SHUM 2750 Introduction to Humanities
SHUM 2750 Introduction to Humanities (rotating topics)
Fall, Spring. 3 credits. Limited to 15 students.
These seminars offer an introduction to the humanities through the exploration of various historical, cultural, social and political topics. Students will engage with a range of texts and media drawn from the arts, humanities, and/or humanistic social sciences. Guest speakers, including Cornell faculty and Society for the Humanities Fellows, will present from different disciplines and points of view. Students will consider local sites including Cornell special collections and archives. Students enrolled in these seminars will have the opportunity to participate in additional programming related to the Society’s theme and the Humanities Scholars Program for undergraduate humanities research.
This course is open to anyone interested in a major of minor in the humanities. You do not need to apply to the Honors Program in order to sign up for this course. If you are considering the Humanities Scholars Program and are also hoping to go abroad for your junior year, then we encourage you to take this course as a sophomore.
(SP27) SEM 101 Topic: Bone Routes: Human Remains, Memory, and Survival
also ASRC 2750, COML 2750, NES 2750, RELST 2750, ROMS 2750, VISST 2750
T/R 10:10-11:25am
Human remains rarely stay where death leaves them. Exhumed, collected, displayed, or returned, bones travel across borders and through museums, laboratories, sacred spaces, and works of art. This seminar follows their journeys to explore how the dead continue to shape the living world. When do remains become evidence, relics, or commodities? Who has the authority to claim them, interpret their histories, or determine where they belong?
From Antigone’s contested burial to novels by Tahar Djaout and Boubacar Boris Diop, from anatomical images to documentary film and music, we examine how remains acquire meaning—and how those meanings are challenged. Bringing literature and the arts into conversation with history, archaeology, and religious studies, we consider how acts of recovery and remembrance confront the legacies of colonialism, war, and displacement. Students will create a “Bone Atlas” tracing the movement and changing significance of remains, and develop a research or creative project around a central question: what responsibilities do the living bear toward the dead?
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(SP27) SEM 102 Topic: Ruins: Material, Metaphor, Memory, Myth
also BSOC 2750, CLASS 2750, ENGL 2950, MEDVL 2750
T/R 11:40 - 12:55pm
Crumbling stones, chipping paint, decaying timber: these hallmarks of architectural ruins have inspired writers from Old English poets to William Wordsworth, from Thomas Hardy to J.R.R. Tolkien. But what makes ruins so compelling? And in our present moment, in which both the artifacts of the past and the monuments of the present are threatened by ecological devastation and political conflict, do ruins become even more potent? In this course, we will analyze ruins, both real and imagined, from the ancient Mediterranean to indigenous sites in the Americas, from medieval Britain to Middle Earth. Drawing on a range of disciplinary perspectives—literary, historical, architectural, archaeological—we will interrogate how human cultures across time and place have made meaning from ruins. Along the way, we’ll examine material artifacts alongside visual depictions to assess how ruins have shaped our own imaginative processes. Ultimately, we’ll ask why a fascination with ruins endures—and whether ruination is inevitable.
SHUM 3750 Humanities Scholars Research Methods
SHUM 3750 Humanities Scholars Research Methods
4 credits. Limited to 20 students.
Spring 2027, M/W 11:40-12:55pm
This course is a seminar studying the practice, theory, and methodology of humanities research, critical analysis, and communication through writing and oral presentation. The goal of the seminar is to teach and refine research methods (library research, note taking, organizing material, bibliographies, citation methods, proposals, outlines, etc.) as well as to guide students through the initial stages of a research project of your own design.
We will be studying the work and impact of humanists, who we define very broadly as scholars of literature, history, theory, art, visual studies, film, anthropology, gender and sexuality studies, who are posing big questions about the human condition. By reading and analyzing the scholarship of humanists – critiquing them, engaging their ideas, and perhaps even being inspired by them – we will try to imagine how we might craft our own method and voice as we pose big questions for the humanities. We hope that you see this course as a journey that helps you to consider how you might do a research project.
This course is open to all students interested in writing a longer research paper, whether for a semester or academic year, and to anyone interested in a major or minor in the humanities. Enrollment preference will be given to students in the Humanities Scholars Program. You do not need to apply to the program in order to sign up for this course, and taking this course does not represent a commitment to write a thesis. If you are considering the Humanities Scholars Program and are also hoping to go abroad for your junior year, then we encourage you to take this course as a sophomore.
SHUM 4750 Senior Capstone Seminar
SHUM 4750 Senior Capstone Seminar
Fall, Spring. 1 credit. Limited to 10 students per section. Enrollment code required.
(FA26) Two sections offered:
SEM 101 Mondays 2:30 - 3:20pm (Instructor TBA)
SEM 102 Thursdays 1:25 - 2:15pm (Instructor TBA)
This 1-credit course is designed to support seniors in the Humanities Scholars Program. Seniors will meet for one hour per week with HSP mentors to work on their capstone projects. The course has three learning goals: creating a cohort of humanities researchers, sharing work in progress, and working collaboratively and in groups.
HSP Elective Courses
Explore the slate of courses (using the SHUM prefix) that are cross-listed with the Humanities Scholars Program. Humanities Scholars must complete two electives before graduation. This list will be updated continually. Note: SHUM course taught by Society for the Humanities Fellows are separate from HSP and do not automatically count as electives. These courses must be petitioned with the