What are the humanities?
The humanities are ways of thinking about what is human about our diverse histories, values, ideas, words and dreams. They help to shape individuality and community, and thus pose fundamental questions about the past, present and future. The humanities inspire us to ask who we are and what our lives should mean. They ask us to place ourselves in the worldwide context of humankind and to understand commonalities and differences. The questions with which the humanities deal are found in all areas of study, but the humanities are most clearly identified with the following disciplines: comparative religion, ethics, philosophy, archaeology, classical and modern languages, linguisitics, jurisprudence, history, literature, history and criticism of the arts, and those social sciences which employ historical or philosophical approaches such as cultural anthropology and geography, international relations, political science or sociology.
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