Message from the Dean

November 2020

Dear Faculty, Staff and Students,

Each of my monthly messages this fall highlights a different area of the College of Arts & Sciences. This month’s focus is the humanities. This area of the College encompasses English; History; Languages, Literatures and Cultures; Philosophy; and Theology. A number of humanities faculty members have won awards for their advising, mentoring, teaching or research. Our degree programs and other offerings in the humanities disciplines are a crucial part of the excellence of Arts & Sciences.

Every Marquette student takes courses in the humanities as part of the Marquette Core Curriculum. These requirements exist because the humanities are the foundation of Catholic, Jesuit education. Self-knowledge is a crucial part of this mission. In the words of Fr. T. Michael McNulty, SJ: “You come to know who you are in the presence of God. The humanities are a way of understanding myself by understanding how I might look in the vision of others.” Fr. Greg Lucey, SJ, notes the emphasis in Jesuit education on formation of the whole human person. He remarks: “Core values that give us an appreciation of truth, goodness and beauty are at the heart of our becoming a full human being. Wholeness is holiness.”

The faculty in English span creative writing, literature and rhetoric and composition. They conduct research in a wide variety of areas. A faculty member recently won a book award from the Conference on College Composition and Communication. This year, English faculty redesigned ENGL 1001 to focus on cultural competency and empower students to address and combat racism. These revisions have garnered media attention, including this recent interview on TMJ4 news. Beyond the department, English faculty help to make the Ott Writing Center a vital resource for all students on campus.

History faculty span a wide diversity of interests and fields from medieval Europe to Latin American studies to West African social and economic history. The department emphasizes the significance of history in public life and has a robust internship program. Newly created videos highlight the resources that the department offers to students. History faculty have played a significant role in launching and producing the COVID Conversations podcasts (Episode 18, “How COVID Has Changed the Way We Teach,” features a cross-disciplinary conversation by faculty members in Arts & Sciences).

Languages, Literatures and Cultures offers instruction in an array of classical and modern languages. Faculty expertise spans many areas such as Middle East history, Francophone literature and culture, applied linguistics and film studies. A faculty member collaborated on three projects at the Milwaukee Museum of Art. The department is home to Spanish for the Professions, one of Marquette’s most popular minors. Spanish for Heritage Speakers has grown as Marquette seeks to welcome more Latinx students to campus. The department hosts a website that promotes the accomplishments of LLAC alumni. This month, the department is hosting a virtual roundtable on The Importance of Languages to a Jesuit Education in the 21st century.

Faculty in the department of Philosophy exemplify how questions of the ages intersect with questions of the moment. The department boasts long-standing strengths in medieval philosophy and European continental philosophy and has more recently expanded teaching and research strengths in ethics, social and applied philosophy. A Philosophy colleague’s recent co-edited volume on Philosophy for Girls exemplifies the diversity of approaches to the discipline within the department. The department hosts a Friday Virtual Seminar series. Marquette’s is one of the most demographically diverse philosophy departments in the nation, with some recent faculty hires linked to the campus-wide program in Race, Ethnic and Indigenous Studies (REIS).

The Theology department bridges traditions, cultures and disciplines from a Catholic, Jesuit tradition in dialogue with other Christian communities and religious faiths. The faculty seek to bring this faith tradition into relation with crucial issues in the contemporary world. The expertise of Theology faculty spans Judaism and Christianity in Antiquity, Historical Theology, Systematic Theology and Theological Ethics. The department emphasizes how a double major in theology is pertinent to future health and legal professionals as well as anyone interested in social welfare and justice. Theology at Marquette was the first such department in the United States to offer a Ph.D. to laypersons. Two doctoral students in Theology recently won Emerging Scholars Fellowships from the Catholic Biblical Association of America.

Beyond the individual departments, humanities faculty and students come together around a number of shared endeavors, such as the annual Phi Beta Kappa lecture, which this October featured two virtual talks by Dr. Susan R. Wolf of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hall including “The Value of the Arts and Humanities.” Marquette University Press has a long and distinguished reputation as a source of outstanding research in the humanities, with a backlist including works by eminent scholars who are internationally known.

A group of faculty members and a graduate student in humanities, together with a social sciences faculty member, have developed the Education Preparedness Program, which offers a Marquette education to currently and formerly incarcerated individuals. Other faculty members share an interest in health humanities, which draws upon the arts and humanities in the study of health care and wellness. The Center for the Advancement of the Humanities provides a hub for activity and support across these fields. Marquette recently joined a consortium of distinguished universities, Humanities Without Walls, which promotes career diversity for graduate students and enables Marquette faculty and graduate students to apply for Grand Research Challenges grants. At the heart of every grand challenge lie the basic questions of who we are and how we ought to live. These are the central issues of the humanities.

The humanities fields benefit from national resources such as the “Humanities Indicators” website, a project of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Its new report on The Humanities in American Life finds 86% of Americans agree that the humanities strengthen American democracy and 73% agree that they make the economy stronger. These practical perspectives complement the foundational role of the humanities at Marquette in line with our Catholic, Jesuit mission.

Along with their colleagues from the social sciences as well as the natural and computational sciences, many humanities students and faculty participated this month in the College-wide virtual Research Poster session. Following opening remarks by President Lovell and Provost Ah Yun, researchers made virtual presentations about their work. Posters are available online.

As always, please feel free to contact me with questions, concerns or suggestions. I appreciate hearing from you and exploring ways we can all work together for the common good.

Sincerely,

Dr. Heidi Bostic
Dean, Klingler College of Arts and Sciences