Humanities and Justice Minor

Description. The Humanities and Justice minor offers students the opportunity to explore fundamental questions about justice from a humanistic and interdisciplinary perspective. Embedded in history, literature, and philosophy, the minor engages students in the study of constructions of justice that underlie social policy and criminal justice as well as in broader issues of morality and equity.

Rationale. The Humanities and Justice minor will provide students who are majoring in the social sciences and sciences with an important supplementary perspective for their study of issues, policies, and laws concerned with justice. With its interdisciplinary focus, the minor will also enrich the curriculum of students majoring in one of the humanities. Its courses are designed to help students develop the skills of careful reading, critical thinking, and clear writing that are necessary for careers in law, public policy, civil service and teaching.

Minor coordinator. Professor David Munns, Department of History (646.557.5596, [e-mail])

Requirements. The minor in Humanities and Justice requires a total of 18 credits of which 6 credits are required and 12 credits are electives. A maximum of two courses can overlap with a student’s major, other minor or program.

Part One. Required Courses

HJS 250	Justice in the Western Traditions	3
HJS 310	Comparative Perspectives on Justice	3

This two-course sequence provides an introduction to a consideration of “justice” as a personal, social, and political construction. Selected texts from history, literature and philosophy introduce students to the complexities attending the meanings of justice from ancient to modern times. Issues under study may include retribution and revenge; justice as political and social equity; determinism, free will, and the “unjust” act; divinity, hierarchy, and community as perceived sources of justice (or injustice); the social construction of justice, injustice, and crime; and law as a structure of rules representing, defining and shaping justice. The sequence will explore how understandings of justice clarify the ethical and legal frameworks defining religion, the state, colonialism and national identity, race and ethnicity, gender, ruling, class, the family and similar structures.

Students in HJS 250 study works concerned with justice in the western tradition (primarily historical, literary, and philosophical texts of Europe, Britain, and North America). With its focus on works from the Mideast, Africa, Asia, and the other Americas, HJS 310 expands student understandings of justice. It encourages comparative assessments between western and nonwestern forms of justice by studying contacts resulting from war and conquest, trade, and cultural exchange. HJS 310 also develops and extends the skills students have gained in HJS 250 by its comparative tasks, by supplementing primary texts with theoretical readings, and by more complex and lengthy writing assignments.

Subtotal: 6

Part Two. Electives

Students must take four courses selected from the list of humanities electives listed below that count toward the Humanities and Justice major. At least two of these courses must be at the 300-level or above. Students will select their electives in consultation with the minor coordinator.

The electives listed below are supplemented every semester by new or experimental courses that are pertinent to Humanities and Justice as identified and approved by the minor coordinator.

HIS 217	History of New York City	3
HIS 219	Violence and Social Change in America	3
HIS 224	A History of Crime in New York City	3
HIS 240	Historiography	3
HIS 252	Warfare in the Ancient Near East and Egypt	3
HIS 254	History of Ancient Greece and Rome	3
HIS 256	History of Muslim Societies and Communities	3
HIS 260/LLS 260	History of Contemporary Cuba	3
HIS 264	China to 1650	3
HIS 265/LLS 265	Class, Race and Family in Latin American History	3
HIS 270	Marriage in Medieval Europe	3
HIS 274	China: 1650-Present	3
HIS 277	American Legal History	3
HIS 282	Selected Topics in History	3
HIS 320	Topics in The History of Crime and Punishment in the United States	3
HIS 323	History of Lynching and Collective Violence	3
HIS 325	Criminal Justice in European Society, 1750 to the Present	3
HIS 340	Modern Military History from the Eighteenth Century to the Present	3
HIS 354	Law and Society in Ancient Athens and Rome	3
HIS 364/GEN 364	History of Gender and Sexuality: Prehistory to 1650	3
HIS 375	Female Felons in the Premodern World	3
HIS 381	Social History of Catholicism in the Modern World	3
HIS 383	History of Terrorism	3
HJS 380	Selected Topics in Humanities and Justice	3
HUM 378	Internship in the Humanities	3
ISP 273	The Stories We Tell	3
ISP 321	Moral, Legal, and Ethical Dilemmas that Shape the USA	3
ISP 322	Making Waves: Troublemakers, Gadflies and Whistleblowers	3
ISP 335	Violence in the Pursuit of Justice	3
LIT 219	The Word as Weapon	3
LIT 223/AFR 223	African-American Literature	3
LIT 265	Foundations of U.S. Latino/a Literature	3
LIT 287	Selected Topics in Literature	3
LIT 300	Text and Context	3
LIT 305	Foundations of Literature and Law	3
LIT 311	Literature and Ethics	3
LIT 313	Shakespeare	3
LIT 314	Shakespeare and Justice	3
LIT 315	American Literature and the Law	3
LIT 316	Gender and Identity in Literary Traditions	3
LIT 326	Crime, Punishment and Justice in the U.S. Literature	3
LIT 327	Crime, Punishment, and Justice in World Literatures	3
LIT 340/AFR 340	The African-American Experience in America: Comparative Racial Perspectives	3
LIT 342	Perspectives on Literature and Human Rights	3
LIT 346	Cultures in Conflict	3
LLS 322	Latino/a Struggles for Civil Rights and Social Justice	3
PHI 203	Political Philosophy	3
PHI 205	Philosophy of Religion	3
PHI 210	Ethical Theory	3
PHI 302	Philosophical Issues of Rights	3
PHI 304	Philosophy of the Mind	3
PHI 310/LAW 310	Ethics and Law	3
PHI 315	Philosophy of the Rule of Law: Theory and Practice	3
PHI 322/CRJ 322	Judicial and Correctional Ethics	3
PHI 326	Topics in the History of Modern Thought	3
PHI 340	Utopian Thought	3
PHI 423/POL 423	Selected Topics in Justice	3
SPA 308	The Theme of Justice in Spanish Literature	3
SPA 335	Themes of Justice in Latin-American Literature and Film	3

Subtotal: 12

Total Credit Hours: 18