Arts & Humanities Collegiate Division

The minor in architectural studies combines course work in art history, which equips students to analyze the form and changing history of the built environment in diverse cultures, places, and times.  Architectural studies complements a major in the social sciences or humanities by exploring the material setting of history and social life or the context for works of literature, film, music, or drama. It could equally complement a major in the sciences, such as medical fields, ecology, geology, physics, or mathematics.

Art History encompasses the visual arts and material culture of a wide range of regions and historical periods. The major in art history introduces students to a variety of cultures and approaches while providing analytical skills.

Cinema and Media Studies provides a framework within which students can approach the history of film and related media from a variety of historical, critical, and theoretical perspectives. The program enables students to analyze how cinema creates meanings through particular forms, techniques, and styles; how industrial organization affects the way films are produced and received; and how the social context in which they are made and consumed influence the way we understand and make meaning of films.

The BA degree in Classical Studies allows students to explore Greek and Roman antiquity in a variety of ways and provides excellent preparation for careers that require strong skills in interpretation and writing, such as teaching, scholarly research, law, and publishing, and in the humanities in general.

Cognitive science explores the nature of cognitive processes such as perception, reasoning, memory, attention, language, decision making, emotion, motor control, and problem solving. The undergraduate major and minor in Cognitive Science at the University of Chicago are designed to embody this interdisciplinary approach to the study of the mind and brain. Students gain broad knowledge of the field by taking courses in each of the five main disciplinary areas—computer science, linguistics, philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience—and then develop further focus and depth of understanding by taking additional courses in two of these disciplinary areas.

Comparative Literature offers an interdisciplinary plan of course work focused on the study of literature in various languages and in various parts of the world.

Creative writing at the University of Chicago can position itself as part of the intellectual framework of any program or major, and provides unique opportunities for interdisciplinary work. Students may pursue creative writing as part of the formal program in English Language and Literature or Interdisciplinary Studies in the Humanities, as a stand-alone minor with any other major, as part of another major that accepts writing courses to count towards requirements, or as an elective.

Digital Studies of Language, Culture, and History introduces students to computer programming and the use of cutting-edge software tools for representing, exploring, analyzing, and publishing the products of human language and culture. These products range from everyday speech and writing to historical documents and literary texts, and they encompass music and art as well as mundane objects, places, and institutions.

The BA program in East Asian studies introduces students to the traditional and modern civilizations of China and Japan and provides them with the opportunity to achieve a basic reading and speaking knowledge of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean.

English Language and Literature provides students with the opportunity to intensively study works of literature, drama, and film originally written in English. Courses address fundamental issues, such as the literary history of a period, the achievements of a major author, the defining characteristics of a genre, the politics of interpretation, the formal beauties of individual works, and the methods of literary scholarship and research.

The Fundamentals program enables students to concentrate on fundamental questions by reading classic texts that articulate and speak to these questions. It seeks to foster precise and thoughtful pursuit of basic questions by means of rigorous training in the interpretation of important texts, supported by extensive training in at least one foreign language, and by the acquisition of the knowledge, approaches, and skills of conventional disciplines: historical, religious, literary, scientific, political, and philosophical.

Germanic Studies is intended to provide students with a wide ranging and highly personalized introduction to the language, literature, and culture of German-speaking countries and to various methods of approaching and examining these areas.

The bachelor of arts degree program in Inquiry and Research in the Humanities (IRHUM) offers undergraduates the opportunity to pursue an individualized program of humanistic study in preparation of an independent, mentored research project, which will form the capstone experience of their college education at the University of Chicago. IRHUM is thus not defined by a particular discipline or field, but by the techniques and practices of humanistic inquiry and research. For individual students pursuing the IRHUM major, cohesion is provided by the program of humanistic study, formal research training, and the final research project they design in consultation with the Faculty Chair of IRHUM and their faculty mentor. While the IRHUM major can stand alone, it pairs well with other majors in the Humanities Collegiate Division and beyond.

Jewish Studies provides a context in which students may examine the texts, cultures, languages, and histories of Jews and Judaism over three millennia. The perspective is contextual, comparative, and interdisciplinary. The long and diverse history of Jews and Judaism affords unique opportunities to study modes of continuity and change, interpretation and innovation, and isolation and integration of a world historical civilization.

Linguistics provides a solid, integrated introduction to the scientific study of language through course work in the core sub-disciplines of linguistics, as well as to ensure that the student has a language background sufficient to provide a complement to the theoretical parts of the program and for an understanding of the complexities of human language.

