Curriculum

Core Courses
Electives
Capstone Course

CORE COURSES

MALS students take 30 graduate-level credit hours in the form of ten intensive courses featuring in-depth reading, writing, and discussion components. Three foundational courses help students develop an intellectual methodology, cultivate the ability to find connections between and among different areas of human thought, and acquire the tools to conduct original research and pursue a life of ideas.

LST 501: Being Human
Using perspectives from science, arts, and humanities, we will investigate some of humanity's oldest and most profound questions. Who am I as an individual? Who am I as a member of society? Students will read, reflect upon, and discuss some of the great ideas, texts, and modes of creative expression developed by human beings from ancient to present times.
LST 502: Knowledge and Culture
What is knowledge? What is culture? How does culture affect how we know and what we accept as knowledge? What, if any, is the relationship between knowledge and power? We will explore these and other absorbing questions from a variety of perspectives.
LST 503: Values and Action
How does our personal value system develop? What are its sources? How do the great humanistic and religious thinkers of the past impact our value systems? What happens when different respected moral ways of thinking suggest courses of action that contradict each other? What is the relationship between our personal value system and the social and professional organizations of which we are members? We will explore these questions and the relationship between values and daily life.

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ELECTIVES

In addition to the three core courses, students select six electives developed specifically for the MALS program, followed by a capstone course. The electives are organized around themes in the foundation courses. These interdisciplinary courses integrate multiple perspectives on the human experience. These electives, offered in rotation, may include:

LST 511 - Global Feminisms
By taking a multi-ethnic and multi-cultural approach to the histories of women's lives, we will explore a key question: What theories have women evolved to explain themselves and their experiences as women? We will use autobiographical writing and reaction papers to tie the abstract to our own experiences
LST 514 - Bodies and Emotion in Consumer Culture
This course begins with an exploration of the development of consumer culture in the U.S. with an emphasis on the features and consequences of the rapid expansion of consumerism as a way of life in the post World War II period. We will focus on how our emotions and bodies have been central to the marketing of goods and services in consumer culture. Our analysis will include discussion of the role of race, gender, sexuality and other social categories of difference in shaping the body and emotion in a consumer capitalist culture. We will also consider the global reach of American consumer culture.

LST 515 - The Mind in Context: Learning, Schooling and Culture
How does the human mind work? What makes it unique? How is what we know and how we think influenced by the process of schooling and the cultures we live in? To address these questions, we will reflect on and discuss the underlying issue of mind in context from a variety of different perspectives including psychology, anthropology, linguistics and sociology. We will read, debate and reflect on primary texts in these disciplines as we contemplate the form and content of thinking, as well as the ways in which culture and schooling play a role in shaping both the knower and what is known.
LST 520 Rochester: From Flour to Flower--and Beyond
A multi-disciplinary exploration of the geography, history, arts, science, and culture of Rochester from its founding as a flou milling town, through its involvement in slavery, to its waves of immigration, religious revival, industrial and philanthropic initiatives. Course readings will be supplemented by guest speakers, field trips, films, and performances. Students will gain an appreciation for the diversity and complexity of this city, its rich cultural resources, as well as its socio-economic challenges.

LST 521 - "Monstrous or Marvelous": Religion, Science, and Literature
In this course, we will study the interrelationships among western religion, science, and literature from a historical perspective as well as a contemporary one with an emphasis on popular culture. We'll examine the role that literature plays in disseminating, as well as informing, conflicting and complementary ideas about religion and science. Texts are paired across centuries and across genres, including film and other visual media. Ultimately, we'll try to make sense of the on-going dialogue between contemporary science and religion and its implications for understanding God and human nature.
LST 522 - New Journalism: Reading and Writing Contemporary Non-Fiction
How do you capture the essence of a personality? How do you critique a movie, a play or a work of art? This hands-on course explores various forms of nonfiction writing, including feature articles, arts reviews, interviews, columns, op-ed pieces and profiles. Examples from a variety of publications will be analyzed in terms of content and style. Students will write regularly, working in each format with an eye toward refining skills to a professional level.

LST 523 - Constructing Ethnicity: The U.S. Latino Experience
This course offers students a study of how individual, social, and national identities are developed, as well as how such identity constructions fuel contemporary notions of "Americanness." The course, which will focus on the "triangle of Latinos" in the United States (Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans, and Cuban Americans), examines what it means to be Latino, exploring such topics as family, religion, gender, politics, power, class, socioeconomics, acculturation and assimilation, and biculturalism, among others.

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LST 524 - History of Science and Medicine
Science and more recently medicine have become defining features of modern life. How did this happen? In this course, we will explore the history of human thought about the natural world from ancient times to the present. Our particular emphasis will be on how our modern scientific world view has been shaped by major periods of scientific development, particularly in the 16th and 17th centuries involving astronomy and physics, and in the 19th and 20th centuries involving biology, medicine and psychiatry. Attention will be given to the relationships between science and culture, religion, technology, and public policy. We will approach the history of science by asking five central and controversial questions: Why has science flourished in the West? What was the nature of the scientific revolution? How did science become a part of public life? How did science become attached to the technologies and politics of power? Why did science become associated with the modern condition?

