Humanities

OFFICE: Galbraith Hall, Room 180, Revelle College
http://humanities.ucsd.edu

The Humanities Program offers interdisciplinary courses in history, philosophy, and literature, with a focus on major aspects of the Western humanistic tradition. In these courses, students examine the development of a wide variety of ideas and forms of expression that exert a major influence on modern America. Through lectures and class discussions, and through the writing of essays, students learn to interpret literary, historical, and philosophical texts and to conduct independent critical assessments of documents and ideas.

The sequence of courses, Humanities 1 through 5, meets the humanities and writing requirement of Revelle College. Instruction in university-level writing is part of all five courses, but students in Humanities 1 and 2 (six units each) receive intensive writing instruction.

Students must have satisfied the university’s Subject A requirement before registering for any part of the humanities sequence. Humanities 1 and 2 must be taken before Humanities 3-4-5.

For detailed description of the Revelle College humanities requirement, see “Revelle College, General-Education Requirements, Humanities.”

Courses

Lower-Division

1. The Foundations of Western Civilization: Israel and Greece (6)   Texts from the Hebrew Bible and from Greek epic, history, drama, and philosophy in their cultural context. Revelle students must take course for letter grade. Prerequisite: satisfaction of the Subject A requirement. (W)

2. Rome, Christianity, and the Middle Ages (6)    The Roman Empire, the Christian transformation of the classical world in late antiquity, and the rise of a European culture during the Middle Ages. Representative texts from Latin authors, early Christian literature, the Germanic tradition, and the high Middle Ages. Revelle students must take course for letter grade. Prerequisite: satisfaction of the Subject A requirement. (S)

3. Renaissance, Reformation, and Early Modern Europe (4)    The revival of classical culture and values and the reaction against medieval ideas concerning the place of human beings in the world. The Protestant Reformation and its intellectual and political consequences. The philosophical background to the scientific revolution. Revelle students must take course for letter grade. Prerequisite: satisfaction of the Subject A requirement. (F)

4. Enlightenment, Romanticism, Revolution (1660–1848) (4)    The enlightenment’s revisions of traditional thought; the rise of classical liberalism; the era of the first modern political revolutions; romantic ideas of nature and human life. Revelle students must take course for letter grade. Prerequisite: satisfaction of the Subject A requirement. (W)

5. Modern Culture (1848–present) (4)    Challenges to liberalism posed by such movements as socialism, imperialism, and nationalism; the growth of new forms of self-expression and new conceptions of individual psychology. Revelle students must take course for letter grade. Prerequisite: Satisfaction of the Subject A requirement. (S)

195. Methods of Teaching Humanities (4)    An introduction to teaching humanities. Students are required to attend weekly discussions on methods of teaching humanities, and will teach discussion sections of one of the humanities courses. Attendance at lecture of the course in which the student is participating is required. (P/NP grades only.) Prerequisite: consent of instructor. (W,S)

199. Special Studies (2-4)    Individually guided readings or projects in area of humanities not normally covered in standard curriculum. Prerequisite: upper-division standing or consent of instructor.

200. Seminar in the Humanities (4)    Selected topics in the history, literature, and thought of Mediterranean antiquity and its successor-cultures. Emphasis on identifying both common themes and cultural distinctiveness. Discussion of pedagogical approaches to this material. Required of all graduate instructional assistants in the humanities sequence. Prerequisite: graduate standing. (F)

The Humanities Minor

The humanities minor consists of at least seven courses chosen from the listings of the Departments of History, Philosophy, Literature, Visual Arts, Music, and Theatre. All seven courses may be selected from the upper-division offerings, but at least five upper-division courses must be included. Students for whom Humanities 1-5 fulfill general-education requirements may use two of these courses towards fulfillment of requirements for the humanities minor.

For students who entered UCSD before January 1, 1998, the required number of courses for the minor is six courses, at least three of which must be upper-division.

Courses selected for the minor must be selected from the offerings of more than one department. They must concern themselves with more than one historical, national, or ethnic culture; and they must offer broad treatment of centrally important topics in the humanities. Thus, a course on the history of the United States since the Civil War would be appropriate for the humanities minor, while a course in the history of California would not.

Here are some examples of study lists appropriate for the present humanities minor:

Example 1:

History: HILD 2AB: United States
History: HILD 11: East Asia and the West
Literature: LTEA 110B: Modern Chinese Fiction in Translation
Philosophy 160: Ethical Theory
Philosophy 153: Philosophy of History

Example 2:

History: HILA 102: Latin America in the Twentieth Century
History: HIAF 110: History of Africa to 1880
Literature: LTAM 110: Latin American Literature in Translation
Literature: LTEN 184: African-American Poetry
Music 114: Music of the Twentieth Century
Visual Arts 126DN: African and Afro-American Art

Example 3:

Literature: LTEN 145: The English Novel in the Twentieth Century
Literature: LTEN 146: Women and English/ American Literature
Literature: LTNE 100: The Bible and Western Literature
Philosophy 175: Aesthetics
Philosophy 177: Philosophy and Literature
Theatre: TH/HS 11: History of Theatre I: Classical to Renaissance

Students should review their plans for the minor with the humanities adviser as well as with the advisers in their college. Before undertaking the minor, students must submit a study list for approval to the humanities office.

The Humanities Majors

Normally, students interested in majoring in humanities must choose a specific major in the humanities departments, i.e., history, literature, or philosophy. But students from Revelle and Muir Colleges may request to graduate with an approved individual/special project major in the humanities. Humanities