Northern Arizona University

What does it mean when Google goes to China? When cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammad cause riots all over the globe? As controversy about artificially created snow on the San Francisco Peaks draws attention? When Christo drapes Central Park in saffron gates? As immigrants and their supporters rally in dozens of American cities? When schools battle over the teaching of evolution?

In the Humanities Program at NAU, asking “what it all means” is our passion. Humans, after all, are meaning-making.

We use an interdisciplinary approach to examine the complexities of human experience and to understand the products of human imagination. We bring the notion of “learning to live together” to the study of the natural world, technology, and art. We ask foundational questions about thought, expression, and action. Our critical attention is shaped by perspectives from History, Philosophy, Literature, and Cultural Criticism. Our courses provide the tools and the knowledge to continue the habit of self and social examination. Humanities courses and our Humanities degree programs engage the values and the ideas at the borders between issues such as the fine and popular arts, nature and the city, politics and the arts, music and commerce, and identity and history.

Join us in the passion of learning.