Humanities and Catholic Studies Courses
Humanities and Catholic Studies Courses
The Humanities Program at Providence College offers a wide variety of courses that engage the mind and enliven the spirit. These classes introduce students to skills and practices that are at the heart of a humane culture, and thoughts and ideas that help draw us closer to true wisdom.
Courses Outside of the Ordinary
Foundational Courses: Interdisciplinary in content and aspiring to an integrated and unified understanding of all creation, our foundational 3-credit courses in “Humanities” and “Catholic Studies” typically include philosophy, theology, history, literature, and the arts, all centered around a specific theme. These courses contribute to our degree programs, often fulfill core requirements, and are open to all Providence College students. For example, “HUM175 – Introduction to Humanities” introduces students to the humanities through an interdisciplinary consideration of human culture, and “CTH225 – Beauty and Human Making” is an interdisciplinary reflection on the nature, appreciation, and creation of beauty from the perspective of the Catholic Intellectual Tradition. See the Providence College online course catalog for a complete list of our “Humanities” and “Catholic Studies” courses.
Reading Seminars: We offer a variety of 1-credit “Reading Seminars” each semester. These courses meet once a week to discuss a single text or small collection of texts over the course of the semester. They are easy to add to an otherwise full schedule, and are often integrated into the Humanities Forum or other signature initiatives of the Program. Recent offerings have included “Frederick Douglass,” “Plato’s Love Dialogues,” “Walker Percy’s The Last Gentleman,” and “The Soul of Rock ‘n Roll.”
The Humanities Practicum: Our Practicum courses combine humanistic study with a learned practical skill. Many of these courses are 1 credit or 1.5 credits, making them easy to add to an otherwise full schedule. For example, our “Illuminated Manuscripts” Practicum teaches students the purpose and original methods of hand illumination as students create their own illuminated page with authentic materials. “Gregorian Chant” teaches the theology and practice of chant singing, often concluding with public participation in a sung liturgy.
Fall 2024 Course Offerings
HUM 175 (1) – Introduction to Humanities
Patrick Macfarlane (Philosophy and Humanities)
3 Credits, two sections: CRN 1906, M/Th 8:30-9:45 and CRN 1904, M/Th 10:00-11:15
No prerequisites and open to all students; required for Catholic Humanities minors and Catholic Studies majors; satisfies the Oral Communication proficiency of the Core Curriculum.
This is the foundational course for the minor in Catholic Humanities and the major in Catholic Studies and introduces students to the humanities through the concept of culture. We will consider a broad and interdisciplinary selection of texts and authors, including Sophocles, Plato, Shakespeare, Newman, Nietzsche, Eliot, Joyce, and Kafka. We will also read selections from the Bible and consider the theological work of David Bentley Hart. All are welcome! Satisfies the Oral Communication proficiency of the core curriculum.
HUM 175 (2) – Introduction to Humanities
Andrew Horne (Humanities)
3 Credits, CRN 1905, M/W/F 2:30-3:20
No prerequisites and open to all students; required for Catholic Humanities minors and Catholic Studies majors; satisfies the Oral Communication proficiency of the Core Curriculum.
This is the foundational course for the minor in Catholic Humanities and the major in Catholic Studies. At the core of humanities is the study of the human being. This introductory course examines human nature, the human condition, and human actions through an interdisciplinary range of texts. Special attention is given to two great eras of humanism, Republican Rome and the Renaissance. Our aim is to understand great texts for their own sake, while also assessing the validity of the ideas they contain. Satisfies the Oral Communication proficiency of the core curriculum.
CTH 225 – Beauty and Human Making
Andrew Horne (Humanities)
3 Credits, CRN 2553, M/W/F 12:30-1:20
No prerequisites and open to all students; required for Catholic Studies majors; satisfies the Oral Communication proficiency of the Core Curriculum.
Beauty inspires and beauty frightens. Beauty pulls us out of selfishness and into relationship. Beauty draws us to worship. It inspires us to produce art, music, and poetry, to build houses and cities, to travel the world, to conserve nature. Souls have been saved for the love of beauty, but beauty can also be loved wrongly. This course approaches beauty kaleidoscopically, through philosophical, theological, artistic, literary, and historical approaches. Satisfies the Oral Communication proficiency of the core curriculum.
