Mail Code: 94305-2005
Phone: (650) 724-1333. Fax: (650) 725-9306
Email: dlcl@stanford.edu
Web Site: https://humanitiescore.stanford.edu/
The undergraduate minor in Humanities provides Stanford students with a broad foundation in the humanities, emphasizing literature, philosophy, and history. The program combines this general knowledge with a focus on the particular cultures of a global region and allows students to reflect on and discuss many of the critical questions that arise everywhere that human beings live together.
Requirements
Students in any field qualify for the Humanities minor by meeting the following requirements.
Courses applied to the minor must be taken for a letter grade where offered, and must count for a minimum of 3 units; a grade point average (GPA) of 2.0 or better must be achieved in each course. All electives must be approved by the faculty directors. Bing Overseas courses may count with pre-approval of the faculty director Dan Edelstein. Transfer credit and AP credit do not apply to this minor. Courses applied toward the minor may not fulfill requirements for another degree.
The Humanities Core consists of:
- a required foundational lecture course, introducing students to key texts and ideas from antiquity that underpin major civilizations
- a required three quarter track exploring different intellectual and cultural traditions; students choose a track and take all three of the courses in it
- two additional courses in a humanities department chosen by the student. Students should consult with a faculty director on their choice of electives. Students choose between two options:
- pursue an in-depth sequence of two courses related to their track of choice within a single humanities department, or
- pursue a broader sequence of two courses related to their track of choice in two different humanities departments, ideally selecting from among the disciplinary gateway courses such as:
- ARTHIST 1B Introduction to the Visual Arts: History of Western Art from the Renaissance to the Present
- DLCL 100 CAPITALS: How Cities Shape Cultures, States, and People
- HISTORY 1A Global History: The Ancient World (not offered this year) or HISTORY 1B Global History: The Early Modern World, 1300 to 1800
- PHIL 1 Introduction to Philosophy
- TAPS 1 Introduction to Theater and Performance Studies
| Units | ||
|---|---|---|
| Foundation Course | ||
| Offered once a year; in 2017-18 it is offered in Winter Quarter | 3 | |
| Humanities: An Introduction to How Humans Think About Themselves | ||
| Traditions | 9 | |
| Students choose one track and take all three courses | ||
| European (9 total units, 3 per course, count toward the minor unit requirement) | ||
| Humanities Core: Great Books, Big Ideas -- Europe, The Ancient World | ||
| Humanities Core: Great Books, Big Ideas -- Europe, Middle Ages and Renaissance | ||
| Humanities Core: Great Books, Big Ideas -- Europe, Modern | ||
| East Asian (9 total units, 3 per course, count toward the minor unit requirement) | ||
| Humanities Core: Love and Betrayal in Asia | ||
| Humanities Core: Everybody Eats: The Language, Culture, and Ethics of Food in East Asia | ||
| Humanities Core: Technology and Media in Modern China and Japan | ||
| Electives | ||
| Take two humanities courses in consultation with a faculty director | 6 | |
| Total Units | 18 | |
Certificate
The Humanities Interdisciplinary Program offers a certificate to students who complete a three quarter HUMCORE sequence. To receive the certificate, a student must submit a request web form listing the courses taken. To receive the certificate, all courses must be for a letter grade where offered
Courses
HUMCORE 1. Humanities: An Introduction to How Humans Think About Themselves. 3 Units.
Ever since humans evolved, we have been asking ourselves what we are and how we should live. This course is an introduction to the answers that have been offered, asking why they have varied so much and how they might continue to change in the future. Combining literary, archaeological, and anthropological evidence from around the world with the insights of biology, psychology, and the social sciences, the class will trace the story from the origins of modern humans some 200,000-300,000 years ago forward to our own age. Central topics will include what makes humans different from other animals, whether there is a universal human nature, and how the humanities differ from the sciences. The course is intended as an introduction to the global history of humanistic thought and as a foundation for more detailed study in the humanities.
Same as: CLASSICS 38
HUMCORE 11. Humanities Core: Great Books, Big Ideas -- Europe, The Ancient World. 3 Units.
This course will journey through ancient literature from Homer to St. Augustine; it will introduce participants to some of its fascinating features and big ideas; and it will reflect on questions such as: What is a good life, a good society? Who is in and who is out and why? What is the meaning of honor, and should it be embraced or feared? Where does human subjectivity fit into a world of matter, cause and effect? When is rebellion justified? What happens when a way of life or thought is upended? Do we have any duties to the past?.
