Karen R. Lawrence, Dean
143 Humanities Instructional Building
Undergraduate Counseling: (949) 824-5132
Graduate Counseling: (949) 824-4303
World Wide Web: http://www.humanities.uci.edu/
School Requirements for Undergraduate Students
Interdisciplinary Program in African-American Studies
Interdisciplinary Program in Asian American Studies
Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures
Department of English and Comparative Literature
Department of French and Italian
Department of Spanish and Portuguese
Graduate Program in Visual Studies
Interdisciplinary Program in Women's Studies
The School of Humanities comprises three fundamental areas of knowledge: history; literature, film, and the arts; and philosophy. The intellectual activity of departments and programs in the School reflects the discrete concerns of these basic disciplines and intersections among them. By expanding our knowledge in these three areas and developing skills in rhetoric, expository composition, and foreign languages, humanists influence the fundamental techniques of communication used throughout the modern university and our whole society. They analyze and question those techniques and examine the web of cultural beliefs in which they are practiced.
At the core of the educational mission of the humanities is the goal of imparting to students critical tools of analysis, ways of seeing, knowing, explaining, describing, and understanding, that will allow them to comprehend the world around them. Consider some of the challenges that we all face: the pressures created by demographic change, rapid economic expansion, and increased ethnic and cultural diversity; the development of new technological forms, particularly those related to computers and the Internet; and the increasingly complex problem of human interaction with the environment. Equipping students to understand and analyze such phenomena is precisely what a liberal education in the humanities accomplishes. In the words of a "Manifesto for the Humanities," prepared for the President of the University of California, it is humanities that provide "the ability to express oneself clearly and accurately; the skill of critical evaluation, both of ideas and actions; the courage to make choices based on shared values and priorities; the opportunity to conduct an intensive conversation with the traditions, present and past, that help make us who we are, and above all, who we will be; and as a result, the ability to understand and make sense of other people and their cultures." Humanistic inquiry is in no way isolated from the "real world," cordoned off in some ivory tower; rather its central goal is to equip students to enter into that real world as critically thinking citizens.
Because language is the humanist's essential tool and the traditional medium of historical record, philosophical speculation, and literary creation and criticism, the School of Humanities places special emphasis on language and training in composition. The campuswide Writing Program is housed in the School of Humanities, as are our distinguished programs in creative writing and the Program in English as a Second Language.
The School of Humanities also offers programs in over a dozen foreign languages, both classical and modern, and requires that its majors take two years or the equivalent of foreign language study. The pursuit of critical literacy involves analyzing and understanding our immediate culture, and one way to do this is through the study of foreign languages and the cultural systems they entail. We rarely scrutinize or analyze something we know as intuitively as our native language, yet it is by means of this language that we organize and express our thoughts. The "foreignness" of a foreign language permits us to objectify an entire linguistic system, to observe its structure and its usage, and then to make comparisons with our own linguistic situation. The knowledge of one's native language, gained by this kind of comparative observation, is the foundation of critical reflection on texts of any nature--historical, philosophical, literary, political, legal, scientific, or other. Serious study of a foreign language is, therefore, crucial to any university education that aims at fostering critical thinking and objective self-reflection.
A crucial part of the School's curriculum is the Humanities Core Course, which integrates the study of philosophy, literature, film and the arts, and history along with lower-division writing. Interdisciplinary studies are also an essential feature of the Humanities Honors Program and programs in Film Studies and Comparative Literature. The Interdisciplinary Programs in African-American Studies, Asian American Studies, Latin American Studies, and Women's Studies are also located in the School. With faculties that draw on the Social Sciences as well, these programs are excellent examples of how the Humanities reaches across the boundaries of disciplinary knowledge. In addition, the interdisciplinary minor in Religious Studies is affiliated with the School of Humanities.
