2024-2025 Undergraduate Bulletin

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/Advisor. Professor Allison Kavey (212-237-8819, akavey@jjay.cuny.edu), Department of History.

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.

Additional information. Students who select this minor in September 2018 or thereafter must follow the curriculum listed below.  For students who enrolled in the minor prior to that date, consult the minor requirements in the Undergraduate Bulletin 2017-18.  

Part One. Required Courses

HJS 250Justice in the Western Traditions

3

HJS 310Comparative 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.

Total Credit Hours: 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 214Immigration and Ethnicity in the United States

3

HIS 219Violence and Social Change in America

3

HIS 224A History of Crime in New York City

3

HIS 242/POL 242/LLS 242U.S. Foreign Policy in Latin America

3

HIS 244History of Eugenics: Science and the Construction of Race

3

HIS 252Warfare in the Ancient Near East and Egypt

3

HIS 254History of Ancient Greece and Rome

3

HIS 255Famous Trials that Made History

3

HIS 256History of Muslim Societies and Communities

3

HIS 260/LLS 260History of Contemporary Cuba

3

HIS 264China to 1650

3

HIS 265/LLS 265Class, Race and Family in Latin American History

3

HIS 270Marriage in Medieval Europe

3

HIS 274China: 1650-Present

3

HIS 277American Legal History

3

HIS 281Imperialism in Africa, South Asia, and the Middle East

3

HIS 282Selected Topics in History

3

HIS 323History of Lynching and Collective Violence

3

HIS 325Criminal Justice in European Society, 1750 to the Present

3

HIS 327History of Genocide: 500 C.E. to the Present

3

HIS 340Modern Military History from the Eighteenth Century to the Present

3

HIS 344Topics in Legal History

3

HIS 354Law and Society in Ancient Athens and Rome

3

HIS 356/GEN 356Sexuality, Gender, and Culture in Muslim Societies

3

HIS 364/GEN 364History of Gender and Sexuality: Prehistory to 1650

3

HIS 374Premodern Punishment

3

HIS 375Female Felons in the Premodern World

3

HIS 381Social History of Catholicism in the Modern World

3

HIS 383History of Terrorism

3

HJS 215Race and Rebellion

3

HJS 380Selected Topics in Humanities and Justice

3

LIT 219The Word as Weapon

LIT 223/AFR 223African-American Literature

3

LIT 265Foundations of U.S. Latinx Literature

3

LIT 287Selected Topics in Literature

3

LIT 305Foundations of Literature and Law

3

LIT 311Literature and Ethics

3

LIT 314Shakespeare and Justice

3

LIT 315American Literature and the Law

3

LIT 316Gender and Identity in Literary Traditions

3

LIT 326Crime, Punishment and Justice in U.S. Literature

3

LIT 327Crime, Punishment and Justice in World Literature

3

LIT 340/AFR 340The African-American Experience in America: Comparative Racial Perspectives

3

LIT 342Perspectives on Literature and Human Rights

3

LIT 346Cultures in Conflict

3

LIT 348Native American Literature

3

LIT 366Writing Nature: Literature and Ecology

3

LIT 383Gender and Sexuality in U.S. Latinx Literature

3

LLS 322Latinx Struggles for Civil Rights & Social Justice

3

LLS 363Il-Legal Subjects: U.S. Latinx Literature and the Law

3

LLS 364Ethical Strains in U.S. Latinx Literature

3

PHI 203Political Philosophy

3

PHI 205Philosophy of Religion

3

PHI 210Ethical Theory

3

PHI 302The Philosophy of Rights

3

PHI 304Philosophy of the Mind

3

PHI 310/LAW 310Ethics and Law

3

PHI 315Philosophy of the Rule of Law: Theory and Practice

3

PHI 317Philosophy of Law in Global Perspective

3

PHI 322/CRJ 322Judicial and Correctional Ethics

3

PHI 326Topics in the History of Modern Thought

3

PHI 340Utopian Thought

3

PHI 423Senior Seminar in Justice and Law

3

SPA 308The Theme of Justice in Spanish Literature

3

SPA 335Themes of Justice in Latin American Lit & Film

3


HIS 282 Selected Topics in History, LIT 287 Selected Topics in Literature, LIT 380 Advanced Selected Topics in Literature and LIT 401 Special Topics may be used to satisfy the seven-course requirement of the Disciplinary Component when the topic is applicable to the Humanities and Justice major. ISP courses should be handled similarly. To get approval for these courses to count in the minor, students and/or faculty must petition the minor coordinator.
 

Total Credit Hours: 12

Total Credit Hours: 18