Humanities Program

Our unique Humanities Program — incorporating history, literature, philosophy, and fine arts— is central to the Milligan liberal arts education. We think it's important for tomorrow's leaders to be individuals who can think for themselves, analyze information and ideas, and explore the nature and meaning of the world.

How do we make sense of all the rampaging data that surrounds us on televisions, cell phones, radios, computer monitors, billboards, and movie screens? Is it possible to put together some coherent understanding of the past in order to understand the present and have some idea where we might be headed in the future? Milligan College wants to help you put together the puzzling pieces. We begin with the confident declaration that all knowledge is ultimately unified, brought into being by a Creator. Because knowledge is unified, we can see the connections between history, literature, the arts, philosophy, and the Creator of all these disciplines.

In the Milligan College Humanities Program (part of the required curriculum), students and faculty work to bring together the pieces of the puzzle in an interdisciplinary program. Over the course of four semesters, students study some of the ideas and events that have shaped history and created contemporary civilizations. This lays the foundation for a lifetime of sense making, a lifetime of finding meaning in the past, making informed judgments on the present, and preparing for a meaningful future.

All four semesters of the Humanities program address the following questions:

● What does it mean to be fully human?
● Who is God and how does a person know God?
● What responsibilities do we, as both part of creation and stewards of it, have to the rest of the created order?
● How does one relate to one's fellow human beings?
● How does one answer life's inescapable questions -- of love, hate, belonging, vocation, meaning, death?

As one of our recent students declared:  “There is no way to describe how much the Humanities Program has influenced my life.” He certainly doesn't have everything figured out as a result of his studies at Milligan College, but he has invaluable tools, not only to make a living, but to make sense out of life. A college education doesn't get any better than that.
 

So, what does a Milligan student read?

 

Humanities Curriculum (revised Spring 2008)

HUMN 101 - Ancient and Medieval Cultures. An interdisciplinary course involving extensive reading in the history, literature, philosophy, and fine arts of cultures from prehistory to the fourteenth century. Offered fall term each year. Four semester hours.

HUMN 102 - Renaissance and Early Modern Cultures. An interdisciplinary course involving extensive reading in the history, literature, philosophy, and fine arts of cultures from the fourteenth to the eighteenth centuries. Offered spring term each year. Four semester hours.

HUMN 201 - Eighteenth and Nineteenth-Century Cultures. An interdisciplinary course involving extensive reading in the history, literature, philosophy, and fine arts of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Offered fall term each year. Four semester hours.

HUMN 202 - Cultures of the Twentieth and Early Twenty-first Centuries. An interdisciplinary course involving extensive reading in the history, literature, philosophy, and fine arts of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Offered spring term each year. Four semester hours.

(Writing is now separate. Click here for information about the Writing Program.)
 

Optional:

HUMN 200T - European Study Tour. A study tour of several European countries. Visits are made to sites of both historical and culture significance. In addition to travel, students complete writing assignments and fulfill all the academic obligations outlined by the tour professor. HUMN 200T and HUMN 200P may be taken in lieu of HUMN 202 (four hours). Prerequisites: HUMN 101, HUMN 102, and HUMN 200P. Offered every summer. Three semester hours.

HUMN 200P - European Study Tour Preparation. Students going on the tour are required to register for one hour of HUMN 200P in the spring semester prior to the tour. HUMN 200P includes attending twelve sessions (lectures and discussions) focused on twentieth-century Europe and meetings dealing with tour preparation issues. HUMN 200P and HUMN 200T may be taken in lieu of HUMN 202. HUMN 200P is offered on a pass/fail basis. Prerequisites: HUMN 101 and HUMN 102. Offered every spring term. One semester hour.
 

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