The departments and programs of the Humanities Division are committed to the study of human meaning as it is expressed in diverse languages, explained in diverse literatures, and reflected upon from diverse philosophical and religious perspectives. Students seek to understand the values and purposes that make practices and systems worthwhile. In an increasingly interconnected world, the ability to critically consider how individuals and communities make sense of their world is an essential skill. Explore majors, minors, concentrations, and academic programs in the humanities.
American English Institute
Arabic Studies
Chinese
Chinese Flagship Program
Cinema Studies
Classical Civilization
Classics
Comparative Literature
Creative Writing
Comics and Cartoon Studies
Digital Humanities
Disability Studies
English
News from Humanities
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World-Class Faculty in the Humanities
Stephen Shoemaker
Professor of Religious Studies
Stephen Shoemaker teaches courses about Christian traditions and is a prolific contributor to research related to ancient and early medieval Christian traditions in early Byzantine and Near Eastern Christianity.
Shoemaker has received research fellowships over the years and received two in 2024 to complete the translation of the earliest surviving Christian hymnal from sixth-century Jerusalem, which is in Old Georgian. The fellowships include one from the National Endowment for the Humanities for 2024–2025 and a Senior Fellowship funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Foundation).
He recently published The Quest of the Historical Muhammad and Other Studies on Formative Islam (2024) and is the co-author of The Capture of Jerusalem by the Persians in 614 CE (2024).
Stacey Alaimo
Professor of English
Stacey Alaimo’s research explores the intersections between literary, artistic, political, and philosophical approaches to environmentalism. She has published three books and more than 60 scholarly articles, on such topics as toxins, gender and climate change, environmental justice, queer animals, Anthropocene feminisms, marine science studies, the blue humanities, and new materialist theory.
Her concept of trans-corporeality has been widely taken up in the arts, humanities and sciences. She has been interviewed many times in print and podcasts. Her work has been translated into at least 12 languages and has inspired several art exhibitions.
Her fourth book, The Abyss Stares Back: Encounters with Deep Sea Life (2025), explores the science and aesthetics of deep-sea creatures since the 1930s. Alaimo currently serves as the English department’s director of graduate studies and is a core faculty member in the Environmental Studies Program.
Lowell Bowditch
Professor of Classics
Lowell Bowditch is the head of the Department of Classics. Her research explores the interface between the literature and socio-political relations of Augustan Rome.
Her newest project addresses issues of free speech and censorship in the early imperial age. She explores this through the work of Ovid in the context of the growing authoritarianism of the Augustan regime, with the planned book to draw comparisons with the contemporary political landscape.
Her previous work focused on love elegy and Roman imperialism from postcolonial perspectives. Along with multiple articles and research papers, she is the author of two books and a commentary, including the most recent, Roman Love Elegy and the Eros of Empire (London and New York 2023).
Bowditch came to the UO in 1993 and particularly enjoys mentoring classics undergraduates and master’s students.
Schnitzer School of Global Studies and Languages
At the Schnitzer School of Global Studies and Languages (SGSL), UO students engage with diverse cultures, languages, histories, and lifeways across the world. Students of the humanities, from Cinema Studies to Religious Studies, will broaden and deepen their education in their field by viewing it—and experiencing it—through a global lens. GSL prepares our graduates for life after college with an interdisciplinary curriculum, innovative language teaching, abundant learning opportunities outside the classroom, and paths of study that lead to many options for real-world careers.
Research in the Humanities
Inquiry in humanities fields centers around our collective human experience. Our stories are told in many forms, be it a script, a screenplay, a religious text, in literature or in folktales. Researchers in the humanities employ tools of analysis to explore the long history and rapidly changing landscape of ideas, values and beliefs that coalesce in a different sort of knowledge about reality and human life.
Explore Other Majors and Minors in the College of Arts and Sciences
Meet our Dean
The departments and programs of the Humanities Division share a commitment to the study of human experience as it is expressed in diverse languages and cultures throughout history and across the world. A Humanities education encourages students to think creatively, independently, and critically about the human past, present, and future. Whether they choose to focus on cinema, classical languages, or philosophical ideas, Humanities students learn to reason, to build arguments, to write and communicate with confidence and conviction, and to view the world and its challenges from multiple perspectives.
