We spend four courses following a tradition of thought and literature form and reform. In HUM 5, we see the myth of its unity unravel, opening it up to previously marginalized voices and new ways of thinking. I love the endless potential in designing a HUM 5. You can’t cover everything important from the last 200 years, so you have to make choices. What do you focus on? The rise of new genres and media? Sci-fi and film, perhaps. Philosophical reckoning with humanity’s limits? War, genocide, and climate change. The struggle to be free? Decolonization, feminism, and civil rights. And always the story continues. There’s no perfect final text for HUM 5 because each time you teach it, we – the subject of the humanities – are in a new situation.   

Antony Lyon, Director