Academic Programs
Cluster Two: Arts and Humanities
Dr. Margaret M. Mulrooney, Coordinator
| Cluster 1 | Cluster 3 | Cluster 5 |
| Cluster 2 | Cluster 4 |
Cluster Two Structure
Cluster Two Learning Objectives
Cluster Two shows students what it means to live lives enriched by reflection, imagination, and creativity. It does so by offering each individual a multidisciplinary experience within the arts and humanities, those areas of endeavor that humans have long valued for their intrinsic worth and that invite a deeper appreciation of the human experience. The broadly stated goals for Cluster Two are:
- To introduce students to cultural, historical, aesthetic, and theoretical expressions of and questions about human experience.
- To expose students to multiple academic disciplines in the arts and humanities and their methods and unique perspectives.
- To inspire a deeper awareness of how the interplay between culture and expression affects both collective and individual identities.
- To foster appreciation of the aesthetic and formal qualities of literary, visual, and performing arts.
- To engage students in thinking critically and communicating clearly about enduring questions concerning human life, culture, and history.
Students complete nine credits by choosing one course from each of three groups: Human Questions and Contexts; Visual and Performing Arts; and Literature.
Group One: Human Questions and Contexts
Students will take one course from the list below. GAMST 200 takes an interdisciplinary approach to questions about American identity and shows how they reflect a complex interplay of cultural, historical, religious, and ideological perspectives. The GANTH and GHIST courses introduce students to the great cultures of the world by surveying the common patterns of experience that characterized Western, Middle Eastern, Asian, African Meso- and South American societies in the past. The GHUM courses are interdisciplinary, in-depth explorations of specific topics, cultures, periods or themes. The GPHIL and GREL courses explore the great inquiries into human existence and the ways different cultures across different time periods constructed their responses to questions concerning humans' existence and their relationship to nature, ultimate reality and the universe. Thus all of the courses in Group 1 emphasize central issues about the human condition and ways of studying values and beliefs as they are shaped by class, gender, race, historical events, philosophy and religion.
Choose one of the following:
GAMST 200. Introduction to American Studies
ANTH 205. Buried Cities, Lost Tribes: The Rise and Fall of Early Human
Societies
GHIST 101. World History to 1500
GHIST 102. World History Since 1500
GHUM 102. God, Meaning, and Morality
GHUM 250. Foundations of Western Culture
(Topics vary by section. Examples include: Ancient Greece, Rome)
GHUM 251. Modern Perspectives
(Topics vary by section. Examples include: The Enlightenment, Romanticism,
and Human Rights)
GHUM 252. Cross-Cultural Perspectives
(Topics vary by section. Examples include: East Asia, West Africa, Latin
American Cultures, Islamic Civilization)
GPHIL 101. Introduction to Philosophy
GREL 101. Religions of the World
Group Two: Visual and Performing Arts
Students will take one course from the list below. The art history surveys introduce students to the visual arts (whose history often has been interconnected with developments in music, dance and theatre/film); these surveys are organized chronologically, but focus distinctly on artistic perception and experience. The global music surveys explore history and the arts through the study of music: its development, aesthetics, forms and styles, and its context within the cultural communities that produced it. GART 200 and GMUS 200 are introductions to art or music in general culture; GTHEA 210 studies theatre as an art form including acting, directing, design, costuming, lighting; GMUS 203 explores America's musical landscape and examines the interconnections among music, art, and literature in historical periods.
In all Group 2 courses,students will examine the innate human aesthetic sense, sources of art and music appreciation, and the creation of art as both an expression of human creativity and a means of giving meaning to the world. Thus all the courses focus on the key areas of human creativity and expressiveness through the visual and performing arts - imaginative outpourings which have form, structure, meaning and aesthetic appeal that all students can come to appreciate.
Choose one of the following:
GART 200. Art in General Culture
GARTH 205. Survey of World Art I: Prehistoric to Renaissance
GARTH 206. Survey of World Art II: Renaissance to Modern
GMUS 200. Music in General Culture
GMUS 203. Music in America
GMUS 206. Introduction to Global Music
GTHEA 210. Introduction to Theatre
Group Three: Literature
Students will choose a course from the list below. The literature surveys provide students with extensive reading experiences of representative genres and authors and various critical approaches to literary texts, as well as opportunities to explore the complex ways that the literature both reflects and helps change or create the cultural and intellectual contexts of the times in which they are written. Students are expected to learn strategies for reading and interpreting any literary text so that they come to deepen their appreciation of the aesthetics, rhetorical strategies and meaning of a range of literary texts. Through the humanistic study of literature, students will also obtain a better understanding of themselves and their own culture as well as those of others.
Choose one of the following:
GENG 235. Survey of English Literature: From Beowulf to the 18th Century
GENG 236. Survey of English Literature: 18th Century to Modern
GENG 239. Studies in World Literature
GENG 247. Survey of American Literature: From the Beginning to the Civil War
GENG 248. Survey of American Literature: From the Civil War to the Modern
Period
GENG 260. Survey of African-American Literature
GHUM 200. Great Works
(Topics vary by section. Examples include: German Literature in Translation;
Speculative Fiction; Western Classics)
The courses in Group 3 are designated as "writing-infused." Students will write a minimum of 5000 words (about 15 pages double-spaced in a standard font) distributed among five separate, graded assignments. The courses thus afford students extensive opportunities to produce various genres of academic writing, as well as to develop more engaged and sophisticated reading strategies through exposure to interesting and thought-provoking texts.
Cluster Two Learning Objectives
After completing Group 1, Human Questions and Contexts, students will be able to:
- Question their own and others' opinions about and responses to the world.
- Apply the methods of the discipline(s) studied to material from the humanities.
- Identify and evaluate arguments using appropriate concepts and techniques to formulate logical arguments on the same basis.
- Demonstrate an understanding of broader cultural, historical, or conceptual contexts of particular issues, ideas, objects, or events - past and present.
- Appreciate appropriate humanities events (such as exhibits, films, performances or public lectures)
- Explain how artistic works and culture are interrelated.
- Recognize that the arts are accessible and relevant to their lives.
- Demonstrate disciplinary literacy (vocabulary, concepts, creative processes) in a major art form.
- Produce an informed response to the form, content and aesthetic qualities of artistic works.
- Appreciate arts events.
- Acknowledge relationships among the arts.
- Generate increasingly nuanced questions (interpretations, ideas) about literature and explain why those questions matter.
- Use appropriate vocabulary and tactics to analyze specific literary expressions of culture and the relationship between the reader, the author and text.
- Define ways that texts serve as arguments and identify rhetorical and formal elements that inform these arguments.
- Recognize appropriate contexts (such as genres, political perspectives, textual juxtapositions) and understand that readers may interpret literature from a variety of perspectives.
- Articulate a variety of examples of the ways in which literature gives us access to the human experience that reveals what differentiates it from, and connects it to, the other disciplines that make up the arc of human learning.