Our current historical period, described by some as the “digital revolution” or a “postindustrial society,” relies heavily on media and design, which embed technologies increasingly within everyday life. The minor in Media Arts and Design invites students to explore this context through an interdisciplinary study of media theory, history, and practice. To fulfill this minor, students will select courses from offerings in areas such as video game design, transmedia puzzle development, electronic sound design, digital storytelling, algorithmic art, data visualization, computational imaging, speculative design, digital cinema, computational history, and media theory. The minor unites methods taken from the arts, humanities, social sciences, and computer science.

Medieval Studies acquaints students with a broad range of medieval materials from a variety of perspectives (e.g., historical, literary, artistic, theological) as preparation for writing a BA paper on some aspect of medieval civilization. Students investigate the Middle Ages through studies in historical, literary, and adjunct areas. Interested students are encouraged to attend the medieval studies workshops.

The BA degree programs in Middle Eastern Studies (MES) are as varied as the wide subject matter they embrace. Areas of specialization within MES include: Archaeology and Art of the Ancient Near East, Classical Hebrew Language and Civilization, Cuneiform Studies, Egyptian Languages and Civilization, Islamic and Modern Middle Eastern Studies, Modern Hebrew, Kazakh, Persian, Turkish, and Uzbek, and Near Eastern Judaica.

Music aims to broaden the exposure to and enrich the understanding of the various musical traditions of the world. The BA program offers a balance of practical, historical, and conceptual approaches to music. Courses address the materials of tonal music in the Western tradition, the analysis of individual works, the study of composers and genres, non-Western and vernacular repertories, musical composition, critical approaches to music, and the role of music in society.

The Norwegian Studies minor is comprised of the beginning language cycle as well as three additional language or literature courses.  Students choose these courses in consultation with the director of undergraduate studies.

Philosophy covers a wide range of historical periods and fields. The BA program acquaints students with some of the classic texts of the discipline and trains students in rigorous methods of argument. The intensive track option is for qualified students interested in small group discussions of major philosophical problems and texts. The option in Philosophy and Allied Fields is designed for students who wish to pursue an interdisciplinary program involving philosophy and some other field.

Religious Studies engages perennial questions about religion and human society, and investigates religions and how they shape and are shaped by human cultures. The program in Religious Studies exposes students to different sources, problems, and methodologies in the study of religion and is designed for students who wish to take interdisciplinary approaches to the study of religion.

The minor in Renaissance studies offers students an interdisciplinary examination of the networks of trade, culture, and power that, in the formative centuries between the Black Death and the Enlightenment, profoundly changed the culture and society of Europe and the Mediterranean and brought the region into contact with the broader globe. This era birthed empires, economies, literatures, languages, conflicts, technologies, and ideas whose influence, both within the European continent and well beyond, powerfully shaped the advent and structures of modernity.

Romance Languages and Literatures offers programs of study leading to the BA degree in French, Italian, or Spanish literature; or in some combination, which may include Catalan or Portuguese. The BA programs give students knowledge of the literature and culture of their area of concentration, and develops their linguistic competence in one or more of the Romance languages.

The BA degree in Russian and East European Studies is designed to provide students with skills and facility in the languages and cultures of the region, through courses in the Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian, Czech, Georgian, Polish, and Russian languages and literatures.

The ability to engage the public in discourse around science issues is of increasing importance. The global challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change highlight the importance of science communication to shape public policy, mold behavior, and spark public awareness of and interest in science. The courses in the Science Communication and Public Discourse (SCPD) minor introduce students to the theory and practice of rhetorical methodologies and behavioral science of communication.

South Asian Languages and Civilizations (SALC) students gain a broad knowledge of the literature and history of the South Asian subcontinent (i.e., Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka), and proficiency in at least one South Asian language that is equivalent to two years of study or greater. Students currently may study Bangla (Bengali), Hindi, Malayalam, Marathi, Pali, Sanskrit, Tamil, Telugu, Tibetan, or Urdu.

Theater and Performance Studies (TAPS) seeks to animate the intersection of practice and theory in the arts. TAPS offers studio classes, seminars, and studio-seminars, which combine academic and practice-based inquiry. TAPS courses are taught by distinguished faculty as well as professional artists from Chicago's vibrant theater community.

Visual Arts students develop communicative, analytical, and expressive skills through the process of artistic production. While the concentration in the Visual Arts builds on the UChicago tradition of emphasis on critical thinking and the development, this course of study also develops a powerful set of skills that allow students to become more sensitive to phenomena, such as the relative nature of color; the particular measure of space; and the ways in which our perceptual experiences give meaning to forms in the visual field.

Students in any field may complete a minor in Yiddish Studies.