Humanities

The humanities are concerned with the complex, ever-evolving questions of what it means to be human. The humanities equip us to make critical and difficult choices, to recognize the difference between what is right and what is easy, and to take responsibility for our choices. 

The Faculty of Humanities offers a number of courses that reflect our values, mission and strengths. 

Fall 2024

HUMA 120A: Making of Intellectual Life

Instructor: Michael Reed

From the Greco-Roman through the Medieval and Renaissance periods, this course explores the world of ideas that shaped our ways of thinking and of living together through a survey of intellectual inquiry and of its traditions, including philosophy, religion, literature, art, music, mathematics, physics and astronomy.

Spring 2025

HUMA 120B: Making of the Modern Mind

Instructor: Michael Reed

From 1500 to the present, this course explores how challenges to authority built the modern world and defined progress, doubt, individuality, equity and plurality through a survey of the main questions about the world, humankind, science and society as they have been addressed by scholars, scientists and artists.