirements here.

(one unit to be taken during the first three years)

Learning Objectives

Students in courses in Humanistic Approaches acquire an understanding of how humans have addressed fundamental questions of existence, identity, and values and develop an appreciation of these issues of intellectual and cultural experience. Students also learn to explicate and to evaluate critically products of human reflection and creativity.

Guidelines

  1. Humanistic Approaches courses examine products of individual or collective human reflection and creativity. Accordingly, courses may include literary or artistic works or other evidence of the beliefs, customs, and institutions of a culture or cultures.
  2. Courses in Humanistic Approaches introduce students to methodologies appropriate to the exploration of beliefs about human existence, identity, and values.
  3. Humanistic Approaches courses explore these issues over time or across cultures.

Approved Courses

  • AFAM 101 Introduction to African American Studies
  • AFAM 205 Survey of Race and Culture in Ethnic Literature
  • AFAM 305 Black Fictions and Feminisms
  • AFAM 310 African Diaspora Experience
  • AFAM/LTS 320 Race, Power, and Privilege
  • AFAM 400 The 1619 Project
  • ALC 225 Visualized Fiction: Cinematic Adaptations of Traditional Chinese Literature
  • ALC 310 Death and Desire in Pre-modern Japanese Literature
  • ALC 320 Self and Society in Modern Japanese Literature
  • ALC 325 Chinese Cinema: Ideology and the Box Office
  • ALC 330 Writing the Margins in Contemporary Japanese Literature
  • ALC 345 Revenge and Retribution
  • COMM 170 Introduction to Media Studies: Governmentality and Torture
  • COMM 171 Introduction to American Civic Rhetoric
  • COMM 180 Introduction to Critical Issues in Public Culture: Democracy and Identity in US Public Discourse
  • COMM 190 Introduction to Film Studies: Transnationalism and Modernity
  • ENGL 204 The American Dream: Loss and Renewal
  • ENGL 206 Literature by Women
  • ENGL 214 Science Writing
  • ENGL 231 Medieval and Renaissance Literature
  • ENGL 232 Romanticism, Consciousness, and the Psychedelic Renaissance
  • ENGL 234 American Literature and Culture: Colonial to Early National
  • ENGL 238 Afrofuturism
  • ENGL 250 Introduction to Literary and Critical Theory
  • GERM 202 Intermediate German
  • GERM 425 Nature and Human Being in the Anthropocene
  • GLAM 101 Introduction to the Ancient Mediterranean
  • GLAM 110 Before East and West
  • GLAM 130 Ancient Myth
  • GLAM 210 History of Ancient Egypt
  • GLAM 211 History of Ancient Greece
  • GLAM 212 History of Ancient Rome
  • GLAM 230 Ancient Epic
  • GLAM 233 The Ancient Novel
  • GLAM 323 Sex and Gender in Ancient Greece and Rome
  • GQS 201 Introduction to Gender, Queer, and Feminist Studies
  • HIST 102 Europe from Absolutism to Revolution, 1648 - 1815
  • HIST 103 History of Modern Europe, 1815 to the Present
  • HIST 112 Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages
  • HIST 113 Europe and the Mediterranean World, 1050-1650: A History in 100 Objects
  • HIST 152 American Experiences I: Origins to 1877
  • HIST 153 American Experiences II: 1877 to Present
  • HIST 224 Russia Since 1861
  • HIST 230 England from the Romans to the Tudors
  • HIST 245 Chinese Civilization
  • HIST 248 History of Japan: 1600 to Present
  • HIST 254 African American Voices: A Survey of African American History
  • HIST 280 Colonial Latin America
  • HIST 281 Modern Latin America
  • HIST 291 Modern Africa
  • HIST 293 Early Africa to 1807
  • HIST 371 American Intellectual History to 1865
  • HON 211 Metamorphosis and Identity
  • HUM 201 The Arts, Ideas, and Society: Western Tradition
  • HUM 202 The Psychedelic Renaissance
  • HUM 288 The Ideas of the Bible LAS 100 Introduction to Latin American Studies
  • LTS 200 Latina/o America: A Critical Introduction to Latina/o Studies
  • MUS 233 Introduction to Historical Musicology
  • MUS 330 Opera: Based on a True Story
  • PHIL 101 Introduction to Philosophy
  • PHIL 210 Ancient Greek Philosophy
  • REL 202 Introduction to the Study of World Religions
  • REL 203 Jesus and the Jesus Traditions
  • REL 204 Religions of the Book
  • REL 205 Introduction to Jewish Studies
  • REL 208 Yoga, Psychedelics, and Mind Science
  • REL 210 Comparative Christianities
  • REL 211 Islam in America
  • REL 212 Global Islam
  • REL 222 Antisemitism and Islamophobia
  • REL 231 Korean Religions and Culture
  • REL 233 Japanese Religious Traditions
  • REL 234 Chinese Religious Traditions
  • REL 323 Gender and Sexuality in Muslim Societies
  • SOAN 102 Introduction to Anthropology
  • STHS 100 Apes, Angels, and Darwin
  • STHS 200 History of Modern Science and Technology
  • STHS 201 Alchemy, Astronomy, and Medicine before 1700
  • STHS 344 Ecological Knowledge in Historical Perspective