Civics and Humanities Minor

In this minor, students take two related kinds of courses. Some courses are those related to the American Founding and Re-Founding Documents, such as the Constitution, the Federalist Papers, or other sources created in the country’s founding era which remain central to our national political tradition today. Additionally, students also courses take courses focused on earlier great themes and texts from humanities traditions which influenced the American Founding. That humanistic inheritance included ancient Greek and Roman letters, the Jewish and Christian traditions,  the Renaissance, and the specifically British context of the Founding, including the English legal tradition. 

The Civics and Humanities minor is a true program in the Liberal Arts, the broad study of humanities for the twin ends of fostering individual flourishing and of preparing citizens to make informed contributions to American society. 

This minor is ideal for students who want to learn great ideas of leadership. They gain this through familiarity with the great, perennial problems facing human societies and individual people in their lives, and the experience articulating and debating those ideas carefully and respectfully in classroom environments.

Minor Requirements (18 hours)

Course Title Credits
A. Foundational Courses
Select two from the following:6
Freedom Papers: Narratives of Race and Nation
United States History to 1865
American Founding Documents
Introduction to Philosophy
American National Government
B. Pertinent Upper-Level Courses
Select four courses from the following list from at least two different subjects:12
Black Experience in the United States to 1865
The American Civil Rights Movement
The Renaissance
The Enlightenment
Great Books of the Western World I
Shakespeare's Tragedies
Shakespeare’s Comedies and Histories
Milton
American Literature to 1830
Origins of Capitalism
History of Capitalism 2: From the Industrial Revolution to the Global Economy
History of Freedom
Constitutional History of the United States
Constitutional History of the United States
Seventeenth and Eighteenth-Century Philosophy
Law and Religion
Disobedience, Dissent, and Revolution
Ancient Philosophy
Greek and Roman Philosophy after Aristotle
Jurisprudence
Social and Political Philosophy
Classical and Medieval Political Theory
Modern Political Theory
Contemporary Political Theory
The Conduct and Formulation of United States Foreign Policy
Constitutional Law I: Institutional Powers
Constitutional Law II: Civil Liberties
Total Credit Hours18