U. establishes new humanities certificate

The certificate will be available to all current students except seniors. Seminars required for completion of the certificate will be offered next spring.

The certificate is intended to be a link between disciplines, allowing concentrators in one department to apply knowledge from another, Humanities Council Executive Director Carol Rigolot, who is also a member of The Daily Princetonian Board of Trustees, said in an email to the ‘Prince.’ She added that the program gives students the added benefit of exploring the bridges between fields.

According to Chair of the Humanities Council Gideon Rosen, this interdisciplinary humanities certificate fills the gap that has been present in the humanities department at Princeton.

“We have long known now that students who take the East Asian Studies or HUM sequences are all too often galvanized,” Rosen said. “They take these demanding courses in conjunction with one another, but after that there is basically nothing coherent for them to do.”

“Although there are many courses that highlight interdisciplinary studies, what we lack is a full program of study,” Rosen added. “We thought it would be advantageous to provide a rubric in which students could get to know each other better and get to know the material better.”

Rosen noted that, though the Humanities Council has excellent forums, strong graduate programs and a leading society of fellows in the interdisciplinary studies, the undergraduate level is the only component presently missing.

“It is the last piece of the puzzle we have been trying to put into the Humanities Council,” Rosen said.

The certificate is geared toward those students who have completed the Humanities Sequence or HUM 233/234: East Asian Humanities I/II. The typical layout will include four courses, with two taken as prerequisites and two after entry.

However, students who have not completed either of these sequences will also have the opportunity to enroll in the certificate program.

“There is no single right way,” Rosen said. “Once you are in, it’s your program to craft.”

In conjunction with the director of the program, students will have the opportunity to plan their own course of study. Courses taken outside of the Humanities or East Asian Studies sequences will also be considered for credit toward the certificate.

The program is also open to those interested in the “intra-humanities,” or connections between humanities, arts and sciences.

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But participants will share many common experiences, including the incorporation of an interdisciplinary aspect into the senior thesis and a “capstone seminar” that will touch on several interdisciplinary topics. This seminar will be available twice a year, according to Rosen.

The first capstone seminar will be offered in spring 2013 and will be co-taught by Rosen and visual arts professor P. Adams Sitney.

Rosen said he anticipates anywhere between 20 and 30 students to be enrolled in the program at one time, but he said he is not concerned about the exact number.

“My fondest hope is that it will connect undergraduates with the graduate community and the Society of Fellows as well as with the various faculty fellows,” Rosen said. “There is no reason why the undergraduates should not be involved with others.”

The Humanities Council hopes that the Program in Interdisciplinary Humanities will become a forum for students who are interested in cutting-edge work in the interdisciplinary studies, Rosen said.

“We want it to be more than just a bunch of classes and a certificate,” Rosen added. “Ideally, these students will get to know one another and come to think of themselves as one group — one community — where people who identify as humanists interact.”