Humanities

a group of students behind cinema cameras and lights

 

 

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.

 


News from Humanities

ENGLISH, COMICS AND CARTOON STUDIES — Ben Saunders, professor and pop-culture scholar in the College of Arts and Sciences, curated a special exhibit in LA featuring comics artist, Jack Kirby. The exhibit, “Jack Kirby: Heroes and Humanity,” received glowing reviews and is a must-see for anyone in the LA area. In this Q&A, Saunders explains what makes Kirby exceptional and why he's so important to him.
LINGUISTICS - The Department of Linguistics in the College of Arts and Sciences hosted the Linguistic Society of America’s Summer Institute, a five-week summer school held every other year at a new host location. Scholars from around the world came to learn, connect and enjoy the unique qualities of the University of Oregon.
THEATRE ARTS — University Theatre's 2025-2026 season includes four dynamic and human-driven plays. Each of the plays offers a mix of historical and contemporary themes, while also speaking of such timely issues as immigration, gender roles, and workplace safety. All productions feature students on stage and behind the scenes.

All news »

We Love Our Supporters

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Your Gift Changes Lives

Gifts to the College of Arts and Sciences can help our students make the most of their college careers. To do this, CAS needs your support. Your contributions help us ensure that teaching, research, advising, mentoring, and support services are fully available to every student. Thank you!

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World-Class Faculty in the Humanities

headshot of Stephen Shoemaker

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).

a portrait of Stacy Alaimo in a hall

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

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. 

Paris, France cityscape at night

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.

Explore the Schnitzer School

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

headshot of Erica Bornstein

Happening at CAS

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

UO College of Arts & Sciences (@uocas) • Instagram photos and videos

Oct 16
2025 Shakeout Walk and Talk 2:00 p.m.

What should you do when the ground starts to shake? Join Kelly Missett from the Oregon Hazards Lab (OHAZ) for a special walk-and-talk on International ShakeOut Day. Learn about...
2025 Shakeout Walk and Talk
October 16
2:00 p.m.
Museum of Natural and Cultural History

What should you do when the ground starts to shake? Join Kelly Missett from the Oregon Hazards Lab (OHAZ) for a special walk-and-talk on International ShakeOut Day. Learn about earthquake safety and how you can be ready if an earthquake strikes.

Oct 16
The Department of Geography Presents: “Authoritarian Developmentalism and Urban Techno-Futures in the Gulf” Lecture by Natalie Koch 4:00 p.m.

The Department of Geography Presents: The Inaugural Alexander B. Murphy Distinguished Geography Lectureship “Authoritarian Developmentalism and Urban Techno-Futures in the...
The Department of Geography Presents: “Authoritarian Developmentalism and Urban Techno-Futures in the Gulf” Lecture by Natalie Koch
October 16
4:00 p.m.
Knight Library Browsing Room

The Department of Geography Presents: The Inaugural Alexander B. Murphy Distinguished Geography Lectureship

“Authoritarian Developmentalism and Urban Techno-Futures in the Gulf” Lecture by Natalie Koch, Syracuse University Department of Geography and the Environment

Authoritarian developmentalism draws its strength from political narratives about “progress” and techno-optimistic stories about the future. Through a case study of Arabia and the UAE, this talk examines how authoritarian developmentalism works alongside the technology sector today. It shows how authoritarian leaders draw on established patterns of state-backed urban boosterism, but with additional support of the tech industry, which also benefits from their new investments in “innovation economies,” “start-up cities,” and the latest digital technologies like artificial intelligence.

Natalie Koch is Professor of Geography at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. She is a political geographer who works on geopolitics, authoritarianism, identity politics, and state power in hydrocarbon-rich countries, primarily in the Arabian Peninsula. She has published extensively in journals such as Political Geography, Geoforum, Geopolitics, and the Annals of the American Association of Geographers, and she is editor of several books, including The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Political Geography (Wiley 2025) and Spatializing Authoritarianism (Syracuse University Press 2022). Her monographs include Arid Empire: The Entangled Fates of Arizona and Arabia (Verso 2022), and The Geopolitics of Spectacle: Space, Synecdoche, and the New Capitals of Asia (Cornell University Press 2018).

Free and open to the public. 

 

Oct 17
Career Tour-Tech Edition 9:00 a.m.

Want to see what it's like to work for some of the most innovative tech companies in Oregon AND explore Eugene all at the same time?! Have we got a Friday morning for you! Hop...
Career Tour-Tech Edition
October 17
9:00 a.m.–1:30 p.m.
Ford Alumni Center Lobby

Want to see what it's like to work for some of the most innovative tech companies in Oregon AND explore Eugene all at the same time?! Have we got a Friday morning for you! Hop on the bus and let’s go explore!

Students will have the opportunity to tour local companies passionate about creating innovative solutions for complex problems, and helping YOU learn more about all the different types of job functions needed to keep this growing industry booming. They are excited to introduce you to careers and internships at their companies, meet alumni and leaders, and show off some of their innovations in action! This event is FREE, open to all majors, faculty/staff, and bring a friend! Register on Handshake to save your spot & get updates! Our last tour had a waitlist, so sign up today!

OUTLINE OF TOUR:

Meet at Ford Alumni Center Lobby (near Matt Knight Arena Duck Statue) NO LATER THAN 9am; We'll walk over to the bus stop (Agate) to catch the EMX to downtown Eugene. All our sites are within walking distance of one another, so be prepared to get some exercise! While at the stops, you'll get an opportunity to tour their facilities as well as meet with leaders in the field. At 1 we'll be done with the tour and you can stick around downtown to keep exploring and grab lunch OR a group will be getting on the bus to head back to campus you can join.

ABOUT OUR TOUR STOPS: coming soon! 

NOTE: make sure you have your FREE LTD bus pass loaded on your phone https://transportation.uoregon.edu/bus

questions, email htate@uoregon.edu for more info or if you don't have a Handshake account and want to join us! 

Oct 17
2025 Oregon Postdoc Symposium noon

The UO Postdoctoral Association, with support from the UO Division of Graduate Studies, the OHSU Postdoc Society/Postdoc Affairs, the OSU Postdoctoral Association are joining...
2025 Oregon Postdoc Symposium
October 17
noon

The UO Postdoctoral Association, with support from the UO Division of Graduate Studies, the OHSU Postdoc Society/Postdoc Affairs, the OSU Postdoctoral Association are joining together again to host the 2025 Oregon Postdoc Symposium at the Oregon State University campus. This is an opportunity for postdoctoral scholars across the 3 universities to showcase their research, collaborate with other professionals, discuss cutting edge research and learn about career paths inside and outside of academia. There will be keynote talks from industry and academia and will feature a poster session, plus food and prizes. Registration coming soon!