Yale Humanities Program

03/01/2023

On Thursday, March 2nd, 4:00 pm in HQ 276, Prof. Fumi Okiji (Berkeley) will give a talk entitled “The indispensability and inadequacy of jazz records,” the first of three lectures in our new “Voices in the Humanities” series. The talk will be followed by a reception to which students and Hums faculty are warmly invited.

On Thursday, March 2nd, 4:00 pm in HQ 276, Prof. Fumi Okiji (Berkeley) will give a talk entitled “The indispensability and inadequacy of jazz records,” the first of three lectures in our new “Voices in the Humanities” series. The talk will be followed by a reception to which students and Hum...

02/10/2023

On Friday February 10 at 1pm in HQL02, we’ll be welcoming our first Directed Studies colloquium speaker of the semester: Dr. Roosevelt Montás will be joining us to give a talk entitled: “Rescuing Socrates: Why the Great Books Today?”

Dr. Montás will be addressing questions like what is the meaning of liberal education today? What is the value of liberal education through the study of so-called “great books”? His talk aims to step back and consider in broad terms the premises and promises of liberal education. Why is it under threat in colleges and universities? Does the practice have an ideological bent? To what extent does it reproduce and to what extent does it challenge inherited structures of social privilege?

Dr. Montás is Senior Lecturer in American Studies and English at Columbia University and director of the Freedom and Citizenship Program, which introduces low-income high school students to the Western political tradition through the study of original texts. From 2008 to 2018, he served as director of Columbia’s Center for the Core Curriculum. He is the author of Rescuing Socrates: How the Great Books Changed My Life and Why They Matter for a New Generation, (Princeton University Press, 2021).

12/16/2022

Congratulations Alex! The program is proud of you.

08/10/2022

Freshmen, registration for first year seminars begins today, August 9, and ends Monday, August 15. Don't miss out!

The Humanities Program is excited to announce its first-year offerings for Fall of 2022, including the Six Pretty Good Ideas (6PGX) courses! Registration for first-year seminars opens on August 9.

05/19/2022

Congratulations Jared!

Jared Brunner (HUMS ‘22) was awarded the The Theron Rockwell Field Prize for “a poetic, literary, or religious work,” including creative writing or scholarship for his senior essay: “Nature’s Ax: Courtesy and Wilderness in the School of Chartres and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.”

01/14/2022

Check out our courses for the Spring of 2023! Pre-registration may have ended, but most of our courses don't require any such thing and add/drop period will continue for the first two weeks of class!

Below are a list of courses devised in the interdisciplinary spirit of the Humanities Program that are currently on offer. Not all courses are taught by faculty with official appointments in the Humanities Program, but all share the outlook and mission of the Program. HUMS Majors - click here for a....

10/18/2021

It is officially the 21st Week of the Italian Language in the World! Join us this Saturday for an amazing talk on the works of Dante Alighieri led Dr. Virginia Jewiss. Dante, L'Italiano is an event organized in collaboration with the Istituto Italiano di Cultura Washington and held in a lovely space sponsored by Women of Dartmouth.

Dante, who is regarded as the “Father of the Italian Language," brought literary authority and prestige to Italian vernacular in Medieval Italy. Selections from the De Vulgaris Eloquentia and Vita Nuova, will highlight Dante’s extraordinary linguistic creativity and his enduring contributions to the beauty and power of Italian.

Dr. Jewiss received her PhD in Italian literature from Yale University and taught at Dartmouth College and Trinity College’s Rome campus before returning to Yale as Senior Lecturer in the Humanities. Her forthcoming translation of Dante’s Vita nuova will be published in May 2022.

This event is free to the public and will be held both online and in person with limited seating. Please RSVP at the following link:
https://italianculturalsociety.org/events/

We can't wait to see you there! 🇮🇹

08/28/2021

Students -- the Humanities Program will participate in the Virtual Academic Fair at 2:00pm on August 31. Join at the link below to learn more about our academic offerings from first-year seminars to our signature major in the Humanities:

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08/16/2021

Welcome Class of 2025!

We're excited to see you in the classroom soon. As you get ready to move in, we wanted to remind you that preference selection for first-year seminars opens today on Monday, August 16, and closes on Friday, August 20. The first-year seminar program offers a unique opportunity for first-year students to take small-sized classes taught by some of Yale's most distinguished faculty. This year, the Humanities Program is excited to offer a number of intensive introductory seminars to the humanities at Yale under the heading "Six Pretty Good Ideas" , which pairs close-reading with writing labs and field trips to Yale's collections and galleries. We also have more specialized offerings examining topics ranging from the meaning of the good life in different spiritual traditions to the relationship between knowledge in medicine and physics and the humanities.

Please click the link below to see our full range of offerings!

All questions may be directed to DUS Paul Grimstad at: [email protected]

The Humanities Program is proud to sponsor several exceptional courses of study exclusively for first years. Apart from Directed Studies, an intensive introduction to the Western tradition of arts and letters, and Six Pretty Good Ideas, a less conventional introduction to the humanities at Yale, we....

08/16/2021

On August 6, 2021, Donald Kagan, Sterling professor emeritus of classics and history and former dean of Yale College died at the age of 89.

06/11/2021

We recently held a major conference on "Judgment and Value in the Humanities." Recordings for this event can be accessed here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLeusDRTB9VdZHP0Ed7lhkvodF431ELC9Q

04/13/2021

Our Franke and Shulman Seminars have also been announced.

By the way - HUMS majors, we are also experimenting with allowing a much larger number of courses to count for Interpretations and Modernities requirements. Please check the core seminars page for spring seminar topics.

The Franke Seminars and Lectures are intended to present important topics in the humanities to a wide and general audience, and to tie interdisciplinary undergraduate education to the work of distinguished visiting scholars. Next year’s seminar, Mass Incarceration in the Soviet Union and United St...