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College of Arts and Sciences

Humanities and Cultural Studies

The Department of Humanities and Cultural Studies (HCS) is an interdisciplinary program that explores literature in global contexts, film, rhetoric, and culture through cutting-edge theory and innovative pedagogy. HCS prepares students for a lifetime of inquiry and meaningful careers in the 21st century, equipping them with essential humanities skills—critical thinking, analysis, communication, and qualitative reasoning—to engage with and creatively respond to the grand challenges of our time.

Reimagining the Humanities

As we reimagine what humanities focused work can do, we aim to bring the value of human inquiry into meaning in ways that bridge our in-class work with the larger communities in which we are situated and engage. We specialize in offering students unique opportunities to innovate from the braided relationships between texts and cultures in our global society and the histories that continue to shape our contemporary world.

HCS students prepare themselves for life beyond the university through in-class learning, project-based research, creative and collaborative inquiry, and meaningful community partnerships. In doing so, HCS students mobilize theoretical knowledge to build integrative and immersive experiences, and they learn how to develop and apply problem-solving skills in culturally responsive and humanistic ways. HCS students, therefore, embody the characteristics employers want and the perspectives the world needs.

Majors and Minors

Humanities and Cultural Studies

Your professors will help you chart an individualized academic path built around your own interests drawn from one of the following three tracks in the major:

  • Public Humanities
  • Literature, Culture and Theory
  • Rhetoric and Community Engagement

For minors, students can choose:

Humanities at Work

Student Spotlight

Senior Cora Lee Oxley, Special Collections and Archives at Albertsons Library and The Record Exchange – Boise’s independent music shop since 1977 – have united to preserve local music and its history.

The project, which began for Oxley as an assignment in the class Humanities at Work, invites musicians based in Idaho, or with ties to the Gem State, to submit their music. Special Collections and Archives is providing a home for the collection.

Find more coverage from Boise State Public Radio.

Read Cora’s story

Humanities at Work

Boggs publishes new book about recreational colonialism
Basu Thakur delivers symposium keynote
Humanities and Cultural Studies alum publishes in Writing for Change Journal
Basu Thakur presents to Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis

Contact Us

For general inquiries, email the Department of Humanities and Cultural Studies at humanities@boisestate.edu.

You can visit us in the Liberal Arts Building, room 228.

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