Humanities Major Requirements

A total of 54 credit hours is required for the major.

  1. Introduction to Humanities courses* (9 hours): 

    • HUMN 1001 Forms of Narrative (3 hours)
    • HUMN 1002 Visualizing Culture (3 hours)
    • HUMN 1003 Conflicts in History (3 hours)

  2. Flex course: one upper- or lower-division HUMN course (3 hours)

  3. HUMN 2000: Methods/Approaches to Humanities (3 hours)

  4. Upper-division HUMN courses (21 hours):

    Seven courses selected from the upper-division offerings taught by Humanities Program faculty (prefix HUMN).  These include courses on different periods, themes, geographical areas, cultural groups, theories, and more.

  5. Outside area of study (18 hours):

    To be fulfilled by choosing one of the following courses of study outside of HUMN:

    • A major, minor, or certificate in another discipline (additional courses may be necessary to meet the required 18 hours)
    • 12 hours in one discipline plus 6 hours in a different discipline
    • 18 hours chosen according to a common theme (to be determined in consultation with and approved by the Director of Undergraduate Studies)

*For anyone who is taking or has taken HUMN 1110, 1120, 1210, and/or 1220, note that these courses will count toward the introductory requirement and/or flex course. Please see your advisor or the Humanities Director of Undergraduate Studies if you have any questions.

Updates to the major start fall semester 2020. Students who added the major prior to Fall 2020 can opt to finish their degree according to the previous requirements or they may adopt the new requirements. We strongly recommend that students discuss the options with your advisor as well as Humanities Director of Undergraduate Studies Annjeanette Wiese. For the previous requirements, click here.

 

Further details:

Examples of disciplines for outside area(s) of study:

  1. English literature (Literature in translation may also fit here.)
  2. A foreign language/literature such as French, German, Italian, Russian, or Spanish (First year courses in a foreign language cannot be counted.)
  3. Art/Art History
  4. Music
  5. Philosophy
  6. Film Studies
  7. History
  8. Classics
  9. Psychology
  10. Sociology
  11. Political Science
  12. Cultural Anthropology
  13. Human Geography
  14. Women’s Studies
  15. Ethnic Studies
  16. Asian Studies
  17. Religious Studies
  18. Jewish Studies
  19. Linguistics
  20. Communication
  21. Creative Writing
  22. Theatre
  23. Dance
  24. TAM (CTD—Creative Technology & Design, previously Technology, Arts, & Media)
  25. INVST (Community Studies)
  26. Math
  27. Ebio (Ecology and Evolutionary Biology)
  28. And more!

NB: Some disciplines are easier to access than others, due to the difficulty of getting into enough upper-division classes. Please see the HUMN advisor before making the final choice of your outside area(s).

Honors

Students who wish to receive honors can elect to write an honors thesis through The Humanities Program or through the Honors Department. More information is posted under the Honors program tab. The Humanities Department Honors Representative is Dr. Annje Wiese, annjeanette.wiese@colorado.edu.

 

Course Choice Guidelines

Although the Humanities major allows a breadth of choice, there are a few restrictions on which courses may count for the major. In addition, there are some cross-listed courses that may count although they have been taken in another department. These restrictions and possibilities are in part based on the option for outside areas of study a student chooses. Therefore, frequent consultation with the departmental advisor is required to clarify which courses apply to an individual student’s major plan.

Some of the restrictions are as follows:

Up to 9 hours of lower-division AP and/or IB credits may be applied towards the outside areas of study; however, no more than 6 credits may be used in any one discipline.

Internships may not count as upper-division HUMN but may count in an outside area if appropriate to that area.

No more than three hours of Independent Study or Honors Thesis may count as upper-division HUMN. 

  • If more hours are taken, they may count in an outside area with permission of the undergraduate advisor.
  • All upper-division Independent Study and Honors Thesis hours count towards the general upper-division hours requirement (45 hours for students in Arts and Sciences).

To clarify which courses count and which do not, see the program advisor.