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
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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
Welcome to the humanities!
With the human condition as our starting point, and an orientation spanning the past, present, and far into the future, the humanities at the University of Oregon address society’s core human questions of meaning, making, communication, and understanding.
In the College of Arts and Sciences, humanities span disciplinary fields, such as literature and languages, folklore, theatre and cinema, philosophy, classics, and religious studies. Our faculty teach students key humanistic skills such as writing, critical analysis, logical reasoning, translation, and expression. Our programs emphasize the liberal arts through engaged student learning, and our students are trained by the UO’s world-class research faculty to be resilient thinkers, capable of bringing their humanistic insights to bear on a transforming world.
Like any other time of rapid change, whether the Industrial Revolution or the technological revolution, thinkers of the human condition reflect and analyze human experiences and make it possible to share them. Through its many disciplines, the humanities inspire communication, uniting diverse communities in a common path, helping us address some of our most pressing human concerns.
We hope you will explore the humanities at the UO.
Erica Bornstein
Divisional Associate Dean, Humanities
Happening at CAS
Electrochem PNW 2025
5th Oregon Center for Electrochemistry Annual Conference ECS PNW Section Fall Meeting
(No fee) Registration required Includes banquet and poster session.
Invited speakers:
- Sossina M. Haile – Northwestern
- Jin Suntivich – Cornell
- Iryna V. Zenyuk – UC Irvine
- David Prendergast – Lawrence Berkeley Lab
- Nicolas Holubowitch – New Mexico Tech
- Michael Nellist – Solid Power
Visit the conference website for more information and to register.
Electrochem PNW 2025
5th Oregon Center for Electrochemistry Annual Conference ECS PNW Section Fall Meeting
(No fee) Registration required Includes banquet and poster session.
Invited speakers:
- Sossina M. Haile – Northwestern
- Jin Suntivich – Cornell
- Iryna V. Zenyuk – UC Irvine
- David Prendergast – Lawrence Berkeley Lab
- Nicolas Holubowitch – New Mexico Tech
- Michael Nellist – Solid Power
Visit the conference website for more information and to register.
9:00 a.m.–4:30 p.m.
A mini-conference to foster community, coalition, and collaboration among diversity scientists in Oregon.
Many people express the hope that the current political climate’s antagonism toward diversity and the work of diversity scientists is transient—things will go back to ‘normal’ after the midterms or after the next presidential election or when the supreme court makes a particular ruling. But attacking diversity isn’t new and it isn’t going away. The goal of this mini-conference is to bring together scholars of Diversity Science—which we think of as anyone investigating strategies to reduce group-based discrimination and promote the inclusion of marginalized groups. We believe we best support each other and the communities we serve by building coalitions and fostering collaboration.
In this spirit, we invite all Diversity Science scholars across all disciplines to join us this fall at this year's Consortium of Diversity and Equity Scholars Conference, co-chaired by Dr. Chanel Meyers and Dr. Curtis Phills. We welcome submissions from scholars at all levels. Our keynote speaker will be Dr. Yvette M. Alex-Assensoh, an award-winning scholar, equity strategist, certified coach, and leadership consultant with over 25 years of experience working across higher education, non-profits, and global organizations. She currently serves as Vice President for Equity and Inclusion at the University of Oregon.
Registration for attendees and presenters is due by September 5, 2025.
If you're not presenting but still want to attend, we still highly encourage you to register! This is a great opportunity for students to network with scholars across many disciplines and learn more about diversity science as it affects us all.
noon
Join the University of Oregon School of Law's Environmental and Natural Resources Law Center and cross-campus partners—including the Department of Native American and Indigenous Studies, the Native American Law Student Association, and the Wayne Morse Center for Law and Politics—for the 19th Annual Rennard Strickland Lecture at Oregon Law.
Our community is thrilled to welcome Amy Bowers Cordalis as this year's lecturer.
Amy Bowers Cordalis is a mother, fisherwoman, attorney, and member and former General Counsel of the Yurok Nation—the largest Indigenous Nation in California. She is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of the Ridges to Riffles Indigenous Conservation Group, a nonprofit advancing Indigenous sovereignty through the protection of cultural and natural resources, including the undamming of the Klamath River. She is the recipient of the United Nations' highest environmental honor, Champions of the World Laureate, and has been named to the second annual TIME100 Climate List (2024), featuring the one hundred most influential leaders driving business to real climate action.
Her book, The Water Remembers: My Indigenous Family's Fight to Save a River and a Way of Life, will be published by Little, Brown/Hachette on October 28, 2025, and is currently available for preorder.
Questions about the event? Contact the Environmental and Natural Resources Law Center at enr@uoregon.edu.
Attend in person in Room 110 of the law school or join remotely via Zoom Webinar.