Because humanists deal analytically with the most complex problems and issues affecting people, and because they are especially adept at analyzing language and texts, students majoring in the humanities are particularly well-prepared for careers in all fields in which analysis, judgment, and argument are important. Students from the School of Humanities at UCI have moved into business, the law, education, politics, public policy, academia, and journalism. Employers in all sectors are placing increasing emphasis on the recruitment of college graduates who can write and think. These skills are ultimately more important to many employers than a specific form of technical training, and it is these skills that are imparted most effectively in the School of Humanities. For students who leave the School with a solid grounding in critical analysis, research, and communication, the sky is the limit.
| DEGREES | |
| African-American Studies | B.A. |
| Asian American Studies | B.A. |
| Art History | B.A. |
| Chinese Language and Literature | B.A. |
| Classical Civilization | B.A. |
| Classics | B.A., M.A., Ph.D. |
| Comparative Literature | B.A., M.A., Ph.D. |
| East Asian Cultures | B.A. |
| East Asian Languages and Literatures | M.A., Ph.D. |
| English | B.A., M.A., M.F.A., Ph.D. |
| Film Studies | B.A. |
| French | B.A., M.A., Ph.D. |
| German | B.A., M.A., Ph.D. |
| History | B.A., M.A., Ph.D. |
| Humanities | B.A. |
| Japanese Language and Literature | B.A. |
| Philosophy | B.A., M.A., Ph.D. |
| Russian* | B.A. |
| Spanish | B.A., M.A., M.A.T., Ph.D. |
| Visual Studies | M.A., Ph.D. |
| Women's Studies | B.A. |
* The degree program in Russian is not open to new students at this time.
Honors at Graduation
Students are nominated for honors at graduation on the basis of scholarship and special achievements. To be eligible for nomination the student must, by the end of the winter quarter of the senior year, file an Application for Graduation and meet the following criteria: (1) achieve a UC grade point average of at least 3.50, (2) complete at least 18 courses (72 units) in residence at a UC campus, and (3) receive strong recommendation from the major department. Eligible students are automatically considered for Honors at Graduation. Other important factors are considered.
172 Humanities Instructional Building; (949) 824-1948
John H. Smith, Director
Founded on the principle that humanistic inquiry plays a vital role in debates within and beyond academia, the UCI Humanities Center has three missions: to provide resources for research in the Humanities; to foster interaction among scholars; and to encourage dialogue between the UCI School of Humanities and the non-academic local community.
The Humanities Center fulfills these three missions through a variety of activities. It funds both individual and collaborative research projects of UCI faculty and graduate students; it houses fellows in residence; it initiates workshops, seminars, and lectures for the UCI academic community to share research results; it organizes and supports lectures and conferences, often with the UC Humanities Research Institute and various departments, to invite scholars to present their work; it hosts public forums, reading groups, and on-campus presentations for members of the non-academic community; and it produces and distributes its tri-annual newsletter, Between the Lines.
168 Humanities Instructional Building; (949) 824-8119
Julia Reinhard Lupton, Director
H.O.T. is an outreach program between UCI's School of Humanities and local schools. The program consists of a series of five-week workshops on selected topics in the humanities. Each quarter, there are at least twenty-five workshops on at least five different topics, including World Mythology, Creative Writing, Telemedia Literacy, and Literacy through Literature. Each workshop sends out a team of five or more undergraduates to a K-12 classroom, supervised by faculty and advanced graduate students in the humanities.
Requirements for undergraduates include: attending at least five training sessions at UCI; attending at least five tutoring sessions at a local school; submitting two electronic journals on the tutoring experience; and writing a three- to five-page paper with an academic focus. Undergraduates can earn two Pass/Not Pass units of H.O.T. credit each quarter.
The Humanities Instructional Resource Center (HIRC) and the Humanities Computing Facility (HCF) share space in Humanities Hall and provide comprehensive technology support for instruction, research, and faculty and staff development. HIRC and HCF also serve as the center for innovative technology-mediated instruction within the School of Humanities.
HIRC services and facilities include video and audio tape libraries, and audio production. HCF includes the computer laboratories, fee-based laser printing, video editing, and computing consultation. Both facilities provide technology-related research and development assistance for faculty, graduate, and undergraduate students. HCF houses two PC laboratories, one Macintosh laboratory, one drop-in laboratory (with both Macs and PCs) and one language laboratory. The facility has more than 100 stations. HCF also houses one analog and three digital video editing bays, a software library, and a wide range of computer services (scanning, document conversion, workshops, and more).
