Master of Humanities Curriculum*
Courses are not offered in any specific sequence. *HUM510, Introduction to Graduate Humanities, will be the first course taken in the program and can be taken concurrently with other courses. **HUM620, Independent Project, is the final course in the curriculum and can be taken concurrently with other courses.
Human Experience (Choose One):
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HUM 510 Introduction to
Graduate Humanities
Course introduces students to the important questions and issues in
the graduate study of the humanities through an overview of
research methods and research analysis with an emphasis on
appropriate writing style.
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HUM 592 Topics in the
Human Experience
Selected topics in the study of human experience. Topics may
include the idea of community, the role of religion, the historical
perspective of being human. The first one of the above running:
HUM 592 Topics in Human Experience: Recording the
Human Experience: How People Write Things Down A study of
writing systems: different types of writing systems, the history of
writing, and some psychological and sociological implications of
literacy.
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HUM 593 Topics in Systems
of Human Thought
Selected topics in the study of human
thought. Topics may include ideologies, religion, literature,
epistemology, scientific, or political belief systems.
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HUM 594 Topics in the
Systems of Human Practice
Selected topics in the study
of human practice. Topics may deal with historical, economic,
sociological, or aesthetic practice.
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HUM 550 Development of
Government Systems
This course will examine
governments from feudal systems to communist systems, and capitalist
systems, and how these systems influence society and the public
opinion. Students will compare various types of government from the
theoretical to the historic and examine the influences of these
systems on theory and actuality.
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HUM 554 Social
Practice
This is a course about exploration and
discovery of ideas and the world in an ever-changing society.
Through the examination of a variety of readings of classical and
contemporary humanistic readings in social practice, the course
explores a complex social world in which locations, pathways, and
boundaries are not fixed. The course also allows students to seek
connections between “private troubles and public
issues.”
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HUM 620 Independent
Project
This course requires that the student, with
the support and guidance of a faculty member, carry out an
independent research project, detailed position paper, or creative
project dealing with the human focus of the program.
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ART 524 Creativity and Its
Development
A study of how artists, writers,
composers, and scientists develop creativity and how to generate
new ideas, considered from psychological, educational, and artistic
points of view. Readings from psychologists, philosophers, and
artists, broadly defined.
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COM 520 Philosophy of
Communication
This course is a survey of the genealogy
of communication and how communication creates shared experiences
between people. Through a collection of readings, students will
examine how and why society thinks about communication the way it
does. Philosophy of Communication is generally concerned with
analytical, theoretical and political issues that cross different
discipline boundaries. It explores how people live their lives and
deal with the conflicts that are inevitable whenever communication
occurs in a society, whether in person, in groups, electronically
or through the mass media. Throughout the course, students are
exposed to the broader study of the field and how it relates to
contemporary philosophical arguments, positions and concerns. By
studying the historical and social contexts for communication,
students will come to understand and appreciate how meaning is
created through human interaction, more about themselves and how
they relate to others.
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CUL 511 Culture and
Identity
Course examines the creation and interplay of
cultural identity. May draw on readings from sociology, philosophy,
cultural studies, literary theory, and communication; students
examine major intellectual approaches to the formation and
consequences of culture. Approaches the topic through psychological archetypes and literary theory applied to literature and the contemporary world of conflict and cultural issues.
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CUL 515 Mythologies in
Human Experience
Selected readings in the nature of
myth as a working hypothesis whose object is to explain the world
and make its phenomena intelligible. Topics for study might include
the purpose and nature of myth, the major perspectives used to
analyze and understand myth, the role of myth as mediator between
past and present, the spiritual quality of myth, the transformation
of myth into objective reality, myth as symbol, etc. Texts may
include Greek, Roman, Celtic, Nordic and other world
mythologies.
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ENG 530 The Culture and
Literature of Modernity
Readings in cultural and
literary identity: 1880-1920. Coming after Karl Marx, Charles
Darwin, and Sigmund Freud, the style and traditions of literature,
music, dance, and art took on a new reality that shattered old
artistic conventions. The course will examine the novels of
Virginia Woolf and James Joyce, the music of Igor Stravinsky and
American jazz artists, the art of the cubists, the dance forms of
Isadora Duncan and the evolution of modernism.
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NAT 517 The History and
Philosophy of Scientific Exploration
A study of the
history of how scientists described the methods and goals of
science. Selected readings from Archimedes, Aristotle, Newton,
Einstein and others.
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PHI 522 Reasoning, Logic
and Persuasion
A study of the development of reasoning
and formal logic and its relationship to persuasion and
argumentation which gives an overview of logical thinking,
distinguishing rational inquiry from mythological inquiry and
regulative thinking from associative thinking; articulates logical
thinking or reasoning as a process of making logical argument;
discusses three basic modes of reasoning in persuasion and
argumentation: deduction, induction, and abduction explaining their
practical applications in the studies of humanities; introduces
possible world semantics and thought experiments, which help the
participants to build logical foundations for developing rational,
independent, critical, and creative thinking.
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HUM 600 Readings Special
Topics
Allows an advanced student to develop the
readings plan and written evaluation process for a topic of
interest to that student, under the supervision of a faculty
member. Prerequisite: Completion of 18 hours in the MA Humanities
program.
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COM 580 Politics and the
News
Proposed description: This course will critically
analyze how the news media influenced public discussion of
political and social issues in the 20th and 21st centuries, as well
as examine how these issues were debated in the news. Drawing on
readings from political science, communications, and history,
students will also examine how political powers in mass democracies
use the news media as a mechanism of persuasion and social
control.
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ENG583 Poetics of Western
Drama
Readings from ancient dramatic works including
those of Sophocles, Euripides, Aeschylus, and Aristophanes.
Exploration of the unique nature and continuing significance of
Greek tragedy and Greek theater in the drama of Aeschylus,
Sophocles, and Euripides. All discussion will stem from
Aristotle’s Poetics as the basis for western dramatic
traditions and conventions. Topics of study from the texts will
include such issues as the tragic voice, the role of women, the
nature of heroism, human beings ’ relationship to the divine,
and the role of fate in human affairs. Prerequisite: Completion of
12 hours in the MA Humanities program
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