Department of Humanities

Office: Clark Hall 419
Telephone: 408-924-4463
Email: humanities@sjsu.edu
Website: www.sjsu.edu/hum

Professors
J. Todd Ormsbee, Chair
Shannon Rose Riley
Susan Verducci-Sandford

Associate Professors
Funie Hsu
Kim Brillante Knight
Daniel Lanza Rivers
Cynthia Rostankowski

Assistant Professors
Erica Eva Colmenares
Eleni Duret
Arthur Zárate

Welcome to the Humanities Department

In the Humanities Department, we build learning opportunities for students to investigate human and more-than-the-human worlds and experiences from multiple intellectual frameworks and knowledge traditions. In our classrooms, research and scholarship, and in our creative endeavors, we use humanistic methods and strategies to identify and address problems, inequities, and asymmetrical power structures. Our work together fosters connections between different sources and contexts of knowledge, seeking out points of resonance and harmony, as well as recognizing and challenging incomplete and inaccurate accounts of contemporary problems, where they come from, and how to pursue equitable, lasting solutions.As our students hone their own intellectual openness, curiosity, critical and analytical thinking, argumentation, social and cultural awareness, research and communication skills, they go on to be K-8 educators, artists, thinkers, professional writers, activists, non-profit workers, advocates, and creative workers across industries.

We offer three different BA Programs for our students: multiple pathways to a Liberal Studies Teacher Preparation BA; the Creative Arts BA; and the Humanities BA, with one of three concentrations, American Studies, Liberal Arts, or Comparative Religious Studies.

The Liberal Studies Teacher Prep BA offers several pathways toward becoming a teacher in the State of California: The traditional BA pathway, a BA with an Integrated Teacher Education Program (ITEP) focus, an Integrated Bilingual program (BITEP), and four Spartan Accelerated Graduate Education (SAGE) pathways. SAGE pathways combine a Liberal Studies BA with a credential (Multiple Subject or Education Specialist) and a Master’s Degree (MAT). The ITEP and SAGE pathways reduce the number of units to earn these degrees, and provide students with a seamless road to a graduate career. All Liberal Studies programs with a credential include an option to earn a Critical Spanish Bilingual Authorization.

The Creative Arts BA is a cutting-edge program in the interdisciplinary arts in which students pay close attention to the creative process and the use of the arts for social justice. (Consider the role of murals in the #BLM Movement, for example.) Students can also earn a minor in Creative Arts.

Our Humanities majors embrace a global view of human meaning-making and relationships across cultures, geographies, ecosystems, and species. Our inquiry extends across issues of human and non-human species rights, social justice, global migration, technology, the arts, culture, society, education, and communication. Courses in the Digital Humanities and a new certificate in Environmental Humanities,provide students with additional tools needed to address some of the most important questions of our time. Our Humanities curriculum includes minors in Humanities, American Studies, Religious Studies, and Middle East Studies.

Advisors

Creative Arts, majors and minors

Shannon Rose Riley

Humanities, all majors and minors

J. Todd Ormsbee
Funie Hsu
Kim B. Knight

Liberal Studies Teacher Preparation, all majors

Erica Colmenares
Rebecca Kling
Susan Verducci (Spring Semesters)

General Education Curriculum

Humanities Honors

The Humanities Honors program is open to all students looking for a challenging yet rewarding and supportive experience. Courses in the Humanities Honors program introduce students to major events, sites, texts, and artworks of world history with an emphasis on points of contact between global cultures including cultural exchange, borrowing, inheritance, and appropriation. The Honors curriculum prioritizes learning community, cohort experiences, and discovering connections between material taught in different courses. Honors courses are team-taught by faculty with expertise in different disciplines. Each course explores its topic through 3 to 4 cultural units that examine cultural connections along three axes: East-West; Global North-Global South; and past-present. Students in the program complete 12 units of GE requirements: Oral Communication (1C / Formerly Area A1), Arts (3A / Formerly Area C1), Critical Thinking and Writing (1B / Formerly Area A3), and Humanities (3B / Formerly Area C2). In addition, the Humanities Honors program offers a two-course upper-division sequence of Advanced Honors (HUM 177A /HUM 177B ), which meets 9 units of UD GE requirements: Earth, Environment, and Sustainability (UD Area 2/5 / Formerly Area R); Self, Society, and Equality in the U.S. (GE UD Area 4 / Formerly Area S); and Culture and Global Understanding (GE UD Area 3 / Formerly Area V).

Programs

Undergraduate Major(s)

Undergraduate Minor(s)

Basic Certificate(s)

Basic certificate programs provide opportunities for students to pursue specialized, often pre-professional, focused educational objectives that may be separate from a degree program.

Environmental Humanities Certificate

Spartan Accelerated Graduate Education (SAGE) Scholars

Spartan Accelerated Graduate Education (SAGE) Programs programs are combined bachelor’s and master’s programs at SJSU (per University Policy F19-1). Sometimes they may also satisfy the requirements for a credential. Students in these programs pursue a bachelor’s and master’s degree simultaneously. These program allow students to earn graduate credit while in their junior and/or senior year, reducing the number of semesters required for completion of a master’s degree.

Roadmaps

Courses

American Studies

Asian Studies

Creative Arts

Humanities

Liberal Studies Teacher Prep

Middle East Studies

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