ENGINE — I · INSTITUTION
The University
From Bologna (1088) through Humboldt’s Berlin (1810), the university fused teaching with research and made Bildung a public credential.
est. 1088
PROSPECTVS ACADEMICVS · MMXXVI–MMXXIX
THE HUMANITIES BA (Hons) · full syllabus, study toolkit & degree planner
COURSE HUM 101–404ENTRY SEP 2026
DURATION 3 YRS (4 W/ ABROAD)CREDITS 180 ECTSAWARD BA (Hons)
hūmānitās, -ātis (f.)
From Latin homo, “human being.” The programme follows the historic arc of the studia humanitatis — grammar, rhetoric, poetry, history, moral philosophy — as a modern, research-taught degree with weekly seminars, a supervised thesis, and an oral defense.
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plate II · seminar notebook, week 7
§ I — Programme Description
What thehumanities are
The natural sciences explain how the world works; the social sciences model how people behave. The humanities ask a third question: what does it mean — and what, therefore, should we do?
They are the disciplines that interpret, critique, and conserve human culture through its records: texts, images, sounds, artifacts, rituals, and arguments. Their instruments are close reading, evidence, reasoning, and imagination — and their test is not prediction but understanding.
This degree treats the humanities as one conversation with many languages. Year 1 builds the shared spine; Year 2 adds method and theory; Year 3 is seminars, a specialization track, and a supervised thesis.
Question
Natural sciences
Social sciences
Humanities
Core question
How does it work?
What patterns govern people?
What does it mean, and what should we do?
Method
Experiment & measurement
Statistics & models
Interpretation, argument, evidence of texts & things
Standard of proof
Replicability
Predictive validity
Coherence, evidence, insight
Unit of study
Laws & mechanisms
Populations & variables
The particular work, event, life
Taught chiefly by
Labs & problem sets
Surveys & datasets
Seminars, essays, theses
Disciplines in the faculty ❦
FOURTEEN FIELDS · TAP ANY ROW TO UNFOLD ITS ENTRY
The working methods
TAUGHT EXPLICITLY IN HUM 103, PRACTISED EVERYWHERE DATA.after
§ II — Historical Background
Thirty thousand years,nine turning points
Every student of the humanities inherits this chronology. It is introduced in Year 1 (HUM 103) and examined in Year 2 (HUM 201).
§ III — Programme Structure
Three years,180 credits
Sixty ECTS per academic year, thirty per term. Two teaching terms a year with a reading week in the middle of each. A year abroad is available between Years 2 and 3. Try the interactive planner in § XVI.
180ECTS total (≈120 US credits)
60 / yrcredits per academic year
14 hcontact hours per week
26 hindependent study per week
2 × 12teaching weeks per year
10,000words, capstone thesis
Specialization tracks — Year 3 electives
CHOOSE ONE TRACK; ITS SEMINARS FILL SPECIALIZATION SLOTS I–III
Progression & classification
§ IV — Module Catalogue
The core,module by module
Nine required modules anchor the degree. Each entry gives the syllabus essentials: description, learning outcomes, key readings, and assessment. Open any row to read the full entry.
Week-by-week teaching plans follow in § VII; assignment formats in § X; seminar questions in § XII.
CORE MODULES · 85 ECTS OF THE 180 · REMAINDER: LANGUAGE, SEMINAR ELECTIVES, TRACK SEMINARS
§ V — Course Map
Prerequisites &the path through
Modules unlock in sequence. Everything converges on HUM 399, the capstone thesis — the only module with an oral defense.
§ VI — A Week in the Life
Contact hours &the other hours
A representative Year 1 week, Term 1. Colour marks the format: lectures deliver the map, seminars do the thinking, tutorials personalize it, and independent study is where it actually lands.
The 40-hour study week
§ VII — Weekly Teaching Plans
Week by week,module by module
The full teaching sequence for six flagship modules: topic, assigned reading, and the week’s deliverable. Weeks marked in red carry graded work.
§ VIII — The Course Reader
Fourteen weeks,fourteen texts
The reading spine of HUM 201 History of Ideas — the module every student remembers. All texts are supplied in the course reader; editions are announced in Week 1.
Reading load by module
PAGES PER WEEK · SKIMMING IS TAUGHT IN HUM 103 · PEAK WEEK ≈ 650 PP
Recommended editions
WHEN YOU BUY YOUR OWN COPIES, THESE ARE THE ONES WE CITE
§ IX — Learning Outcomes & Assessment
What you will be ableto do at graduation
Eight programme outcomes, mapped to Bloom’s taxonomy. Every module’s assessment is aligned to at least three of them; the rubric below governs all essays.
Assessment weighting, programme-wide
AGGREGATE ACROSS ALL MODULES · NO SINGLE EXAM EXCEEDS 40% OF ANY MODULE
Essay specifications
- 12 pt serif, double-spaced, 2.5 cm margins
- Citation: Chicago Manual of Style, 18th ed. — notes & bibliography
- Submission: single PDF via the portal · filename HUM201_Surname_Essay1.pdf
- Word count includes footnotes, excludes bibliography · ±10% tolerance
- Late work: −2 marks per day, to a maximum of 7 days (see § XIV)
- Generative AI: permitted only as declared assistance — see Academic Integrity
Grading bands
MARKS ARE CRITERION-REFERENCED AGAINST THE DATA.outcomes ABOVE
The essay rubric
APPLIED TO ALL ESSAYS OF 1,500+ WORDS · COLUMN A DESCRIBES THE STANDARD
§ X — Assignment Types
Eleven thingsyou will learn to write
Each genre has its own grammar. The progression is deliberate: from 600-word close readings to a 10,000-word thesis defended aloud.