Both HCF and HIRC laboratories provide a wide variety of instructional resources including, among others, multimedia applications and development stations, foreign language word processing, Web browsing (including support for Chinese, Japanese, and Korean), and language learning materials. All laboratories are connected to a central server and to the campus backbone for access to the Internet, MELVYL®, and other research resources. The laboratories are available to Humanities students, instructors, and staff for class instruction and drop-in purposes.
Additional information may be obtained from the HCF Computer Consultant's Office, 213 Humanities Hall, telephone (949) 824-8493, or the HIRC main offices, 269 Humanities Hall, telephone (949) 824-6344.
143 Humanities Instructional Building; (949) 824-5132
World Wide Web: http://www.humanities.uci.edu/undergrad/
Robert G. Moeller, Associate Dean
In addition to 18 majors and 22 minors, the School also offers a formal concentration in Medieval Studies and courses in Italian, Portuguese, and Russian.
The academic counselors in the Humanities Undergraduate Counseling Office, located in 143 Humanities Instructional Building, help all students in planning a program of study. Transfer students in particular need to consult an academic counselor to determine major requirements. Students who expect to pursue graduate study also should consult with appropriate faculty members to ensure proper preparation.
A corps of lower-division advisors is designed to meet the special needs of freshmen and sophomores who are interested in the humanities but who have not chosen a major in the School. The advisors are particularly interested in undergraduate education and are especially knowledgeable about University regulations, requirements in and outside the School, course content, options to major, and other matters that may present difficulties. For the first two years, students in Humanities are encouraged to explore the various disciplines represented in the School. During that time the lower-division advisor is prepared to help the undeclared student keep options to a major open, plan a coherent program of humanistic study, and reach an eventual decision about the major.
Generally each major stipulates a one-year course that is both an introduction to the discipline and a prerequisite to the major itself. Students who plan wisely will construct programs that include a good number of such courses.
NOTE: In many undergraduate courses in the School of Humanities, additional meetings between individual students and the instructor may be required. Many courses are composed of both lectures and required discussion sessions.
Undergraduate students in the School of Humanities participate in the affairs of the School in a number of ways: by serving on committees of various departments, by sitting with the faculty in its meetings, by participating as mentors for new Humanities majors, by working as peer academic advisors in the Undergraduate Counseling Office, and by serving on the Humanities Council, which directly advises the Dean.
Humanities Peer Mentor Program
The Humanities Peer Mentor Program is designed to address some of the academic, cultural, and social needs of disadvantaged students in the School of Humanities. The program features two-tiered mentoring, with successful upper-division students mentoring small groups of new students, and the student mentors in turn working with faculty and staff. Another focus of the program is to encourage and assist student mentors to go on to graduate school.
Participants attend workshops on topics such as study skills, library research, time management, and careers, as well as a variety of social events, and keep journals in which they express their ideas and raise issues for their mentors. Call (949) 824-5132 for additional information.
143 Humanities Instructional Building; (949) 824-5132
Richard L. Regosin, Director
The Honors Program of the School of Humanities is a two-year, upper-division program designed to challenge superior students from all fields by providing special opportunities for interdisciplinary work within an intellectually charged framework. Small seminars and the opportunity for independent research are some of the advantages offered by the program, which is open by invitation to all UCI students regardless of their majors.
Students in the program benefit from their involvement in the campus community of Humanities scholars. They enjoy a close relationship with the faculty and profit from intense interaction with their intellectual peers. A comprehensive advising program involving Honors faculty advisors as well as specially trained Honors peer advisors ensures that Humanities Honors students continually receive timely, individualized advice about their academic careers. Formal as well as informal gatherings, including student-organized social activities ranging from coffee hours to theater parties, augment a wide range of campus activities. Humanities Honors students have the opportunity to become some of the campus' best informed scholars on a broad range of topics: from artificial intelligence to medical ethics, from Shakespeare to Gilbert and Sullivan, from problems of the ancient Near East to the dilemmas of modernity.
