Humanities Courses

HIS 219

This course will introduce students to the fundamentals of writing history. Students will learn to both identify and make historical arguments, use primary and secondary sources to appropriately support an argument and successfully sustain an argument throughout academic papers of varying lengths. Students will develop their writing by editing and revising multiple drafts of papers.

Prerequisites: WRT 108 Enhanced Synthesis and Research Writing , WRT 109 Synthesis and Research Writing
With a final grade of C- or better.
Problem Solving/Critical Thinking, Writing Intensive
PHL 220

A survey of the history of philosophy, focusing on Plato, Aristotle, St.Thomas Aquinas, Descartes, Hume, Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, Russell, Dewey. Variable content. This course may be repeated for credit, as long as the content is varied.

Prerequisites: WRT 108 Enhanced Synthesis and Research Writing , WRT 109 Synthesis and Research Writing
with a final grade of C- or better.
ENG 222
Also Known As: AFS 222 , WMS 222

(Also AFS/WMS 222) Selected poetry, drama, fiction, autobiography, and essays by African-American authors, with emphasis on literary excellence. Authors range from Phillis Wheatley to Frederich Douglas, Imamu Amiri Baraka, Alice Walker, and Ishmael Reed. Lecture, discussion.

Prerequisites: WRT 108 Enhanced Synthesis and Research Writing , WRT 109 Synthesis and Research Writing
With a final grade of C- or better.
Transcultural & Global Awareness
ENG 223
Also Known As: WMS 223

(Also WMS 223) This course focuses on literature in English written by women. We study themes and techniques common to the literature by women. From the late Middle Ages until the present, we examine texts that challenge beliefs about female inferiority, promote a women’s perspective on gender and allow for a discussion of self-esteem, motherhood, privacy and women’s power.

Prerequisites: WRT 108 Enhanced Synthesis and Research Writing , WRT 109 Synthesis and Research Writing
With a final grade of C- or better.
Aesthetic Appreciation, Writing Intensive
COM 224

(Formerly JOU 224) This course focuses on the basics of journalism reporting and writing. It will introduce students to the fundamentals as well as modern techniques in news gathering and writing. Students will report and write stories as an entry level journalist. Sessions will involve class writing as well as discussions and analysis of news coverage.

Prerequisites: WRT 108 Enhanced Synthesis and Research Writing , WRT 109 Synthesis and Research Writing
Minimum grade C- or higher
Writing Intensive
HIS 225
Also Known As: AFS 225

(Also AFS 225) This course explores the African American struggle for freedom after Reconstruction. Of articular concern will be the economic, political, social and cultural struggles that African- Americans waged to secure freedom and justice in the face of racial segregation and injustice. This is the second course in the African- American survey.

Prerequisites: WRT 108 Enhanced Synthesis and Research Writing , WRT 109 Synthesis and Research Writing
With a final grade of C- or better.
Problem Solving/Critical Thinking, Writing Intensive
ENG 226
Also Known As: AFS 226 , WMS 226

(Also AFS/WMS 226) Varied works of western and/or non-western literature that illustrates how different races, ethnic groups, genders, and classes view themselves

Prerequisites: WRT 108 Enhanced Synthesis and Research Writing , WRT 109 Synthesis and Research Writing
With a final grade of C-or better.
Transcultural & Global Awareness, Writing Intensive
PHL 226

Philosophical reflection upon African-American social experience, African-American intellectual history, modern and contemporary oppositional discourse. Caribbean presence, Pan-Africanism, African heritage, value systems, aesthetics, political theology.

Prerequisites: WRT 108 Enhanced Synthesis and Research Writing , WRT 109 Synthesis and Research Writing
With a final grade of C- or better.
Problem Solving/Critical Thinking
HIS 226
Also Known As: LAC 226

(Also LAC 226) This course explores the history of Latin America and the Caribbean since Independence. It will pay particular attention to the colonial legacy; the abolition of slavery; economic development; twentieth-century social movements and revolutions; and relations with the United States. This is the second course offered in the Latin American- Caribbean survey. 

Prerequisites: WRT 108 Enhanced Synthesis and Research Writing , WRT 109 Synthesis and Research Writing
With a final grade of C- or better.
Problem Solving/Critical Thinking
ENG 227
Also Known As: REL 227

(Also REL 227) Selected poetry, fiction, drama, and non-fiction that explore such topics as faith, the nature and presence of God, death and immortality, spirituality, sin, and salvation. The course invites students to examine and reflect on the interrelationship of literary expression and a theological understanding of the world.

