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Humanities Division

500 Humanities 1 Building
(831) 459-2696
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 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. & Literature 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 Program

Graduate Study

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

  • 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 Employing Humanities Initiative is 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.

Humanities majors and minors are eligible for paid experiential learning programs that connect their classroom curriculum with hands-on training, including internships and undergraduate research--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: Experiental Career Exploration and Learning

Students in this cohort program hold paid positions with off-campus community partner organizations. They earn $20/hour and work 10-15 hours/week. EXCEL Fellows are invited to regular cohort meetings where they build community and get support reflecting on their internship experience. This program helps students nurture career-ready and transferable skills that prepare them for professional and community-engaged settings.

Humanities EXPLORE Undergraduate Research Program: Experiental Learning Opportunities in Research

Students in this cohort program hold paid positions on faculty-led humanities research projects, including community-engaged work in the public humanities. Student researchers earn $20/hour and work about 10 hours/week. EXPLORE Fellows are invited to quarterly meetings and workshops on professional development for researchers. This program helps students engage with academic networks and understand what professional research is like. Applications open in spring and fall quarters.

The Humanities Institute

The Humanities Institute (THI) is a hub for bold projects in the humanities and exemplifies the kind of innovative work for which UC Santa Cruz is world-famous. The institute’s three pillars – Research Excellence, Student Success, and Public Engagement – are intertwined and mutually reinforcing. THI promotes Research Excellence through Centers, Projects, and Clusters that foster cross-disciplinary collaboration in emerging fields and enable faculty and students to work on some of our biggest contemporary problems. THI fellowships directly fund the work of faculty and students and provide scholars with much needed time and resources to pursue their groundbreaking research. The institute supports Student Success by preparing the next generation of leaders in the Humanities and beyond. THI’s Research Fellows program offers students opportunities to pursue independent research projects and present their work, while THI’s Public Fellows program gives humanities students hands-on training and professional experience that fosters meaningful relationships between the campus and the broader community. As part of the institute’s long commitment to Public Engagement, THI connects anyone interested in compelling humanities ideas with vibrant intellectual exchanges at UC Santa Cruz and elevates humanities expertise beyond the university. THI’s Public Programs engage the broadest community possible—from first-generation students and scholars in every discipline, to local residents and anyone interested in making sense of our complex world. THI works across boundaries to connect all parts of our campus to the Humanities and to collaborate with partners outside of the university. Thousands of people in Santa Cruz and around the world participate in the institute’s programs, including THI’s annual Deep Read.

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. At their core, all Humanities disciplines help us change the ways we see society, ourselves, and each other, providing new frames of reference. With the help of the Humanities, we can expand the limits of our perspectives—we can change the frame. For over 25 years, The Humanities Institute has been fostering new frames of reference to expand our thinking, spark big ideas, and work across boundaries. To learn more, visit our website and see our Annual Impact Reports.