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.
School of Global Studies and Languages
At the School of Global Studies and Languages (GSL), 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
4:30–6:00 p.m.
"On the Logic of Autocracy and the Plasticity of History: The Case of Frederick William I, King of Prussia"
Barbara Stollberg-Rilinger Rector, Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin (Institute of Advanced Study)
Barbara Stollberg-Rilinger explores the fascinating contradictions of Frederick William I (1688–1740), the “Soldier King” of Prussia and father of “Frederick the Great.” He is remembered for his state reforms, the vast expansion of his army, and the shocking fact that he nearly had his own son sentenced to death. While contemporaries like Montesquieu saw him as a ridiculous outsider and pathological despot, later historians reinterpreted him as the “educator of the German people to Prussianhood.”
Illustration: Frederick William I, after Jacob Jordaens, 1736. © SPSG / Roland Handrick
2:00–3:00 p.m.
Students taking WR 121z, 122z, or 123 are invited to drop by the Tykeson 3rd floor Writing Lab (glass room, 351) for candy and quick writing support. Our GE Writing Support Specialists (tutors) are available to help you with any part of a WR assignment, from coming up with ideas to reading to revising to polishing up a final draft. Join us!
Mondays 3-4 and Thursdays 2-3, beginning week 4, for the rest of Winter quarter 2025.
6:00–7:00 p.m.
Join the Women in Economics Club and Women in Business Club as we lead a discussion on navigating imposter syndrome as women in male dominated fields.
Join us from 6-7pm on March 6th. Location TBD!
The UO Women in Economics Club (WiE) was established in 2023 to support and meet the unique needs of women and gender-diverse individuals in the male-dominated economics field. WiE strives to build community, empower, and increase participation in economics through academic and social events. The club hosts guest speakers, roundtable discussions, professional development workshops, and more. Students undergraduate through PhD are welcome. We hold meetings bi-weekly on odd weeks from 6-7pm in Anstett 193. All are welcome, regardless of major or gender!
"In a male-dominated field, the Women in Economics Club is the first opportunity I've had to directly collaborate with and support my female peers." -M.S. Economics '24
7:30 p.m.
Please join the Department of Theatre Arts for a play reading of Kitty & the Crescent Moon, a new play by Douglas Killingtree and directed by Joseph Gilg.
March 7 and 8 at 7:30 pm in Hope Theatre
“A woman lies dead in the street. The police see an opportunity. The newspapers see only a headline...Kitty Genovese’s murder shocked the nation—but the details of her death were completely fabricated. 60 years later, playwright Douglas Killingtree seeks to correct the record.”
The play reading is free and open to the public, and tickets are not required. We hope to see you there!