L&S MAJORS

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The Arts & Humanities

Language, Media, and Communications

The available majors and minors in Arts and Humanities are many and varied, and the course offerings incomparably rich. In Philosophy you can grapple with ethical questions that have engaged thinkers for millennia or analyze the mechanics of logic and meaning itself. Rhetoric focuses on the means of persuasion, critically examining convictions and beliefs in their political and social contexts. Allied with Rhetoric, Film Studies focuses its equally critical analytical powers on conveying meaning through the moving visual image. The longer history of visual culture is the domain of Art History, which opens our eyes to the representative practices of many societies.

At the heart of human communication lies the spoken and written word. The largest department within Arts and Humanities is English, where faculty and students study not only the language but also the rich history of its expression. Berkeley is noted for the range and depth of its offerings in languages other than English, from Akkadian to Welsh, Arabic to Urdu, Egyptian to Yiddish, Greek (ancient and modern) to Tagalog, Tamil, and Thai. All departments offer courses in translation, so that you have access to the cultural riches of these different linguistic, geographic, and temporal realms even if you have not mastered the original languages.

Of course, if you find you cannot possibly choose just one of these many languages and cultures, there is Comparative Literature, which challenges you to explore more than one.

You can express yourself in another tongue, but you can find new paths of expression in English and in other modes altogether - music, dance, performance, and visual and mixed media. Creative writing is an option within English, as musical performance and composition are within the Department of Music, which also studies the history of musical culture around the world. Dance and performance are the provinces of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies and Art Practice provides opportunities for study and creative expression in media that span the history of human settlement from its beginnings to the latest inventions of Silicon Valley.