21 courses with the subject HU, each shown exactly as we captured it from the college's catalog, with every element we hold. Where the wording looks broken, that is our reading of the catalog, not the college's text.
HU 00010004 Humanities Core
World Literature and Culture 4 hrs weekly/3 credits per semester Study in the humanities core includes a four-semester sequence of core seminars–Foundational Visions, The Questing Self, Rebels & Revolutions, and The Artist & Society–as well as a complementary set of lectures entitled The Advance of Civilization: Primitive to Postmodern. The core seminars are the central component of the humanities program, organized thematically, surveying seminal works of world literature, and offering students the opportunity to discuss life enhancing ideas as they formulate a viable personal philosophy. The community formed by the students’ collective endeavor constitutes the most valuable resource of the core, a community in which students develop a voice and an identity to ensure their meaningful participation in society. The core seminars direct students to some of the most significant historical events, celebrity figures, and literary works that have shaped cultural history, in an effort to foster intellectual debate and stimulate evaluation of the rich cultural legacy we have inherited. Open to undergraduates only in the fall and spring semesters.
3 hrs weekly/3 credits/Fall semester An interdisciplinary survey featuring works of literature, political philosophy, psychology and film that examines the conflicting impulses of revolution and reform, idealism and practicality, as driving forces towards the reconfiguration of society ranging from the Renaissance to the contemporary world. Motivated by a utopian vision of the future, the rebellious individuals showcased in the course act as catalysts for sociopolitical change and challenge to the oppressive forces that constrain human freedom. Readings to be selected from the following pool of resources: More's Utopia, Machiavelli's Prince, Shakespeare's Julius Caesar or The Tempest; Enlightenment works by Hobbes, Locke, Jefferson, Wollstonecraft, Douglass; Romantic works by Blake, Shelley, Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman; Marx, Ibsen, Nietzsche, Conrad, Woolf, Freud, Jung; Gandhi, the Beats & Hippies, Civil Rights activists; Hong Kingston, Allende, Angelou, Garcia Marquez; essays and short stories. Students are encouraged to make connections between the revolutionary programs advocated by these writers and contemporary political events. The lecture component of the course will focus on the 19th century as an age political and cultural revolution that led to the modern world. Investigation of selected literary works will be supplemented by an interdisciplinary approach that imports musical selections, images of artworks, historical and biographical documentaries, and film into the classroom to achieve course goals and connect the literature to contemporary issues.
3 hrs weekly/3 credits/Spring semester An exploration of aesthetics and artistic creativity focused on the changing role of the artist in society from the Classical to the Postmodern world. Topics for discussion will include the creative process, the psychology of the creative act and the phenomenon of inspiration, the nature of aesthetic experience, Beauty and Truth and their appeal to human 124 C ourse De scrip tions consciousness, the political & religious aspects of art; race, ethnicity, class, gender & sexuality as determinants of artistic identity and creative expression; the proximity of genius & madness, the workings of the imagination, and the destiny of the creative individual. The course offers an opportunity for young artists to more fully understand the vocational impulses, challenges and rewards that constitute the life of the artist, as well as the artist's contributions to communal and cultural accomplishment. Readings may be selected from a pool of resources including Platonic discussion of Beauty in The Symposium, Aristotelian notions of the value of theater, Nietzsche's idea of the Dionysian and the Apollonian, Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream or The Tempest, Romantic poetry by Blake and Keats, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Kandinsky's Concerning the Spiritual in Art, Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Woolf 's A Room of One's Own or To the Lighthouse, Modern poetry by Yeats and Stevens, and contemporary short stories that foreground the figure of the artist. Investigation of selected literary works will be supplemented by an interdisciplinary approach that imports musical selections, images of artworks, historical and biographical documentaries, and film into the classroom to achieve course goals and connect the literature to contemporary issues.
3 hrs weekly/3 credits per semester A study of the basic grammatical structures of the Italian language. The class is designed to provide the student with both a speaking vocabulary and a fundamental understanding of written Italian. by approved general Petition).
0 credits/ Summer Graduate and Undergraduate students An intensive 8-week summer immersion program, specifically designed for music students. Program includes classes, tutorials and conversation sections, all aimed at increasing studentsí readiness for regular course work during the academic year. Students will increase their proficiency in listening, speaking, reading and writing.
