BA in Arts and Humanities

The following is a listing of all Arts and Humanities courses.  They are not listed  in the sequence in which they should be completed.  The sequence will be determined by your faculty advisor.

HUM 105F Basic Photography
This course is an introduction to black and white photography, designed to help students gain understanding through “hands-on” photographic work. Lectures include classroom discussions concerning the history and aesthetics of photography, and techniques include camera and lens functions, exposure methods, basic black and white film processing, printmaking, print finishing, and presentation techniques. Cr 3.

HUM 120H / ENG 120H Introduction to Literature
This course is designed to introduce students to four basic literary genres: poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and drama. Through a combination of lectures, small group discussions, exercises, readings, and weekly writing assignments, students will work toward mastering a basic understanding of literature. Students will learn how to improve their writing, as well as their ability to read and analyze literature. Cr 3.

HUM 125 French Language and Maine Society
This is an introductory course for the French language. Students will also learn about the cultural and linguistic context of French society in Maine and eastern North America. Students will use the French language they are studying to work with the Franco-American Collection and Maine Franco-American communities.  Cr 3.

HUM 201F Creative Writing
This course is an introduction to the basic principles and practices of writing memoir, fiction, flash fiction, and poetry. Students will be exposed to a variety of writing modes through exercises and engagement with literary texts. Emphasis is on using imaginative and precise language and on assembling a portfolio of revised student writing. Prerequisite: LCC 110. Suggested preparation: LCC 250.  Cr 3.

HUM 213H Metaphor in Literature, Science, and Religion
This course is a comparative study of literature, science, and religion, focusing on aims, methods, and values, and on the nature of truth and creativity in each discipline. Readings in fiction, poetry, religion, and modern physical and biological science provide a basis for discussion of the metaphoric nature of literary, religious, and scientific discourse. Our goal is to demonstrate that all three areas of human endeavor rely heavily on the metaphoric nature of language in their search for meaning and truth. This course consists of careful reading of texts, active class discussion, and out of class essays. No college science background required.  Cr 3.

HUM 230F Digital Photography
Working with digital cameras, students will learn to see photographically in color. They will gain a better understanding of color relationships using color as design elements and the overall artistic and aesthetic uses of color photography. Students will learn controls of their camera's software.  Adobe Photoshop software will be the primary tool used for image control and manipulation. Cr 3

HUM 250H Song as Literature
This course is designed to introduce students to the role of the song in our cultural heritage as a fundamental literary genre and a remarkably democratic and influential art form. The course traces the evolution of the story song from the epic ballads of Europe and North America through the development of songs for religious, political, nationalistic and purely entertainment purposes.  Cr 3.

HUM 251H Masculinities in U.S. Literature and Culture
This course begins with the notion that masculinity is as complex and variable a cultural category as femininity. Given this premise, we will examine literature and popular forms of mass media that take masculinity as a primary theme.  Cr 3.

HUM 260I Media Literacy and Theories of Popular Culture
In order to foster a critical approach to modern media, this course applies theory and analysis to popular culture texts. What do we learn about our modern industrial consumerist society from the texts it produces? What makes something popular, and how do we detect a text’s projected world view? We will study TV, film, photography, graphic novels, the Internet, and music. Framing popular culture as a mass-media driven phenomenon, we will explain the deeper significance of our society using a selection of critical and theoretical commentary. Cr 3.

HUM 300 Texts and Meanings
This course examines literature and literary theory to understand how language shapes us and how we, in turn, shape language. How are meanings made? How are they received by readers? How do ideas about language change over time and across cultural divides? Why do we value some writings over others? Why is political and other discourse so easily manipulated? We will examine these and other questions as we read from major writers of the 19th and 20th centuries, alongside various approaches to literary and cultural and study. Prerequisite: ENG 100C. Cr 3.

HUM 301I French North America
This is a survey course about the diverse French society in North America. From Maine to Haiti and from Sonora to the Yukon, the French have adapted to an array of niches on our continent. This course encourages not only a review of the well known communities, but also research of lesser known ones. Cr 3–6.

HUM 305F Creative Writing: Poetry
This course is designed to introduce students to the art and practice of writing poetry. Organized as a workshop, it features close examination of the student’s own writing as well as the work of outstanding contemporary poets. Prerequisite: HUM 201F.  Cr 3.


