Arts & Culture
Hooking first-years on the arts and humanities

Dean Sean Kelly (second from left) pictured here with professors who will be teaching introductory arts and humanities courses in the fall and spring. They include Lauren Kaminsky (from left), Raquel Vega-Durán, Neel Mukherjee, Spencer Lee-Lenfield, Laura van den Berg, Karen Thornber, and Moira Weigel.

Stephanie Mitchell/Harvard Staff Photographer

Eileen O’Grady

Harvard Staff Writer

May 7, 2025 6 min read

Professors rethink students’ introduction to humanities with nine new courses

Starting this fall, students will be able to choose among nine introductory courses launching in the Division of Arts and Humanities as part of an initiative by Sean Kelly, dean of Arts and Humanities and Teresa G. and Ferdinand F. Martignetti Professor of Philosophy.

To counter the nationwide problem of declining enrollment in these fields, the initiative aims to engage more first-year students in the studies.

While Kelly attributes declining enrollment in part to a lack of emphasis on the subjects in American high schools, one Harvard statistic gave him pause: While about 12 percent of first-years arrive on campus interested in pursuing arts and humanities, about half end up changing their minds by the time they declare their concentrations.

“That was the thing that really struck me,” Kelly said. “The kinds of introductory courses that we’re teaching don’t grab our students. That was the issue that I wanted us to have conversations about.”

There are exceptions to the enrollment decline — courses in Art, Film & Visual Studies and Theater, Dance & Media, as well as creative writing and music performance, are in high demand among students. But Kelly believes the “Canon Wars” of the ’80s and ’90s — debates over which major texts define disciplines like English or art history — impacted the design, and appeal, of many introductory humanities courses. While these debates broadened our understanding of what counts as a “great work,” Kelly said, they also made it harder to curate a definitive list of must-reads to introduce the subjects.

“The idea that you’re studying something ‘great’ is motivating for a student, and that it was harder for us to say about any text that it is great had an effect on the kinds of courses that we were able to design and teach,” Kelly explained. “That makes it hard for a first-year student, since they can’t gain any sense of what matters in the field.”

“I hope these courses meet the students where they are and really help them understand the intrinsic value of what we do. I hope they are great courses that change their lives.”
Sean Kelly, dean of arts and humanities

Kelly took inspiration from the Department of Philosophy, which has increased its number of concentrators nearly fivefold since 2006 after shifting its goals from preparing students for future Ph.D.s to engaging undergraduates in fundamental questions about human beings and the universe. Questions like these can be beneficial regardless of a student’s future career path.

The department introduced intro courses like Professor Samantha Matherne’s “Phil 129: Kant’s ‘Critique of Pure Reason,’” which garnered an enrollment of 80 students, and Professor Gina Schouten’s “Phil 16: Sex, Love, and Friendship,” which attracted 120 students the first time it was taught.

Building on this model, and after a series of conversations with faculty last fall, Kelly put out a call for introductory humanities course proposals. He received nearly two dozen. Ten were selected, nine of which will launch in the 2025-2026 academic year.

This fall Karen Thornber, Harry Tuchman Levin Professor in Literature and Professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, will teach “Introduction to the Medical and Health Humanities”; Richard F. Thomas, George Martin Lane Professor of the Classics, will teach “Bob Dylan the Classic”; Lauren Kaminsky, associate senior lecturer in History & Literature, will teach “Culture in Context”; and Raquel Vega-Durán, senior lecturer in Peninsular and Transatlantic Film and Literature, will teach “Migration and Border Crossing in Film and Photography.”

Next spring Moira Weigel, assistant professor of comparative literature, will teach “Humanity, Technology, and Creation”; professor of linguistics Kathryn Davidson will teach “Language”; and incoming assistant professor of comparative literature Spencer Lee-Lenfield will teach “Translation and the Craft of Reading Carefully: A World Literature Introduction.”

John T. Hamilton, William R. Kenan Professor of German and Comparative Literature, will teach “HUM 17: The Human Sciences: Fundamentals and Basic Concepts” next spring. The course offers an overview of the methods, questions, and tools that define the humanities in much the same way gateway courses like LS50 or CS50 do in other disciplines. Students will tackle metaphor and metonymy, epistemology and ontology and the structures of language, and grapple with philosophical ideas such as consciousness, perception, and moral freedom, all ideas that define what it means to study human culture.

“It does give you that ground plan,” said Hamilton. “It says, OK, you’re interested in the humanities? This is what we do, this is how we grapple with all sorts of things. Then you may have a better idea of where you want to delve into for your following time at Harvard.

“In the same way you need to know how momentum works to study physics, and how cells reproduce to study biology, you need to know what a metaphor is, what realism is, and what consciousness is to do the humanities.”

Laura van den Berg, senior lecturer, and Neel Mukherjee, associate senior lecturer in creative writing in the Department of English, will co-teach “HUM 9: Reading for Fiction Writers” in the fall. The course introduces students to a range of texts, including Anton Chekhov, Ursula Le Guin, and Octavia Butler, to help them understand how reading shapes writing, and begin to write their own stories.

“We are trying to bring together the critical side of the English Department, which trains students in how to close-read, understand, and analyze the text, with the creative-writing side, which trains in technique and craft,” Mukherjee said. “We wanted to marry the two to show that good writing is always dependent on being a good reader.”

“Our ability to tell our own story to ourselves and to others, to absorb other people’s stories — that’s so foundational to who we are and our identity,” van den Berg agreed. “A richer, more rigorous, nuanced understanding of how story works, how we work on story, and how story works on us, is incredibly important as a human practice.”

For Kelly, the intro course initiative is not just about increasing enrollment, but about building a more inviting and engaging humanities culture for new students. He hopes to underscore the humanities’ inherent value, not just their instrumental use. As he put it, it’s the difference between reading Shakespeare’s “King Lear” to analyze tyranny, versus reading it to explore what it means to be human.

“I want these introductory courses not just to be about the instrumental value of the disciplines, but about their intrinsic value. I want them to focus on why it matters for all of us engaged in the human project to learn how to read great literature, to think about great philosophy, to encounter great art,” Kelly said.

“I hope these courses meet the students where they are and really help them understand the intrinsic value of what we do. I hope they are great courses that change their lives.”