Communities And Cultures

Cultures reflect and create, enable and impede, the communities in which human beings grow and thrive. Humanities programs at Arizona State University delve into the shape and meaning of the cultures of the past and present, the local and the global. We create knowledge about ourselves, and we share the accumulated knowledge of ourselves over the centuries with students hungry to understand who they are and where they come from. We enable them to determine for themselves who they will be and where they will go.

Our exploration of culture ranges from Art History and Musicology in the Herberger Institute of Design and the Arts to the School of International Letters and Cultures and the English Department, which analyze, and interpret for students and the public, some of the great works of world culture, including literature, film and popular media. The creative writing program in English, the School of Art, The Sidney Poitier New American Film, the School of Music, Dance and Theater, and the School of Arts, Media and Engineering programs in the Herberger Institute allow students to develop skills in artistic creation at the same time that they understand the history of the great human expressions embodied in our artistic tradition.

ASU also engages the communities in which we are embedded, with programs that promote and support intellectual and academic excellence among diverse communities within and beyond the five ASU campuses. Through robust collaboration and mutual exchange of ideas and experiences, humanities translates art, culture and creative expression into experiences, scholarship, service and solution-building for faculty, students and our community partners.