LST 525 - The Perils of Patriarchy: Images of Women in Literature, History, Religious Traditions, and Film
This course examines the issue of "patriarchy" from ancient times to the present, analyzing some of the ways in which the images and the roles of women have been both devalued and corrected by theologians and other writers, as well as by historical activists [including feminists], and film makers.

LST 526 - Visions of Hell
This course uses the lenses of anthropology, mythology, religion, literature, and the visual arts to explore the different concepts of "hell" over time and across cultures. We will ask the question: "Is there such a place, or is it of our own creation?"
LST 527 - South Asian Religious Art: Iconography, Mythology, and Symbolism
A multi-disciplinary exploration of Buddhist and Hindu art in the regional context of South Asia, as well as the mythology surrounding these objects, and their symbolic interpretation. Students will gain an appreciation for the paintings, sculpture, and architecture studied in their historical, social, religious, and cultural contexts. Occasional off-campus site visits.

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LST528 - New Journalism: Reading & Writing Contemporary Non-Fiction
How do you capture the essence of a personality? How do you critique a movie, a play or a work of art? This hands-on course explores various forms of nonfiction writing, including feature articles, arts reviews, interviews, columns, op-ed pieces, and profiles. Examples from a variety of publications (including The New York Times, The New Yorker, Slate, Harpers, Vanity Fair) will be analyzed in terms of content and style. Students will write regularly, working in each format with an eye toward refining skills to a professional level.

LST530 - Anthropology of Body, Movement, and Dance
Dance, the body in movement, is a means of negotiating culture as well as an expression of race, class, gender, and sexuality. This course explores four principal questions: 1) how are feminine and masculine identities /attitudes about the body articulated in movement? 2) how is sexuality expressed, experienced, and controlled through dance? 3) what are the physical and emotional healing aspects of dance movement? 4) what is the social and cultural power of dance at the turn of the 21st century? Attention will be given to popular, folk, and classical dance forms from India, Argentina, Haiti, Ghana, and the United States.

LST 532 - Memory and Denial in the Italian Holocaust
Three faculty members from the fields of history, literature, religious studies, and Italian studies explore the experience of Jews in Italy during WWII. How was this experience shaped by the culture of Italy? What part did other factors such as the involvement of the Catholic Church and the Mussolini-Hitler relationship play in the drama that unfolded during the late 30's and early 40's? A special emphasis will be placed on the writings of author Primo Levi.

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LST 533 - Contemporary Topics in Ecology
Using case studies, we will research, discuss, and critically analyze current environmental issues, including global warming, ozone depletion, and sustainable agriculture. We will experience first-hand learning during field trips to local problem areas and the field office of the N.Y.S. Department of Environmental Conservation.

LST 535 - The Spanish Civil War in History and the Arts
The Spanish Civil War of the 1930's was a watershed in both world history and the history of the arts. We will examine the struggle as the great rehearsal for World War II, as the Last Great Cause of the political Thirties, and as a major testing for committed artists, among them Hemingway, W.H. Auden, Langston Hughes, Andre Malraux, Jean Paul Sartre, Martha Graham, and Pablo Picasso.

LST 542 - Religion, Spirituality and Health in the 21 st Century
As a cultural universal, the importance of religion and spirituality in shaping belief systems, perceptions, culture, and approaches to health and wellness has long been recognized. This course examines the ways in which these beliefs influence individuals, families, small groups, communities, and program development and implementation. Psychosocial issues and perceptions of health, illness, and well-being are explored from an interdisciplinary perspective.

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LST 550 - Myth and Reality: The Frontier's Influence on the American Imagination
This course examines the role of our frontier heritage in shaping America's national identity as well as what it means to be an American. Using historical events and commentary from historians, we'll analyze the evolution of frontier images, both positive and negative, in film and literature to investigate the complex relationship between myth and reality as it shapes how we view others and ourselves, including our place in a global society.

LST 560 - A Consuming Passion: Food in America
An eclectic survey, this course will look at the history of food and our complex American relationship to it through a variety of perspectives, from the culinary to the literary. Students may expect to engage with food and its relationship to gender, race, economics, science, and more.

LST 599 - Liberal Studies Internship
Students have the option to design, in conjunction with the Director of Internships and a faculty member from the Liberal Arts Program, an off-campus experiential learning internship. All prospective internships are designed to combine the student's interests, the issues addressed in the program's core and/or elective courses, and the needs of an external association or organization. Students should expect to work closely with a faculty member during the design, implementation and evaluation phase of the internship experience.

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CAPSTONE COURSE

LST 600 - Capstone Course
The capstone course allows a student to pursue a substantial project of his or her own design which synthesizes the knowledge and utilizes the skills learned in the Master of Arts in Liberal Studies program. The final project can take one of many forms, including but not limited to an original work, an extensive research project, an exhibition or performance. In the design and construction phase of their project, students work closely with one chosen faculty mentor and with the director of the MALS program. All students involved in the semester's capstone course will meet periodically as a community of learners to discuss their work and the issues surrounding its design and completion.

Recent Capstone Thesis / Projects