Skip to content

Humanities Humanity Human Hope

Illustration for a series on the humanities showing photographs and sculptures of the human face, code, printing press letters and landscape with tinted overlays.

Humanities
Humanity
Human
Hope

Does the world need poets?

Or historians?
Philosophers, linguists, or painters?

Can we afford the time or expend the energy to pursue deeper meaning and elevated expression when the world is buffeted by environmental disruption, warfare, social inequity, political unrest, and technologies that are behaving more and more, well, human?

These are questions that get asked during cynical times.

They’re getting asked now.

Our scholars consider the modern state of humanities—their urgency and relevancy; how they help us to respond and adapt, embrace and transform, resist falsity and seek truth.

Our faculty address how Clark humanities are evolving to meet the modern challenges of artificial intelligence and climate change, while also taking fresh approaches to traditional literature, language, and the arts, with new regard for some of their most renowned practitioners.

Here’s looking at you, William Shakespeare.

The humanities reveal the complexities of humanity.

English Professor, Betsy Huang

BETSY HUANG

“It is very important to study all things that make us human.”

Humanity’s Parable

Language professor, Eduard Arriaga-Arango

EDUARD ARRIAGA-ARANGO

“We want people not only to speak but also to create things.”

Yack and Hack

John Magee, dean of the college and professor of computer science.

JOHN MAGEE

“We cannot turn over human cognition to the machines.”

Fingerprints on the Keyboard

Professor Terrasa Ulm, director of the undergraduate program in interactive media in Clark’s Becker School of Design & Technology.

TERRASA ULM

“Storytelling is everything that is the human experience.”

How it begins

Francophone Studies and Language, Literature, and Culture Professor Odile Ferly

ODILE FERLY

“The humanities engage with the imagination, which is important for thinking about the future.”

Narratives of Nature

Stephen Levin, associate professor of English

STEPHEN LEVIN

“The planetary crisis has made environmental humanities exceedingly important.”

Narratives of Nature

Tetrah Clark ’24

TETRA CLARK ’24

“Memes are the next way we’re communicating.”

The New Library

Professor Ousmane Power-Greene

OUSMANE POWER-GREENE

“Humanities are not just for college-educated elites. They are for everyone.”

Thirst for knowledge

Assistant Professor of English, Justin Shaw

JUSTIN SHAW

“We use Shakespeare to read culture—to read life.”

iShakespeare

Alice Coonley Higgins Institute for Arts and Humanities director, Matt Malsky

MATT MALSKY

“Everything is done with humanity at the forefront. Not just humanities, but humanity.”

Legacy in Bloom

Clark Musicologist Benjamin Korstvedt ’87

BEN KORSTVEDT

“Bruckner takes the listener on a great journey through all sorts of different emotions and conflicts.”

THE FORCE IS WITH HIM

Listen to the podcasts

Collage of images invoking the studies of the humanities.

Challenge. Change. podcast

Our humanities faculty discuss their work on the Challenge. Change. podcast.

Join the conversation