About humanities
"The Humanities" refers to the study of human culture (culture = way of life) and how culture expresses man's search for understanding and meaning. So what? Well, at some point - maybe today, maybe tomorrow - you're going to ask yourself: "Self, who am I? How do I know who I am? Why do I matter?" Introduction to the Humanities will help you to find answers to these questions, so when you are start asking these questions, you'll be ready. Oh, almost forgot...we teach you how to read, write, listen, and speak, too!
Stanford University defines the subject as "the study of how people process and document the human experience."
In a humanities class, we look at the things people create and try to figure out what they mean. We study art, music, literature, history, language, religion, philosophy, and architecture. Then we ask questions and try to answer them. Here are some examples:
art
music
literature
"We Wear the Mask"
We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,—
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile
Why did Michelangelo paint Adam and God with their fingers almost, but not quite, touching?
Why is Woody Guthrie singing this
song about miners getting shot by soldiers?
Who wrote these lines about grinning
and lying? And why did he write it?
Where did this course come from?
The course of study known as the humanities was invented about 500 years ago during the Italian Renaissance. Scholars in this era knew they were living in a rapidly changing world (new technologies, connection with new people, exploration of new worlds, new ideas about life). Sounds a lot like the Twenty-first Century, doesn't it? These scholars saw a need to engage in a new type of learning, one that would focus on the one thing that is constant in a world of change: man.
The humanities program started at New Albany during the 1999-2000 school year. There is a required course, Introduction to the Humanities, for freshmen. Humanities courses are options for sophomores (Western Humanities) and juniors (American Humanities).
Want to know more? Check this out...
Why study the humanities? This document explains some of the purposes of studying the humanities. In this document, there are also short readings by notable authors explaining some of the details about the benefits of studying the humanities. Read the essays by David Brooks - he really gets the humanities and knows how to explain it all!