Prerequisites: WRT 108 Enhanced Synthesis and Research Writing , WRT 109 Synthesis and Research Writing
Aesthetic Appreciation, Writing Intensive
REL 227

Selected poetry, fiction, drama, and non-fiction that explore such topics as faith, the nature and presence of God, death and immortality, spirituality, sin, and salvation. The course invites student to examine and reflect on the interrelationship of literary expression and a theological understanding of the world.

Prerequisites: WRT 108 Enhanced Synthesis and Research Writing , WRT 109 Synthesis and Research Writing
With a final grade of C- or better.
Aesthetic Appreciation, Writing Intensive
HIS 227

This course studies the major world communities in their independent development before European exploration. Students will compare the social and political structures, family structures, economics and technology, religious belief systems, and cultures of the major societies of Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and the Americas.

Prerequisites: WRT 108 Enhanced Synthesis and Research Writing , WRT 109 Synthesis and Research Writing
With a final grade of C- or better.
Transcultural & Global Awareness
PHL 229
Also Known As: WRT 229

(Also WRT 229) This course surveys the highlights of the Western rhetorical tradition and what they can teach us about how we communicate in contemporary society. Generally speaking, rhetoricians study verbal and nonverbal language and communication. Certainly, language affects everything we do: how we think, learn, identify ourselves, and interact with others. According to American rhetorician Kenneth Burke (18971993), language “reflects, deflects, and selects” reality. In this course, we will look carefully at how this occurs and how the Western rhetorical tradition has influenced our current knowledge of what language does. Rhetoric is perhaps one of the oldest disciplines. What we know of its history has been shaped by Western rhetoricians over the ages-from the ancient Greeks, (Isocrates, Plato and Aristotle), to the Romans, (Quintilian and Cicero), through Medieval Times, (St Augustine) to the Renaissance (Petrus Ramus and Erasmus) and Enlightenment (Sir Francis Bacon and John Locke), and beyond to the 20th and 21st Centuries. This tradition constitutes a Western historical narrative that has shaped what we think rhetoric is and what it does, and is by no means Gospel. Other rhetorics are interrupting this dominant narrative about what the rhetorical tradition is. The field of rhetoric is much too broad to survey, even superficially, in one semester. Consequently, the lens (or to borrow a term from Burke, the terministic screen) we will use to examine the field will focus on the theories of those rhetoricians who have been most influential in a Western tradition.

Prerequisites: WRT 108 Enhanced Synthesis and Research Writing , WRT 109 Synthesis and Research Writing
With a final grade of C- or better.
Communication Skills
WRT 229
Also Known As: PHL 229

(Also PHL 226) This course surveys the highlights of the Western rhetorical tradition and what they can teach us about how we communicate in contemporary society. Generally speaking, rhetoricians study verbal and nonverbal language and communication. Certainly, language affects everything we do: how we think, learn, identify ourselves, and interact with others. According to American rhetorician Kenneth Burke (18971993), language “reflects, deflects, and selects” reality. In this course, we will look carefully at how this occurs and how the Western rhetorical tradition has influenced our current knowledge of what language does. Rhetoric is perhaps one of the oldest disciplines. What we know of its history has been shaped by Western rhetoricians over the ages-from the ancient Greeks, (Isocrates, Plato and Aristotle), to the Romans, (Quintilian and Cicero), through Medieval Times, (St Augustine) to the Renaissance (Petrus Ramus and Erasmus) and Enlightenment (Sir Francis Bacon and John Locke), and beyond to the 20th and 21st Centuries. This tradition constitutes a Western historical narrative that has shaped what we think rhetoric is and what it does, and is by no means Gospel. Other rhetorics are interrupting this dominant narrative about what the rhetorical tradition is. The field of rhetoric is much too broad to survey, even superficially, in one semester. Consequently, the lens (or to borrow a term from Burke, the terministic screen) we will use to examine the field will focus on the theories of those rhetoricians who have been most influential in a Western tradition.

Prerequisites: WRT 108 Enhanced Synthesis and Research Writing , WRT 109 Synthesis and Research Writing
With a final grade of C- or better.
Communication Skills
REL 230

This course will deal with the so-called "primitive’’ religious traditions of the Americas (e.g. Navaho), Polynesia, Australia, and Africa. The course will examine the basic beliefs, practices, world views, and mythologies of these disappearing societies. It will also reconsider the usage of terms such as "primitive,’’ "advanced,’’ etc.

