Liberal Arts

Interdivisional Liberal Arts

Faculty

Juilliard actively promotes a liberal arts education that provides the humanistic, ethical, social, critical, and aesthetic background essential to personal development and professional excellence. The Liberal Arts foster in students a deeper understanding of themselves and the complex world in which they live.

The Liberal Arts curriculum is designed to address, to the greatest extent possible, the individual needs of every student. While each student’s journey through the program will vary, all students can expect to complete the same number of courses, among them three required core courses: College Writing, Foundations of Knowledge, and Society, Politics, and Culture. Once these courses are completed, students select from among elective courses in order to meet the remaining Liberal Arts requirement.

Electives are offered in fields such as area studies, art history, creative writing, literature, gender, philosophy, and the environment as well as in three modern foreign languages (French, German, and Italian). Most students begin electives in the third and fourth year of the program but may take them earlier. All Liberal Arts courses are conducted in small seminars to foster participation and a spirit of inquiry. Eligible students may also cross-register for certain courses at Columbia and Barnard Colleges.

Through their work in the Liberal Arts, students refine skills in reading, writing, speaking, and critical thinking. This program equips them to become active, well-informed citizens; develops their awareness of the social and humanistic dimensions of professional work; and lays the basis for a fulfilling cultural and intellectual life.

Courses

Liberal Arts Core

• •  LARTS 101 — Writing Studio
• •  LARTS 102 — College Writing
• •  LARTS 111 — Foundations of Knowledge
• •  LARTS 112 — Society, Politics, and Culture
• •  LARTS 161-162 — English and Communication

Liberal Arts Electives: Humanities (Art History)

• •  LARTS 340 — Frozen Music: On Interrelating the Arts
• •  LARTS 345 — Contemporary Artists of Color
• •  LARTS 349 — Art of the Renaissance
• •  LARTS 387 — Modernity and Modernism

Liberal Arts Electives: Humanities (Literature and Creative Writing)

• •  LARTS 312 — Asian American Literature and Film
• •  LARTS 315 — Writing Poetry and Flash Fiction
• •  LARTS 320 — Dante’s Purgatorio
• •  LARTS 333 — Romanticism and Private Life
• •  LARTS 361 — Creative Nonfiction
• •  LARTS 364 — Poetry by Women of Color
• •  LARTS 365 — Contemporary American Poetry
• •  LARTS 367 — African-American Literature: Special Topics
• •  LARTS 389 — American Literature: the 1920’s

Liberal Arts Electives: Humanities (Philosophy)

• •  LARTS 328 — Philosophies of Black Liberation

Liberal Arts Electives: History and Social Sciences

• •  LARTS 318 — The Art of Protest in the Long 1960s
• •  LARTS 342 — EDIB, the Arts, and Society: The Artist as an Agent of Democracy
• •  LARTS 350 — Seeing like an Anthropologist: Examining Culture, Power, and Meaning
• •  LARTS 351 — Nature in New York City
• •  LARTS 354 — Civil Rights
• •  LARTS 360 — Europe and the World, 1789-1914: History as Hegemony 
• •  LARTS 383 — History of Technology and Social Change, 1800 to the Present
• •  LARTS 390H — Social Reproduction: Theory, Analysis, and Critique
• •  LARTS 392 — Challenges to American Democracy

Liberal Arts Electives: Languages

• •  LARTS 171 — French I
• •  LARTS 172 — French II
• •  LARTS 181 — German I
• •  LARTS 182 — German II
• •  LARTS 191 — Italian I
• •  LARTS 192 — Italian II
• •  LARTS 271 — French III
• •  LARTS 561-562 — Graduate English Seminar

Liberal Arts Electives: American Studies

• •  LARTS 363 — The African American Experience in Film