Explore

What does it mean to live the good life? What do human beings hold sacred and why? What was it like to live in one of the great cities of the world at the height of its importance? How have the experiences of leaving and arriving shaped culture and history? Explore some courses clustered by theme and open a window into a new world.
 

	The Medical Humanities Storytelling and listening are central to understanding medical and physical circumstances and to diagnosis and treatment.  Explore courses which link literature, philosophy, reasoning and writing with our understanding of medical, ethical and biosocial realities.
	The Body Investigate some courses exploring the concept and experience of the body from the outside in, and from the inside out.
	Things Postcards, relics, artifacts, Japanese picture scrolls and household tools – how do these objects both shape and reflect the cultures in which we find them?  How are we shaped by the material objects we make and consume? Explore these questions in some of our courses.
	Gender Virgins and vamps, quilt makers and the dynamics of Japanese anime girl culture. Explore some courses involving gender and sexuality in books, religions, societies, and performance.
	The Dream Novels, fiction films and improvised jazz: extended dreams shared with others by the dreamer. Explore some courses involving  many forms of the dream, from those created in the ”golden age” of American cinema to the art of delirious montage.
	Leaving and Arriving Human and political history has been shaped by waves of leave-taking and arriving.  Explore  some courses examining how people down through the ages – medieval pilgrims, exiled Jews, immigrant Muslims in modern-day Europe and subsequent waves of American immigrants – have captured the experience of  going and coming, of departing and arriving.
	The Hero From Cu Chulainn to Don Juan and El Cid to Don Quixote, heroes, tricksters, rogues and outlaws have lent various nuances to the term “heroic.”  Examine their roots in the oral traditions and explore in some of our courses their enduring influence on modern theater and performance.
	The City From the glories of antique Rome to the path of Leopold Bloom’s footsteps in James Joyce’s Dublin, the city has exerted a powerful influence on the life of the imagination. Investigate some courses exploring ancient Jerusalem, Harlem during its jazz-age renaissance, and the new global cities of Southeast Asia.
	The Sacred What have human beings held to be sacred down through the centuries and across varied cultures? What role do rituals play in the life of a society? Where do religion and social change connect and how do we grapple with the unanswerable questions at the center of life’s mystery? Explore these questions in some of our courses.
	The Good Life How do we define it? How do we live it? Explore these questions in some of our courses.
	Empire Explore themes of empire, colony and postcolony in the making of transnational worlds.  Investigate some courses involving architecture, literature and public performance and the roles they play in shaping the borders of governments, human societies, and cultural identities.
	Rebellion and Authority History has been shaped by rebels and their actions. Explore in some of our courses the lives of people who questioned the status quo and helped to bring about political, cultural and aesthetic change.