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

• 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

• LARTS 345 — Contemporary Artists of Color

• LARTS 309 — Introduction to Women’s Literature
• LARTS 315 — Writing Poetry and Flash Fiction
• LARTS 320 — Dante’s Purgatorio
• LARTS 322 — Going to Hell: Introduction to Dante’s Inferno
• LARTS 337 — Special Topics in American Literature: James Baldwin
• LARTS 358 — Contemporary American Literature
• LARTS 364 — Poetry by Women of Color
• LARTS 365 — Contemporary American Poetry
• LARTS 372 — Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature

• LARTS 306 — Introduction to Philosophical Ethics
• LARTS 308 — Hegel’s Phenomenology
• LARTS 331 — Marx as Philosopher

• LARTS 316 — Unwrapping the Gift: Anthropology of Reciprocity and Indebtedness
• LARTS 354 — Civil Rights
• LARTS 356 — Fin-de-Siècle Europe (1880-1914): Promises, Crises, Catastrophes
• LARTS 370 — Perfect Storms: Environmental Literature, Ethics, and Politics
• LARTS 373 — War and Art in 20C Europe
• LARTS 374 — History of Gender and Sexuality
• LARTS 378 — Justice, Law, and Film
• LARTS 383 — History of Technology and Social Change, 1800 to the Present
• LARTS 392 — Challenges to American Democracy
• LARTS 398 — Postcolonial Aesthetics

• 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 561-562 — Graduate English Seminar