3 hrs weekly/3 credits/Fall semester A continuation of Summer English Study for undergraduate students who need further language instruction before taking the Humanities Core courses. May be counted for Humanities elective credit. (Open only to Undergraduates)
1 hr weekly/0 credits per semester Small-group meetings to support ESL students who are taking regular courses. The attendance policy for this course is the same as for major private lessons.
3 hrs weekly/3 credits/Spring semester Focused instruction on writing in English for undergraduate students. Preparation for the demands of the Humanities Core courses. This course is offered during the spring semester and can be taken at the same time as the Humanities Core. May be counted for Humanities elective credit. (Open only to Undergraduates) Petition. C ourse De scrip tions 127
Online-asynchronous/3 credits This course teaches students the basics of how human beings think, learn, perceive, develop socially snd physically, how we develop personalities, and how we behave in groups. In this semester long, exclusively online course, students apply psychological theories to improving their performances, reducing their stress levels, and understanding their identities as a people and artists.
3 hrs weekly/3 credits/Fall semester Various interpretations of the major tragedies, including Hamlet, Titus Andronicus, Macbeth, King Lear. Select film excerpts to heighten understanding of dramatic representation. Trips to off-off Broadway productions of Shakespeare. Class discussion will focus on Shakespeare's psychological, political, and social insights which still charm, disturb, offend, and enlighten his audience. (or by approved General Petition).
3 hrs weekly/3 credits/Spring semester A continuation of HU1660, this course examines the rise of contemporary America, explored through Turn of-the-Century Imperialism, the New Deal, the Second World War, the Cold War, the Civil Rights Movement and 1960's counterculture. Documentary film, movies, and music provide insight into trends in fashion and thought. Students journey to a restored tenement house to see early 20th-century urban poverty, to the top of the Empire State Building for a lecture on “The History of the Skyscraper,” and to the aircraft carrier Intrepid to learn about “Advances in
3 hrs weekly/3 credits/Fall semester This course is a journey which begins and ends with the question “Why do humans make art ?” We will travel from prehistoric caves to soaring Gothic cathedrals, and plumb the depths of the hearts and minds of some of the greatest artists of all time, such as Michelangelo. Eventually we will seek to understand the changes in society that led to our modern concept of art as an expression of the artist's interior life. 126 C ourse De scrip tions by approved general Petition).
3 hrs weekly/3 credits/Spring semester This course offers students an opportunity to investigate the theory and the practice of jazz as seen across the humanities. While considering the contributions and legacies of canonical jazz artists such as Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, and Charlie Parker, among others, we will also explore the interdisciplinary links between jazz as a form as seen within the visual and literary arts. Along the way, we will examine and reflect upon such ideas as jazz and spirituality, improvisation, the Manhattan skyline, the US Constitution, popular culture, and jazz as an institution of human knowledge. by approved general Petition).
3 hrs weekly/3 credits/Fall semester In this course we introduce basic concepts in film criticism by examining a selection of landmarks in the history of cinema. Through analysis of films in a wide variety of genres from the silent era to the 2000s, we will be able to explore the manifold ways in which motion pictures add a new dimension to the long human history of storytelling and narrative. Particular attention will be paid in this course to learning how to analyze visual texts through semiotic analysis. How do movies accomplish their aesthetic goals not only through their conventionally “literary” qualities (dialogue, voice-over narration), but also through the entire array of visual/auditory means at their disposal? Understanding the complex interplay between these fundamental characteristics of film will allow us to better explore cinema’s unique contribution to the history of narrative. by approved general Petition).
3 hrs weekly/3 credits/Spring semester In this course we will examine the culture of New York City by following an interdisciplinary approach to the historical, literary, sociological, cinematic, and even televised landscape of the city. From Walt Whitman and Herman Melville to William Burroughs and Jane Jacobs; From Woody Allen's “Manhattan” to Spike Lee's “Do The Right Thing” to Martin Scorsese's “Goodfellasî; from “The Jeffersons” and “All in the Family” to “Seinfeld” and “Law and Orderî; from Greenwich Village in the early part of the 20th century to Andy Warhol's Factory and the emergence of Punk and Hip Hop; we will be pursuing this interdisciplinary approach to the reading (and viewing) of core NYC texts. by approved general Petition). English as a Second Language