Prerequisites: WRT 108 Enhanced Synthesis and Research Writing , WRT 109 Synthesis and Research Writing
With a final grade of C- or better.
Transcultural & Global Awareness
PHL 230

Moral problems confronted by both the professional and the lay person in health-care institutions and in biological research. Abortion and infanticide, eugenics, euthanasia and suicide, allocation of scarce resources, experimentation, and general criticisms directed at the medical establishment.

Prerequisites: WRT 108 Enhanced Synthesis and Research Writing , WRT 109 Synthesis and Research Writing
With a final grade of C- or better.
Problem Solving/Critical Thinking
COM 231

(Formerly JOU 231) This course traces the history of radio and television. It includes criticism, production, programming issues and ethics.

Prerequisites: COM 128 Introduction to Mass Communication , WRT 108 Enhanced Synthesis and Research Writing , WRT 109 Synthesis and Research Writing
PHL 231

Moral issues in business arising from the actions and decisions in production, advertising, marketing, etc. Justification of profit and private property, truth-telling and social responsibility, privacy, the role of the law in competition and trade, and the morality of worker-owner relations. Problems and perspectives raised by the advent of globalization in international enterprise.

Prerequisites: WRT 108 Enhanced Synthesis and Research Writing , WRT 109 Synthesis and Research Writing
With a final grade of C- or better.
REL 232
Also Known As: AFS 232

(Aso AFS 232) This course will introduce the student to the basic beliefs and practices of Islam. It will also survey major historical, cultural, theological, and social developments. Special attention will be given to the Arabian origins of Islam and to its subsequent growth into a dynamic global tradition. The role of Islam in the modern world and its impact on American society will also be considered.

Prerequisites: WRT 108 Enhanced Synthesis and Research Writing , WRT 109 Synthesis and Research Writing
With a final grade of C- or better.
Transcultural & Global Awareness
ENG 232

(Also LAC 232) Survey of Latin American literature from the sixteenth century to the present. Emphasis is upon literary discourses the reflect and shape the diverse array of Latin American cultural identities throughout the region.

Prerequisites: WRT 108 Enhanced Synthesis and Research Writing , WRT 109 Synthesis and Research Writing
With a final grade of C- or better.
Transcultural & Global Awareness
REL 233

This course provides for the study of various religious traditions and topics not covered in the regular course offerings. Possible topics may include: contemporary issues in religion; “new” religious movements; religion and art; religion in ancient Egypt, etc.

Please contact your instructor for specific topic.

Prerequisite announced with topic.
Transcultural & Global Awareness
HIS 233

This course provides for the in-depth study of the people, society, culture, or movements during a particular historical period or for comparative analysis of societies, cultures or movements of people or ideas during particular periods, or other historical moments. This course also allows for the in-depth study of particular historical events. The topic and methods of evaluation will be defined by the instructor of the course. Offered most Spring and Fall semesters.

Please contact your instructor for specific topic.

Prerequisites: WRT 108 Enhanced Synthesis and Research Writing , WRT 109 Synthesis and Research Writing
With a final grade of C- or better.
Problem Solving/Critical Thinking
WRT 233

This course offers different approaches to studying rhetoric and integrating it into various types of writing in different media. Topics and texts vary from semester to semester. As topics change, this course may be repeated for credit.

Please contact your instructor for specific topic

Prerequisites: WRT 109 Synthesis and Research Writing , WRT 108 Enhanced Synthesis and Research Writing
COM 234

(Formerly JOU 234) The course builds on journalism basics and applies these to writing for digital media and producting multimedia journalism. Students will learn how to report, write, and produce for digital publications, and how to effectively utilize 21st century journalism applications and technology including blogging, social media, and multimedia.

Prerequisites: WRT 108 Enhanced Synthesis and Research Writing , WRT 109 Synthesis and Research Writing
Writing Intensive
CRW 234

Special focus in the study of writing, such as children’s literature, sports writing, travel writing and memoir. Can be repeated for credit.

Please contact your instructor for specific topic.

Prerequisites: WRT 108 Enhanced Synthesis and Research Writing , WRT 109 Synthesis and Research Writing

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