§ XI — Anatomy of an A Paragraph
One paragraph,dissected live
A model paragraph from a past HUM 201 essay on Dante — colour-coded by function. This is what the rubric’s “A” column looks like in the wild. Shown in seminars in Week 6.
Dante’s swoon at the end of Canto V is not sympathy overcoming him, but sympathy convicting him.
Francesca has just recast the lovers’ downfall as the work of the book they read — “Galeotto fu ’l libro e chi lo scrisse” — and the pilgrim, who arrived in this circle moved by her story, hears in that line an accusation against his own pity.
To pity Francesca is to agree with her self-exculpation; to agree is to misread justice; and the poem, which has placed her precisely where justice puts her, cannot permit its reader that error.
The faint is therefore the poem’s correction of its own protagonist — a staged act of mercy that the structure of Hell reveals as a rebuke.
Dante reads pity as a form of misreading precisely here, because here the rhetoric of pity is indistinguishable from the rhetoric of the sin.
(Inferno V, 137–138; cf. Barolini, “Dante’s Sympathy and the Poetics of Misreading”)
Claim
The paragraph’s thesis — arguable, specific, first.
Evidence
The primary text quoted in the original, translated by context.
Analysis
The logical chain that makes the evidence support the claim.
Pivot
The turn from description to interpretation — the “therefore.”
Stakes
Why this reading matters for the whole work — the closing lift.
§ XII — The Question Culture
Half the degreeis learning to ask
Seminars run on prepared questions, and exams are built from the same material. Below: standing seminar questions for four modules, and a bank of recent examination prompts. Notice the verbs: defend, dismantle, assess, trace.
Recent examination questions
SEEN PAPERS · QUESTIONS RELEASED BEFORE THE EXAM
STANDING SEMINAR QUESTIONS · TAP A MODULE
§ XIII — Academic Calendar · MMXXVI–27
The year,month by month
Teaching
Assessment
Break & research
RW = reading week (no classes, no deadlines)
Key deadlines
ALL DATA.deadlines FALL AT 12:00 NOON LOCAL TIME · EXTENSIONS VIA § XIV
§ XIV — Course Policies
The rules ofthe seminar room
Six standing policies apply to every module. They are summarized here and printed in full in every module handbook.
THE SPIRIT OF THE DATA.policies
Deadlines are real, life is also real — tell us early and almost everything can be arranged.
§ XV — Your Support Team
Six offices,one degree
How to use office hours
Bring a question, not an apology. Bring your draft, even the bad draft — especially the bad draft. Ten minutes in office hours usually beats two hours of private anguish. And go in Week 2, not Week 11: advice compounds like interest.
§ XVI — Build Your Degree
Assemble the180 ECTS
Core modules are fixed (gold checks). Within each elective slot, choose exactly one option. The meter below tracks your running total — a complete degree reads 180/180 with every year at 60.
RULES · 60 ECTS PER YEAR · EXACTLY ONE OPTION PER ELECTIVE SLOT · TRACK CHOICE CARRIES 20 ECTS ACROSS THREE SEMINARS · YEAR-ABROAD VARIANT TRANSFERS YEAR 3 CREDITS
§ XVII — Placement Quiz
Eight questionsbefore you enroll
Not admissions — orientation. Everything here is covered in the first term; see how much you already carry, then mark your answers.
§ XVIII — Beyond the Classroom
The degree continuesafter six p.m.
§ XIX — The Field: Rise & Fall
Three enginesof ascent
Prospective students should know the field’s position: the humanities were carried to a mid-twentieth-century peak by an institution, a technology, and a policy — and have been negotiating a long decline since. Both facts belong in any honest prospectus.
ENGINE — II · TECHNOLOGY
The Printing Press
Movable type — Bi Sheng (c. 1040), then Gutenberg (c. 1450) — collapsed the price of books a hundredfold.
c. 1450
ENGINE — III · POLICY
Public Money
The GI Bill (1944) and the welfare state sent millions of first-generation students into lecture halls.
1944 →
§ XIX (cont.) — The Long Decline
Why the numbersturned down
The vocational turn
As tuition rose and debt grew, students drifted toward degrees with visible, near-term payoffs.
Austerity after 2008
Funding cuts fell first on “low-enrollment” programs — which, by major counts, meant the humanities.
The STEM premium
Policy and employers championed science and technology; the humanities were framed as a luxury.
Theory’s inward turn
The critical revolution enriched scholarship but widened the gap between seminar room and general reader.
Digital displacement
Attention economies eroded deep reading — the pipeline into literary and historical study.
Around the world
DIRECTIONS ARE REAL; EXACT FIGURES VARY BY COUNTRY AND YEAR · ILLUSTRATIVE SUMMARY
Every generation inherits the same question — what is a human being for? This programme teaches you to keep it open. ❦