HUM 306F Creative Writing: Fiction
This course is designed to introduce students to the art and practice of writing fiction. Organized as a workshop, it features close examination of the student’s own writing as well as the work of outstanding contemporary fiction writers. Prerequisite: HUM 201F.  Cr 3.

HUM 307 Writing Creative Nonfiction
This course explores the literary terrain between imaginative literature and journalism. Students study the fictional techniques employed by journalists and examine the questions their work poses about the uneasy boundaries between fact and fiction. Students will produce their own extended non-fiction essay.  Cr 3.

HUM 309I United States Studies: Class, Race and Gender
Drawing on political and social history and imaginative literature, this course will explore efforts that have been made to overcome the discrimination and oppression that keep U.S. democracy from achieving the ideals of liberty and justice on which it was founded.  Cr 3.

HUM 310I French Settlement in the Northeast
This course will look at the exciting dynamics of French settlement in the northeastern part of America, from its beginnings in the 16th century to the present. The ancestral homeland of French North America included much of what today is called southern Québec, northern New England, and Atlantic Canada. From this cultural “hearth,” French settlers then expanded to create many distinctive societies in new areas of the continent. We will address the varieties of cultural identity and old stereotypes, as well as search out new directions in which French society is going in the Northeast. Hyper-flexible course; the online section is only open with the professor’s permission.  Cr 3.

HUM 313I What is ‘Race’?
The concept of race is one of the most contentious ideas of modern society. This course will examine the history and biology of race, and trace the development of the idea of race in American culture. Students will examine evolution to understand the diversity in the human species. They will integrate this information with historical attempts to define race so as to gain a better understanding of race and racial issues.  

HUM 318H Photography and Poetry: Two Ways of Speaking
This course deals with two modes of creative expression: photography and poetry. Its purpose is to help students read intelligently and sensitively both photographs and poems and to assist them in exploring connections between the two types of expression.  Cr 3.

HUM 320H Early African American Literature and Culture
This course studies the history of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century African-American literature by examining transcriptions of oral folk productions, slave narratives, speeches, autobiography, essays, poetry, and prose fiction in order to trace the development of African-American literary culture. The social, political, and cultural contexts of the works will also be considered.  Cr 3.

HUM 325I World History and Geography I
This is the first in a series of two courses that are designed to help students develop an understanding of and an appreciation for world history and geography. The course’s goal is to provide students with a humanistic background from which to better comprehend global complexities. This course will cover the period from prehistory to the age of modern expansion, from about 50,000 to 500 years ago.  Prerequisite:   Only students in the second year status, or above are permitted to take this course.
Cr 3.

HUM 326I World History and Geography II
This is the second in a series of two courses that are designed to help students become more knowledgeable participants in today’s rapidly changing world. Its goal is to make links between global history and modern world situations, as well as find the locations on a map. In other words, it is a primer in “global citizenship.” This course covers the period from the Age of Modern Exploration (ca. 1500) to the present. Prerequisite:   Only students in the second year status, or above are permitted to take this course.    Cr 3.

HUM 330I International Labor, Literature, and the Arts
This is an interdisciplinary course designed to develop an appreciation for the diverse forms of work and labor-organizing around the world and their expression through literature and the arts. We will look at songs, films, murals, magazines, poetry, cartoons, novels, short stories, biographies, and more. Although we will consider work historically, our primary goal is to develop an international view of labor in the modern world.  Cr 3.

HUM 332 Religion in Culture and Politics
This course will look at one or more historic or contemporary issues or events in order to explore the connection between religion and the origin, progress and outcome of each issue or event under consideration.  Cr 3.

HUM 336 Cross Cultural Poetry of Traditional and Alternative Spiritualities
This course will engage the fundamental texts and related poetry from a variety of spiritual traditions from both East and West. The course will also strive to make clear the special place occupied by poetry in both the experiencing and the expressing of spiritual truths.  Cr 3.