Same as: CLASSICS 37, DLCL 11
HUMCORE 12. Humanities Core: Great Books, Big Ideas -- Europe, Middle Ages and Renaissance. 3-4 Units.
This three-quarter sequence asks big questions of major texts in the European and American tradition. What is a good life? How should society be organized? Who belongs? How should honor, love, sin, and similar abstractions govern our actions? What duty do we owe to the past and future? The second quarter focuses on the transition from the Middle Ages to Modernity, Europe's re-acquaintance with classical antiquity and its first contacts with the New World. Authors include Dante, Shakespeare, Machiavelli, Cervantes, and Milton.
Same as: DLCL 12, ENGLISH 112A, FRENCH 12
HUMCORE 13. Humanities Core: Great Books, Big Ideas -- Europe, Modern. 3-4 Units.
This three-quarter sequence asks big questions of major texts in the European and American tradition. What is a good life? How should society be organized? Who belongs? How should honor, love, sin, and similar abstractions govern our actions? What duty do we owe to the past and future? This third and final quarter focuses on the modern period, from the rise of revolutionary ideas to the experiences of totalitarianism and decolonization in the twentieth century. Authors include Locke, Mary Shelley, Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, Weber, Primo Levi, and Frantz Fanon.
Same as: DLCL 13, FRENCH 13, HISTORY 239C, PHIL 13
HUMCORE 21. Humanities Core: Love and Betrayal in Asia. 3-5 Units.
Why are lovers in storybooks East and West always star-crossed? Why do love and death seem to go together? For every Romeo and Juliet, there are dozens of doomed lovers in the Asian literary repertoires, from Genji¿s string of embittered mistresses, to the Butterfly lovers in early modern China, to the voices of desire in Koryo love songs, to the devoted adolescent cousins in Dream of the Red Chamber, to the media stars of Korean romantic drama, now wildly popular throughout Asia. In this course, we explore how the love story has evolved over centuries of East Asian history, asking along the way what we can learn about Chinese, Japanese, and Korean views of family and community, gender and sexuality, truth and deception, trust and betrayal, ritual and emotion, and freedom and solidarity from canonical and non-canonical works in East Asian literatures.
Same as: CHINA 117, JAPAN 117, KOREA 117
HUMCORE 22. Humanities Core: Everybody Eats: The Language, Culture, and Ethics of Food in East Asia. 3 Units.
Many of us have grown up eating "Asian" at home, with friends, on special occasions, or even without full awareness that Asian is what we were eating. This course situates the three major culinary traditions of East Asia--China, Japan, and Korea--in the histories and civilizations of the region, using food as an introduction to their rich repertoires of literature, art, language, philosophy, religion, and culture. It also situates these seemingly timeless gastronomies within local and global flows, social change, and ethical frameworks. Specifically, we will explore the traditional elements of Korean court food, and the transformation of this cuisine as a consequence of the Korean War and South Korea¿s subsequent globalizing economy; the intersection of traditional Japanese food with past and contemporary identities; and the evolution of Chinese cuisine that accompanies shifting attitudes about the environment, health, and well-being. Questions we will ask ourselves during the quarter include, what is "Asian" about Asian cuisine? How has the language of food changed? Is eating, and talking about eating, a gendered experience? How have changing views of the self and community shifted the conversation around the ethics and ecology of meat consumption?.
Same as: CHINA 118, JAPAN 118, KOREA 118
HUMCORE 23. Humanities Core: Technology and Media in Modern China and Japan. 3-5 Units.
This course considers the political, economic, social, cultural, and artistic effects of the introduction of new technologies and media to modern China and Japan. The methodology will integrate techniques gleaned from the disciplines of history and literary studies. Our cross-discipline exploration will encompass printed books and images, language reform, communication technology, serialized fiction and commercial journalism, propaganda and censorship, cinema, comics, animation and television, gaming, and the internet. Through examination of these topics we will investigate a wide range of issues including nationality, ethnic identity, class, revolution, cultural identification, gender, sexuality, literacy, colonialism, imperialism, consumerism, materialism, and globalism, to name just a few. Throughout the course we will be attentive not only to the ways that new technology and media are represented in cultural materials but also how they are materialized in these products through the acts of adaptation, translation, transliteration, and remediation.nnStudents will survey, collect, and synthesize archival materials, engage in media analysis, and undertake close readings to illuminate narrative strategies and other signifying effects. This work will in part be facilitated by the Massive Multiplayer Humanities pedagogical model, which involves flipped classrooms, faculty curated online archives, and student initiated group work.
Same as: CHINA 119, HISTORY 194G, JAPAN 119