Humanities Honors students complete a two-part course of study. In their junior year, students take three quarters of an interdisciplinary Proseminar (Humanities H120) organized about a single topic or problem, such as crime and punishment, the other, the development of religion in the West, the self, nature, or the American dream. The sequence is designed to compare and contrast modes of analysis and critical thinking in history, literary studies, and philosophy. In a small seminar setting, students are encouraged to become reflective about their own chosen disciplines.
In their senior year, students take a sequence beginning in the fall with a Senior Honors Seminar (Humanities H140), and continuing in the winter and spring with the Senior Honors Thesis (Humanities H141) and the Senior Honors Colloquium (H142), prepared as an independent research project under the direction of a faculty member on a topic chosen by the student. Students present their theses in an informal gathering with their faculty advisors in the spring, and a prize is awarded for the year's outstanding thesis.
In both sequences the Honors students benefit from their close association with exceptional scholars and the challenge and support of their intellectual peers.
Students interested in learning how the Humanities Honors Program will fit into their regular courses of study are encouraged to contact the Senior Academic Counselor in Humanities; telephone (949) 824-5132.
The Campuswide Honors Program is available to selected high-achieving students from all academic majors from their freshman through senior years. For more information contact the Campuswide Honors Program, 1200 Student Services II; telephone (949) 824-5461; e-mail: honors@uci.edu; World Wide Web: http://www. honors.uci.edu/.
170 Humanities Instructional Building; (949) 824-8119
Robert Moeller, Director
The Humanities Internship Program is designed to bring highly qualified Humanities majors together with public sector employers and nonprofit companies in the Orange County area who are looking for employees with excellent skills in writing and communication. Local employers who participate in the program believe that Humanities students' education in critical thinking, writing, communication, and analysis equip them to be successful employees in their firms.
Most internships last two quarters. Interns work 10-15 hours a week for hourly salaries of $8-10. (No course credit is earned.) Employers offer management-level supervisors to student interns and thus, an intern does no menial tasks, but is instead involved in a meaningful aspect of the firm's ongoing business. In many cases, the internship relationship becomes the basis for long-term employment with the firm.
Interns participate in several quarterly meetings with a program coordinator at UCI to discuss their work experiences and benefit from one another's insights. At the end of the internship, the student provides an assessment of the experience. The program coordinator also conducts on-site visits with the interns and their management supervisors.
The Internship Program is open to all Humanities majors who are in good academic standing and will have completed at least three quarters of academic work at UCI by the end of the quarter in which they are selected for the program. Only students who will have completed the Humanities Core Course (or the Core Course substitution) by the end of that quarter will be eligible.
Applications are available in the Humanities Undergraduate Study Office, 143 Humanities Instructional Building, in mid- to late-winter quarter. The deadline for submission of all application materials is early May.
The Center for International Education, which includes the Education Abroad Program (EAP) and the International Opportunities Program (IOP), assists students in taking advantage of the many worldwide opportunities that exist for study, work, internship, volunteering, and research. School of Humanities majors and minors can benefit from a broader perspective of their fields by studying for one year at a university in such countries as China, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, Spain, or the United Kingdom through EAP. Students can also augment their exposure to other cultures with programs sponsored through IOP. See the Center for International Education section of the Catalogue or an academic counselor for additional information.
University Requirements: See pages 54-59.
School Requirements
Satisfactory completion of the following, which must be taken for letter grades: Humanities 1A-B-C, taken in the freshman year*; two years of work in a single acceptable foreign language, either modern or classical (through 2C), or equivalent competence; quarterly consultation with an assigned advisor and the advisor's written approval for the program of study decided upon.
*Transfer students in all majors in the School of Humanities, except Asian American Studies and Women's Studies, may substitute for the Humanities Core Course appropriate course work in English composition, literature, history, and philosophy. Substitution is by petition; apply in the Humanities Undergraduate Counseling Office. See the Asian American Studies and Women's Studies sections for specific information about substitution courses for these majors.
NOTE: Within the beginning and intermediate foreign language instructional sequences (1A-B-C and 2A-B-C, and for Latin and Greek, 1A-B-C and 25), students must earn a grade of C or better in order to advance to the next level of instruction.