HUM 340I World Indigenous and Native Societies
This is an interdisciplinary course designed to develop an appreciation for the diversity of native societies around the world. Some important points for us to consider are the differences and disparities between the developed nations and the fourth world, as well as the ambiguities of terms like “native,” “traditional,” “indigenous,” “aboriginal,” and “civilized.” We also will consider case studies of modern native societies, such as the Mayan, Kurd, and Basque peoples, looking not just at their traditional histories and cultures, but also at some of their contemporary movements, including the EZLN, PKK, and ETA rebellions. We will seek to find common issues faced by native peoples around the world, as well as to identify problems unique to each group. A particular focus of this course will concern some of the Eastern Algonquian nations of Maine and the Northeast, including the Androscoggin, Almouchiquois, and Abenaki.  Cr 3.

HUM 342H Women Writing around the World
This course examines critically acclaimed imaginative works by contemporary women writers to explore issues of identity in an international context. Authors include Marjane Satrapi, Edwidge Danticat, Jhumpa Lahiri, Michelle Cliff, Cristina Garcia, and Bharati Mukherjee. A primary objective will be to identify and investigate the complexities of multiple-situated selves across geographic borders as they are represented in literature. To do this, we will look at common themes of racial and cultural hybridity (intermixture), the legacies of colonialism, and the tension between local allegiances and global realities.
Cr 3.

HUM 350E Cultural Fieldwork
This course is designed to help students develop new ways to think about their place in the world. They will visit and meet with professionals from museums, archeological sites, ecological preserves, industrial plants, and others. As a fieldwork course, emphasis will be placed on projects done by students themselves. They will collect oral histories, search for lost documents, assess geographic and environmental problems, and do archeological site surveys, We will also develop a public project, such as the designation of a historical site.  This course satisfies the HUM service learning requirement.  Cr 3-6.

HUM/SBS 366 Transforming Words: Poetry and Psychologies of Change
This course examines the interrelationships between poetry and psychology, with a focus on transformations of meaning in words and lives. Topics will include the varying functions of poetry over the life span, poets’ reflections on how and why they write, poetry as political witness and community catalyst, therapeutic uses of poetry, and the distinctive qualities of “poetic” language. Students have the option of pursuing community-based projects involving poetry. Blended course.  Cr 3.

HUM 370 Literacy Studies
This course introduces the field of literacy studies through an examination of theories and activities involving literacy. It begins with an inquiry into definitions of literacy and goes on to trace a brief history of thinking about literacy with special attention to cross-cultural and transnational issues. This course satisfies the service learning requirement.  Cr 3.

HUM 389H Sexualities in Literature and Film
"This course will focus on social difference as it concerns the intersection of sex, sexuality, and gender.  Some questions we will address include to what extent are sex, gender, and sexuality  are connected?  What does it mean to say these categories are socially constructed?  What are the origins of “homosexual” and “heterosexual” identities?  How are bisexuality and transgender identities understood?  How do writers and filmmakers represent the complexities of sexual difference and how is that difference lived through other sorts of identity categories, including race and class?"    Cr 3

HUM 460 Franco-American Community and Archives Work
This course will consist of directed study and work with the Franco-American Collection. The largest repository of Franco-American documents in Maine and one of the largest in the United States, the Collection is home to a wide variety of letters, diaries, oral histories, newspapers, scrapbooks, maps, audio recordings, photographs, books, and academic papers. This diverse material comes from the Androscoggin Valley, other parts of Maine, the Northeast, and from around North America. Projects will include locating and obtaining materials, their conservation and preservation, cataloguing and accessioning documents, as well as projects of public service and community outreach. This course satisfies the HUM service learning requirement.
Cr 3–6.

HUM 490 Overseas Investigations and Comparisons
This course will consist of directed study and work outside of the usually defined “boundaries” of the United States. This can mean outside the physical borders, such as Uruguay or New Brunswick, Chiapas, or Somalia. But it can also mean outside the perceived borders of the mainstream nation state, such as work on a Lakota Sioux reserve or with Latino/Latina community in East Los Angeles. A student in this course will work closely with a faculty member to develop a project, carry it through, and produce a summary presentation.  1–6.

HUM 498 Independent Study  Cr 3–6.

HUM 499 Special Topics
A variety of topics courses have been and will be offered. These have included: Religions of the World; Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Theory, Metaphor and Fashion; and Historical Archeology Field School.  Cr 3.