HUM 250 – Stargazing
Fr. Humbert Kilanowski (Mathematics and Computer Science)
1 Credit, CRN 1907, Th 7:00-7:50
No prerequisites and open to all students.
This Humanities Practicum is designed to foster wonder and appreciation of the night sky. Students will learn to identify stars, planets, and other luminous objects, as they have been viewed across cultures and epochs throughout human history. The class will involve lectures as well as observation sessions of the sky using binoculars, telescopes, and the unaided eye. While not a scientifically rigorous course, the class does blend some basic astrophysics with humanistic aspects of the study of the stars.
HUM 250 – Introduction to Christian Prayer
Fr. Simon Teller (Providence College Chaplaincy) and Allyse Gruslin (Providence College Chaplaincy)
1.5 Credits, CRN 1908, W 11:30-12:45
No prerequisites and open to all students.
“We do not know how to pray as we ought” (Romans 8:26). This course offers a practical and theological introduction to the major forms of Christian Prayer (including meditation, lectio divina, the Rosary, the Liturgy of the Hours, the prayers of the Mass, vocal prayer, and more).
HUM 270 – King Arthur: Monarch of the Medieval Imagination
Christopher Berard (Humanities)
1.5 Credits, CRN 1910, M 4:00-5:15
No prerequisites and open to all students.
This interdisciplinary course traces the development of the legend of King Arthur from its shadowy beginnings in the Early Middle Ages (c. 500) to its starry heights in the High Middle Ages (c. 1250). We will focus on the Lancelot-Grail Cycle, or Vulgate Cycle, of Old French Prose Arthurian Romances (c. 1210-30), which is the most comprehensive and canonical version of the Arthurian legend ever written. This cycle, which includes The Quest for the Holy Grail and The Death of King Arthur, is from the age of Aquinas, has been called the Summa Arthuriana, and influenced the likes of Dante Alighieri and C. S. Lewis.
HUM 275 – Augustine’s “Confessions”
Robert Barry (Theology)
1 Credit, CRN 1911, M 12:30-1:20
No prerequisites and open to all students.
This one-credit Humanities Reading Seminar is a close reading of St. Augustine’s autobiographical Confessions. We will follow Augustine’s meditations on central issues important in every human life such as happiness, sin, death, memory, truth, time, friendship, sex, love, eternity, creation, and God.
HUM 275 – Civ (Taylor’s Version)
Fr. Simon Teller (Providence College Chaplaincy)
1 Credit, CRN 2801, W 1:30-2:20
No prerequisites and open to all students.
HUM 275 – Violence and Religion
Colum Dever (Theology)
1 Credit, CRN 1913, F 10:30-11:20
No prerequisites and open to all students.
Have you ever wondered about the peculiar human capacity for violence? And how religion can either facilitate or mitigate this peculiar tendency? This course explores the relationship between violence and religion in conversation with the thought of René Girard and his influential “mimetic theory.” We will also read literature and watch films that further illustrate his theory. Come and see why sacrifice lies at the heart of religion, and how Christianity brings this truth to its completion.
HUM 275 – The Films of Alfred Hitchcock
Suzanne Fournier (English)
1 Credit, CRN 1914, M 1:30-2:20
No prerequisites and open to all students.
Alfred Hitchcock’s deeply entertaining films remain popular more than forty years after his death. This course will deepen our appreciation for the artistry of his work, so apparent in his storytelling and visual style. We will watch 39 Steps, Rebecca, Notorious, Psycho, Rear Window, Shadow of a Doubt, Vertigo, The Wrong Man, and North by Northwest. In the course of the semester, we will also discuss the Catholic dimension of several recurring Hitchcock themes.
HUM 279 – Great Hollywood Directors
Fr. Kenneth Gumbert (Theater, Dance, and Film)
3 Credits, CRN 1915, T/Th 2:30-3:45
No prerequisites and open to all students. Cross-listed with Theater, Dance, and Film
This course highlights the work of some of the most important American film directors from the classical era up to the present. We will look closely at the style and meaning of various films through a lens that examines the culture and imaginative influences at work upon these outstanding Hollywood film auteurs.