Foreign Language Placement. Placement tests are required for the following languages: Chinese, French, Japanese, Korean, and Spanish. Contact the UCI Testing Office for information; telephone (949) 824-6207; e-mail: testoff@uci.edu; World Wide Web: http://www.testingoffice.uci.edu/.
For other foreign languages, students entering UCI with previous foreign language training are placed as follows: in general, one year of high school work is equated with one quarter of UCI work. Thus, students with one, two, three, or four years of high school foreign language will normally enroll in 1B-, 1C-, 2A-, or 2B-level language courses, respectively. Exceptions must have the approval of the appropriate course director and the Associate Dean, Undergraduate Study. Transfer students may not repeat foreign language courses for which they received credit upon matriculation to UCI.
Foreign Language Advanced Placement Credit. Students cannot earn units or grade points at UCI in courses from which they have been exempted on the basis of Advanced Placement credit. However, since Advanced Placement awards a maximum of 8 units for scores of 3, 4, and 5, students may elect to take 2C or the equivalent for credit.
Native Speakers of Languages Other Than English. A native speaker of a foreign language, defined by the University as someone who attended the equivalent of secondary school in another country where the language of instruction was other than English, may be exempted from taking third-year language study in that language for some majors offered by the School of Humanities. In this case, the student must substitute appropriate upper-division courses in the major to replace the number of exempted courses. For example, if a native speaker of French is exempted from French 100A and 100B, that student must replace those two courses with two other upper-division French courses offered by the Department of French and Italian.
Repeating Deficient Foreign Language Grades. First- and second-year foreign language courses and third-year foreign language composition courses are sequential and each is prerequisite to the next. This is generally true also of fourth-year Chinese, Japanese, and Russian. Students wishing to repeat a deficient grade in one of these courses must repeat it prior to continuing on to the next level of the language. A student may not take a lower-level course for credit once a more advanced level has been completed with a passing grade.
Maximum Overlap Between Major Requirements: Students completing double majors within the School of Humanities may count no more than two courses for both majors simultaneously (i.e., a double major in Comparative Literature and Spanish can count only two upper-division Spanish literature courses for both majors).
Maximum Overlap Between Major and Minor Requirements: Students completing majors and minors within the School of Humanities may count no more than two courses for both a major and a minor. No course may be counted for two minors.
School Residence Requirement: At least five upper-division courses required for each major must be completed successfully at UCI. Completion of a minor program is optional; however, for certification in a minor, at least four upper-division courses required for the minor must be completed successfully at UCI. See individual major and minor requirements for specific courses. Exceptions are considered on a case-by-case basis and decided in consultation with the appropriate department or faculty member.
Off-campus Internship Policy. In most cases, Humanities students are not allowed to earn credit for off-campus internships. However, if a department or program determines that the internship is academically appropriate and promotes the student's academic goals, the student may take the internship as Independent Study and credit will be given.
A maximum of four units total may be earned for internships; however, the units may not be counted toward the student's major requirements. (No credit is given for paid internships, such as those offered through the Humanities Internship Program) The sponsoring department or program and the instructor will in all cases require a substantial academic product, such as a paper, growing out of the internship.
A student who wishes to seek approval for an unpaid off-campus internship and earn course credit must file an Independent Study form with the Humanities Undergraduate Study Office prior to beginning the internship.
176 Humanities Instructional Building; (949) 824-4303
Leslie W. Rabine, Associate Dean
The School offers a wide program of graduate degrees. Although the Master's degree is offered in most departments, the programs emphasize the Ph.D. and give distinct preference in admission to those students who intend to take that degree. Exceptions are the two-year Master of Fine Arts in English (Creative Writing) and the two-year Master of Arts of Teaching in Spanish. In addition to the seminars offered by the various departments, the School sponsors a number of interdisciplinary seminars annually. These courses are taught by faculty members from various departments. Further, several departments offer a few students the opportunity to do part of their work for the Ph.D. in a related discipline.
A limited number of students are accepted annually to study for teaching credentials. This program is a cooperative effort between the School and the UCI Department of Education.
Graduate students in the School of Humanities participate in the affairs of the School by serving on committees of the various departments and sitting with the faculty in its meetings.
