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Humanities Division

500 Humanities 1 Building
https://humanities.ucsc.edu/

Engaged with the world

In the Humanities Division, we explore the entire human experience. We’re driven to understand how humans seek meaning, forge identities and cultures, and strive to make their voices heard. But we’re also the humanities at UC Santa Cruz, and that means we’re thinkers and doers, fully engaged in the world and the biggest social justice challenges around us. The wealth of experiences you can have with us, in the classroom and beyond it, will help you become the kind of creative problem-solver and communicator that every profession—and the world itself—needs more than ever.

The questions and ideas we explore resist tidy boxes and conventional answers. There’s never been one way to do the humanities at UC Santa Cruz—in fact, we’re famous for inventing new ways of understanding and engaging with the world. We know that different fields of study offer you different lenses for looking at ideas and problems, so we won’t lock you into a narrow set of classes or class materials. The possibilities for expressing what you’ve learned are equally broad: our students present their ideas in archival and data-driven research and in creative writing; they create exhibits, archives, podcasts, oral histories, and digital experiences.

Become a community co-creator, collaborator, and advocate. We’re a trusted partner with grassroots organizations and communities striving for justice and equity—throughout the Bay Area, and in global settings from Okinawa to Oaxaca. Our innovative public humanities projects collaborate with people to share their histories, celebrate their resilience, and connect their cultures to new audiences. We welcome your talents on these projects: The people you’ll meet will change your life, and you’ll gain real-world professional experience.

An environment of innovation, diversity, and inclusion

Our professors are doing ground-breaking work questioning conventional, canonical wisdom and exploring multiple cultures, histories, and languages of places, including East Asia, the Americas, North Africa, and South Asia. Delve into your own cultural legacy and open yourself up to new cultural traditions and values. Discover how humanity’s capacity to imagine what’s possible and impossible changes across time and space.

Connections—between ideas and people—are easy to make in the Humanities Division. You’ll find people are eager to invest in your ideas and help you cross disciplinary boundaries. Your professors are dedicated to offering you opportunities that stretch your intellect and talents and encourage you to grow professionally.

We’ll equip you with the tools for career success—and a meaningful life. The observational and analytical skills you learn in the humanities will help you see through biased and binary thinking, and confidently engage with complexity. You’ll learn how to create opportunities to democratize knowledge. You’ll listen empathically, connect ideas and collaborate across lines of difference, and communicate persuasively on any platform.

Find your people here. We’re a diverse community of faculty and students at UC Santa Cruz. It’s exciting to learn alongside people who bring so many different lived experiences to the table, who have such wide-ranging curiosity, and who believe that sharing ideas is fundamental to human-centered change.

Undergraduate Study

Undergraduate Majors

  • Applied Linguistics and Multilingualism B.A.

  • Classical Studies B.A.

  • Critical Race and Ethnic Studies B.A.

  • Feminist Studies B.A.

  • History B.A.

  • Jewish Studies B.A.

  • Language Studies B.A.

  • Linguistics B.A.

  • Literature B.A.
    Creative Writing Concentration

  • Philosophy B.A.

  • Spanish Studies B.A.

Undergraduate Minors and Certificates

  • Black Studies Minor

  • Classical Studies Minor

  • East Asian Studies Minor

  • History Minor

  • History of Consciousness Minor

  • Italian Studies Minor

  • Jewish Studies Minor

  • Language Studies Minor

  • Linguistics Minor

  • Literature Minor

  • Middle Eastern and North African Studies Minor

  • Philosophy Minor

  • Spanish Studies Minor

  • Humanizing Technology Certificate Program

  • Visualizing Abolition Studies Certificate Program

Graduate Study

  • Critical Race and Ethnic Studies, Designated Emphasis for Ph.D. students

  • Feminist Studies, Ph.D., Designated Emphasis for Ph.D. students
    Feminist Studies graduate programs are not accepting applications during the 2025-26 academic year.

  • History, Ph.D.

  • History of Consciousness, Ph.D., Designated Emphasis for Ph.D. students

  • Linguistics, M.A., Ph.D.

  • Literature, M.A., Ph.D., Designated Emphasis for Ph.D. students

  • Philosophy, M.A., Ph.D., Designated Emphasis for Ph.D. students

Employing Humanities

The Humanities Division is excited to introduce Employing Humanities, a new career readiness initiative designed to help students connect the skills and knowledge they gain in their classes to the career opportunities waiting for them after graduation. The study of humanities nurtures foundational skills that employers across industries value, such as critical thinking and problem-solving, communication, collaboration, and ethical judgment and decision-making. Honing these skills with practical, hands-on training helps students articulate their abilities and prepares them to succeed as socially-just leaders.

The Humanities Division has designated eight career-readiness competencies that we aim to develop in our students through experiential learning opportunities: ethical leadership, equity and inclusion, critical thinking, teamwork, communication, career and self development, professionalism and work ethic, and digital technology.

The Mellon Foundation saw the potential of Employing Humanities and provided $1 million to support humanities' undergraduate majors and minors with paid experiential learning opportunities that connect their classroom curriculum with hands-on training, including internships and undergraduate research.

Humanities majors and minors are eligible for two experiential learning programs—the Humanities EXCEL Internship program and the Humanities EXPLORE Undergraduate Research Program. These programs foster student achievement, increase career-mindedness and academic engagement, and build a sense of belonging for undergraduate majors and minors in the Humanities Division.

Humanities EXCEL Internship Program: Experiential Career Exploration and Learning

Students in this cohort program hold paid positions with off-campus community partner organizations. They earn $20/hour and work 10-20 hours/week. This program aims to increase career-mindedness and support EXCEL Fellows in nurturing transferable skills that prepare them for professional and community-engaged settings. EXCEL Fellows gain practical experience while learning about industries and positions that build on their studies in the humanities.

Humanities EXPLORE Undergraduate Research Program: Experiential Learning Opportunities in Research

Faculty in the Humanities Division apply to the EXPLORE program and mentor undergraduate researchers who work on their faculty-led projects. Researchers are selected for projects that align with their skills and academic expertise. Researchers are hired, earn $18-$20/hour, and contribute at least 100 hours per quarter to the project. EXPLORE Fellows are invited to attend quarterly workshops on professional development for researchers and build support networks with faculty mentors, staff, and peers.

The Humanities Institute

The Humanities Institute (THI) is a hub for the kind of innovative work in the humanities for which UC Santa Cruz is world-famous. THI promotes Research Excellence through Centers, Projects, and Clusters that address important issues and foster cross-disciplinary collaboration in emerging fields; we fund fellowships that provide faculty and students with time and resources critical to their groundbreaking research. THI supports Student Success through a pioneering public fellows program that gives humanities students hands-on training and professional development that prepares them for meaningful careers. We address social inequalities by offering additional resources to students from groups traditionally underrepresented in higher education. THI’s Public Programs continue our long commitment to public scholarship through humanities projects that promote vibrant intellectual exchange beyond the university and through community-engaged work that helps build a more just and equitable society.

Excellence in the humanities cultivates critical thinking, equips us to grapple with an ever-more complex world, and helps prepare a new generation of leaders. From fellows archiving historical documents to collaborations with partners on campus and in the community, our work brings insight through both big ideas and subtle distinctions. We see the forest and the trees. To learn more, see our Annual Impact Reports, our Student Success Impact Reports, and our Research, Funding, and Fellows pages.