CTH 305 – God and the Transcendent
Raymond Hain (Philosophy and Humanities)
3 Credits, CRN 1920, T/W/F 10:30-11:20
No prerequisites and open to all students; required for Catholic Studies majors; satisfies the Philosophy requirement of the Core Curriculum.
This course is an interdisciplinary consideration of God and the transcendent. It introduces the history, methods, and importance of humanistic reflection on the source and measure of all created things and its influence on human culture. Themes include the existence and nature of God, our experience of the divine, the search for transcendent meaning, and the human aspiration to contemplative union.
HUM 325 – The Catholic Intellectual Tradition
Raymond Hain (Philosophy and Humanities)
3 Credits, CRN 1916, T/W/F 9:30-10:20
No prerequisites and open to all students; satisfies a core requirement for Catholic Humanities minors and Catholic Studies majors; satisfies the Writing I proficiency of the Core Curriculum.
This course is an interdisciplinary exploration of the history, methods, and central claims of the Catholic intellectual tradition. Organized around the 1992 Catechism of the Catholic Church, we will focus on the Christian creed, the Church’s sacramental life, morality, and prayer. Besides the Catechism, we will reflect on philosophical and theological texts, short stories and novels, films, architecture, and music. Possible authors include St. Thomas Aquinas, John Henry Newman, J. R. R. Tolkien, Flannery O’Connor, Jacques Maritain, Alsadair MacIntyre, and the films of Terrence Malick and the Dardennes brothers. Satisfies the Writing I proficiency of the Core Curriculum.
HUM 470 – Health, Community, and the Common Good
Dana Dillon (Theology and Public and Community Service)
3 Credits, CRN 1917, T/Th 2:30-3:45
Prerequisite: Theology 200; otherwise open to all students and satisfies the Theology 300 requirement and Civic Engagement proficiency of the Core Curriculum. Cross-listed with Public and Community Service and Theology.
Drawing on the principles of Catholic social thought and liberation theology, this course explores health and healthcare in relation to the common good. We will draw on the expertise of those in the health sciences, including the work of Dr. Paul Farmer. We will ask whether secular understandings of health, healthcare, and human persons can measure up to the demands of the dignity of the human person as understood in the Catholic intellectual tradition. And we will reflect upon the obligations of Christians and global citizens to work toward healthcare equity and robust care for all. Satisfies the Theology 300 requirement and the Civic Engagement proficiency of the Core Curriculum.
HUM 470 – Faith, Politics, and Dialogue
Dana Dillon (Theology and Public and Community Service)
3 Credits, CRN 1918, T 4:00-6:30
Satisfies the Civic Engagement and Oral Communication proficiencies of the Core Curriculum. Cross-listed with Public and Community Service and Theology.
In our increasingly polarized world, it’s common advice to avoid discussing religion or politics. This course will dive into these two crucial topics animated by the conviction that dialogue is a key part both of seeking after the truth together and of building the kinds of community that can sustain deeper discussion of difference. Key texts and ideas will include the USCCB’s Faithful Citizenship, Chiara Lubich on the spirituality of unity, and Jonathan Haidt’s The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion.
HUM 480 – Humanities Capstone
James Keating (Theology and Humanities)
3 Credits, CRN 1919, M 4:00-6:30
Prerequisites: HUM 175, HUM 325 or HUM 326; open to seniors only, or with special permission of the Director of the Humanities Program.
This is the required interdisciplinary capstone seminar for the Catholic Humanities minor. Themes will vary depending on the instructor and topics chosen by the students. Students will complete a substantial writing project designed in consultation with the instructor and requiring integration of prior coursework.
CTH 480 – Catholic Studies Capstone
James Keating (Theology and Humanities)
3 Credits, CRN 1921, M 4:00-6:30
Prerequisites: senior status or permission of the Director required; Catholic Studies majors must have completed at least seven courses towards the major.
This is the required interdisciplinary capstone seminar for the Catholic Studies major. Themes will vary depending on the instructor and topics chosen by the students. Students will complete a substantial writing project designed in consultation with the instructor and requiring integration of prior coursework.