Our College of Arts and Sciences is committed to providing students with a genuine liberal arts education, which means that we strive to expose students to more than one way of knowing. We want our students to appreciate the profound differences—and the no-less profound similarities—in the way a philosopher, a biologist, and a political scientist approach the same questions about the human condition. The unique lens provided by the Humanities departments and programs at UO is an essential part of that liberal arts education, which we believe prepares students to live meaningful lives in the world.
Harry Wonham
Divisional Associate Dean, Humanities
Happening at CAS
noon
Human Biology in Focus: Evolutionary Genomics and Diabetic Neuropathy
Join us for a dynamic lunch-hour lecture featuring two cutting-edge researchers exploring human biology from distinct yet complementary angles. This event reoccurs monthly during term-time, and will showcase the work of two to three amazing international faculty or researchers currently hosted by the University of Oregon. Coffee, tea, and a light snack will be served, bring your own lunch!
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Carolina de Lima Adam (Institute of Ecology and Evolution) Insights into primate evolution through genomic Tandem Repeats Carolina will delve into how rapidly evolving DNA sequences—tandem repeats—shed light on recent evolutionary changes between humans and chimpanzees, revealing patterns of genetic conservation and selection.
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Mathew Varre (Department of Human Physiology) Diabetic Neuropathy: Can you diagnose it earlier? Mathew will discuss innovative approaches to diagnosing diabetic neuropathy earlier, using biomechanical analysis and wearable technology to prevent complications like foot ulcers and amputations.
Dr. Mathew Sunil Varre is a Research Associate in the Department of Human Physiology. Prior to joining UO, he was a postdoctoral scholar at the University of Washington and Center for Limb Loss and Mobility at the Veterans Affairs Hospital Puget Sound. He has Master of Science degrees in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and Mechanical Engineering from the University of Kansas.
Mathew’s primary research interests are aging-related diseases and how they affect walking and balance using biomechanical principles and wearable technology. His doctoral and postdoctoral work focused on the progression of diabetes-related foot complications and design and testing of 3-D printed insoles for people with diabetes. His work has been published in peer-reviewed journals such as Diabetes Care, Clinical Biomechanics, Gait & Posture, and Sensors. His future research interests in this area are to develop early diagnostic tools to prevent diabetes-related foot complications such as foot ulcers and amputations and providing patient-specific interventions.
Dr. Carolina de Lima Adam is a postdoctoral researcher in the Rohlfs Lab at the Institute of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Oregon. Originally from southern Brazil, she earned her bachelor's degree in Biology from a small liberal arts college before pursuing graduate studies at the Federal University of Paraná. There, she completed both her master’s degree (2017) and Ph.D. (2022) in Zoology, focusing on evolutionary biology and genomics.
During her doctoral studies, Carolina broadened her research experience through a six-month internship at the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology. In 2023, she joined the University of Oregon, where her current research explores the evolutionary dynamics of tandem repeats in primate genomes using long-read sequencing technologies. Her work combines computational biology, evolutionary theory, and molecular genetics to better understand the forces shaping genome evolution.
3:15 p.m.
Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry Seminar 2025 Alumni Achievement Award
Jeremiah Marsden, Former President Cascade Chemistry & Owner, Claim 52 Brewing Event hosts: Vickie DeRose and Mike Haley
From Bench to Boardroom to Brewery
As a student it can be difficult to picture where your degree will take you. This talk provides a story of opportunities taken and lessons learned in growing and selling a successful chemistry business.
Followed by Light Refreshments, 4:15-5pm
2:00 p.m.
Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry Physical Chemistry Seminar Series
Physical Chemistry Rotation Talks
Revanth Elangovan “Enhanced Sampling of Ligand Binding Coupled to the RNA Conformational Dynamics“
Evan Wylie “An Application of On-the-Fly Probability-Enhanced Sampling to Gas-Phase Protein Unfolding“
3:00 p.m.
Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry Organic/Inorganic/Materials Seminar Series
Spring Rotation Talks
3:00 pm Sam Rundquist Jasti Lab 3:15 pm Ally Wagner Jasti Lab 3:30 pm Joel Ashton DWJ Lab 3:45 pm Robert Greenwood DWJ Lab 4:00 pm Natalie Lakanen DWJ Lab 4:15 pm George Piepgras Cook Lab 4:30 pm Campbelle Hunt DeRose Lab 4:45 pm Ernesto Lucatero DeRose Lab