Humanities
In Humanities, students have the opportunity to shape an integrated, interdisciplinary program of study in art, philosophy, theology, literature, and history. In the course of their studies they will come to appreciate the distinct ways in which each discipline seeks to know and reflect the world in which we live. At the same time they will examine and evaluate the enduring insights of these disciplines in an effort to answer for their own lives the abiding private and public questions no person should escape or avoid.
Faculty Advisor:
Frank J. Ambrosio, Ph.D., Fordham University; Associate Professor of Philosophy, Georgetown University. His primary interest, the interdisciplinary study of the humanities, finds a particularly rewarding outlet in his leadership of the LSP study tours of Renaissance Florence conducted each year at the University's Villa Le Balze in Fiesole, Italy.
ambrosif@georgetown.edu
Degree Requirements
In order to earn a Master's degree in the Humanities curricular field, students must complete six courses in this field including one Core course and one Human Values course or two Core courses, and a three-credit thesis reflecting this field. To complete the total number of credits required for the MALS degree, 30 credits, three elective courses may be selected from any Liberal Studies courses or up to two courses at the University appropriate to this degree with the approval of the Program Director. The selected curricular field will appear on the final transcript of record.
Curricular Field
Click here for the current pamphlet describing the requirements for this field and the listing of its courses and faculty advisor. The following courses are a sampling of recent course offerings in this field.
Curricular Field Core:
Alienation and Self-IdentityArt, Creativity, and Gender
Art, Creativity, and the Sacred
Art, Culture, and Values
Classic and Romantic: Styles and Values in Western Culture
Critiques Of Religion
Fragmentation and Reintegration
Literature in the Modern World
The Ethics of Aristotle and Kant
The Founding Era: The Great Debates
The Myth of the Hero
Theologies in Conflict
Curricular Field Elective:
A Sense of Place: Values and IdentityAdam and Eve in Theology and Image
Al Farabi and Medieval Islamic Philosophy
American Art
American Workers and the Pursuit of Happiness
Artist As Genius
Artists as Rebels and Martyrs
Artists as Revolutionaries
Chaucer's Canterbury Tales and the Late Medieval Renaissance
Christian Orgins
City Lab - Geneva Experience
Detective Fiction and Cultural Values
Heroes and Saints: Tracking the Values Genome
Immigrant Literature and the American Experience, 1965 to the Present
James Joyce: A Culture and Literary Study
Medieval Cathedrals,Gothic Architecture and Catholic Imagination
Orientalism: Western Perceptions of Near Eastern Culture and Values
Roman Heroes and Villains
Russia: Politics and Culture through Literature and Film
Slavery and Roman Culture
The 1960s: Culture and Conflict
The Consequences of Pragmatism: Law, Education, and Politics
The Early Roman Empire: Politics and Society
The Emergence of Western Political Philosophy
The Plays of William Shakespeare: Text and Performance
The World of Thomas Jefferson
Thucydides: The Greatest War... The Harshest Teacher
War Memories, Justice and Reconciliation: The Case of China and Japan
Your Family in History
Curricular Field Human Values:
American Literature and the American IdeaAmerican Religious Voices: Ralph Waldo Emerson and William James
Aquinas and Kant On Faith
Art and Ethics: Current Controversies in the Liberal Arts
Art and Terrorism
Arthur Miller: An Ethical Study
Becoming American: Immigration in Historical Perspective
Buddhism through Literature and Art
Christian God, Muslim God
Cinema and American Values
Classical Roots of American Founding
Classics in the Catholic Tradition
Dante: The Journey to Freedom
Ethical Problems in Contemporary Society
Existentialism: The Search for Meaning
Foundations of Modernity
Freedom and Slavery in American History
Gandhi's India
Global Bioethics
Images of Eve, Mary, and Fatima
Islam and the West
Pilgrimage, Travel, and Tourism
Religion and Conflict
Religion and Politics in the U.S.
Religion in America
Responsibility, "Luck," and Self-Respect: The Human Condition
Sex, Lies, and Theology: Theology after Freud
The Art of Biblical Literature
The Artist in the Community
The Book of Genesis: Literature, Ethics, and Theology
The Dalai Lama: Tibetan Buddhism in the Modern World
The Medieval Synthesis: Art and Religion in the Middle Ages
The New Testament and Social Justice
The Old Testament and Social Justice
The Problem of Evil
The World of Plato
Theological Issues in the 20th and 21st Century Fiction
Theology and Literature
Three Models of the Mind: Aristotle, Kant, and Contemporary Mind-Brain Issues
Understanding Catholicism
Understanding the Symbolic Language of Religion