Why Study Urban Humanities?
The Urban Humanities program investigates what it means to be human in an increasingly urban world. Urban spaces are not only home to most of the world’s population, but are increasingly important to economic development, political cooperation and conflict, human-environment relations, and creative expression — that is, to the complex and diverse experience of being human.
- The Urban Humanities program explores the urban experience in an interdisciplinary way, drawing on faculty and courses from social sciences like anthropology and sociology; humanistic fields like the arts, history, and literature; and scientific fields like environmental studies.
- The program emphasizes community engagement. Montclair State University lies in the center of the one of the largest and most diverse urbanized areas in the United States, and this context serves as a laboratory and source of career opportunities for Urban Humanities students.
- The program’s curriculum is designed to provide students with both a coherent framework through which they can explore urban life and the flexibility to pursue individual courses of study that fit their interests and needs.
- Students in the program will explore diverse subjects such as urban inequality, development and gentrification, forms of activism and advocacy, community planning, climate change, culture and art, criminal justice issues, and the dynamics of racial, ethnic and cultural diversity.
Program Requirements
| Code | Title | Credits |
|---|---|---|
| Introductory Course | ||
| URHS 101 | Introduction to Urban Humanities | 3 |
| Core Sequence | ||
| Complete one course from 3 of the 4 areas below. | 9 | |
| Methods Sequence | ||
| Qualitative Methods | ||
| ANTH 301 | Methods in Anthropological Research and Practice | 3 |
| or ANTH 290 | Historical Archaeology | |
| or ENFL 208 | Introduction to the Film | |
| or ENGL 300 | Critical Approaches to English | |
| or JUST 223 | Ethnography in Justice Studies | |
| Quantitative/Digital Methods | ||
| EAES 210 | Introduction to GIS and Remote Sensing | 3 |
| or EAES 310 | Geographic Information Systems (GIS) | |
| or EAES 391 | Quantitative Methods in Geography and Urban Studies | |
| or HIST 270 | Digital History | |
| or HIST 466 | Historical Geographic Information Systems and Mapping | |
| or JUST 240 | Statistics for Social Research | |
| or SOCI 240 | Statistics for Social Research | |
| Skills Training | ||
| URHS 404 | Skills Training in Engaged Urbanism | 1 |
| Total Credits | 19 | |
Core Sequence Courses
| Code | Title | Credits |
|---|---|---|
| Creating Urban Society: Diversity and Mobility | ||
| EAES 283 | Urban Georgraphy | 3 |
| HIST 205 | Race and Ethnicity in United States History | 3 |
| HIST 216 | Italian America Past and Present | 3 |
| HIST 217 | African American History | 3 |
| HIST 314 | Women and Migration | 3 |
| HIST 320 | American Urban History Since 1880 | 3 |
| HIST 407 | U.S. Immigration History | 3 |
| JUST 317 | Race and the U.S. Legal System | 3 |
| SOCI 225 | Latinas and Latinos in the United States | 3 |
| SOCI 307 | Immigration | 3 |
| SOCI 311 | Urban Sociology | 3 |
| Governing Urban Space: Urban Power and Inequality | ||
| ANTH 255 | Urban Anthropology | 3 |
| EAES 281 | Introduction to American Urban Studies | 3 |
| ENFL 370 | Class, Race and Ethnicity in Film | 3 |
| JUST 250 | Current Issues in Policing | 3 |
| JUST 325 | Police and Society | 3 |
| POLS 216 | Urban Politics | 3 |
| POLS 315 | Urban Administration | 3 |
| Meaning and Representation: Urban Art and Culture | ||
| ENGL 227 | Queer Fiction | 3 |
| ENGL 234 | American Drama | 3 |
| ENGL 238 | Black Writers in the United States: A Survey | 3 |
| ENGL 274 | Contemporary U.S. Literature of Immigration | 3 |
| ENGL 339 | Postwar American Fiction 1945-1990 | 3 |
| THTR 384 | Theater for Community Impact | 3 |
| THTR 386 | Site Specific Performance | 3 |
| Nature and Technology: Science and Urban Society | ||
| ANTH 360 | Environmental Anthropology | 3 |
| EAES 384 | Managing the Urban Environment | 3 |
| EAES 385 | Urbanization and Environment | 3 |
| SOCI 312 | Environmental Sociology | 3 |
| SOCI 314 | Environmental Justice | 3 |