Humanities

What Is Humanities?

LMU's Humanities major provides an interdisciplinary and interdepartmental background in the liberal arts. The major meets the needs of students looking for programs that are broader than those offered within single departments.

The Humanities program values the ways in which cognitive, moral, and aesthetic disciplines have enriched our understanding of the human condition. Majors explore the arts, history, literature, languages and other disciplines. Courses are offered from departments including English, Art History, Archaeology, Philosophy, and Theological Studies.

The program is fine preparation for students interested in professional schools in law, business, or education.

What Do Humanities Majors Do?

Humanities majors learn how knowledge is pursued, established, and critically evaluated. They learn how artists convey a sense of the world’s surface and its depth. They also gain analytical and communication skills.

Humanities majors design their own programs in consultation with the director of an academic department. During the first portion of the major, students become familiar with the studio arts, art history, and a modern or classical language. During their junior and senior years, students choose an area of concentration in a liberal arts discipline. Two history courses and two literature courses provide perspective in the area of specialization.

Is This Major Right for You?

You might be a Humanities major if you:

Are thinking of a career in law, business, or education
Enjoy interdisciplinary studies
Are passionate about language
Are passionate about the arts
Like research and writing

About Our Faculty

Our faculty members are affiliated with departments across LMU. Their areas of interest include Italian cinema, contemporary Italian literature, ancient Greece, the Baroque period, Cicero, classical rhetoric, women in classical antiquity, Medieval Latin, and feminist theory.

Faculty members have organized conferences, been interviewed for documentary films, and authored books. They have written articles for a wide variety of publications.

About Our Students and Graduates

Students complete either a capstone project or a senior thesis. A capstone is a portfolio that summarizes the student's interdisciplinary course of study; a thesis is a text that integrates learned knowledge of language, literature, history, art history, and philosophy.

Our graduates receive solid preparation for careers in communications, journalism or publishing, as well as graduate study in law, business or education.

Representative Courses

Our courses have included:

Elementary Greek
Elementary Italian
Elementary Latin
Art of the Western World
Modernism
Philosophy of Human Nature
Beginning Acting
Ancient Comedy
Sex and Gender in Classical Antiquity
Philosophy of Science
Philosophy of Human Nature
Islam in the Modern World
Theology and History of Vatican II
Capstone Project
Independent Studies