Humanities Division

This week at the UW, attend Meany on Screen events, listen to a lecture from Dr. Ruth Westheimer, and much more.

UW graduates go on to work in a range of careers, whether it be law, medicine, or video game design. But it may surprise you to know that students in all three of these careers have majored in the same subject: English.

College of Arts & Sciences Dean Stacey explains that there is an important civic, political, social, and cultural element to an education and that you can get that in a wide variety of majors.

The humanities’ newest major, cinema and media studies (CMS), allows students to explore different modes of expression and their effects on a world increasingly dominated by mass media. “This new major should be especially relevant to incoming students,” department chair Eric Ames said. 

Interested in the College of Arts & Sciences but don’t know what to study? Here are six majors that you may not have discovered yet.

Battles of grammar, for the most part, play out in English classrooms and in the pages of style guides. Rarely do arguments over split infinitives and Oxford commas venture beyond the walls of academia. But one linguistic phenomenon lands in the limelight every so often, and it’s a word you know well: the pronoun “they” — along with its derivatives “them” and “their.” Kirby Conrod, a lecturer in linguistics at the UW, is quoted.

In an era of quantum computing and self-driving cars, Sarah Stroup, professor of classics at the UW, teaches a class called "STEM in the Ancient World." [This is the second segment of "The Record"]

Adam Werle (BA International Studies & Linguistics 1998), now teaches Nuu-chah-nulth to Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellows.

Frances McCue is a poet, writer, co-founder of nonprofit community writing center Hugo House and a teaching professor of English at the University of Washington. She reads a piece in a special installment of the GeekWire Podcast.

On Wednesday, several of Timnit Gebru's former colleagues wrote a letter to Google CEO Sundar Pichai asking that she be reinstated, saying her departure has "had a demoralizing effect on the whole of our team." Emily M. Bender, professor of linguistics at the UW, is quoted.

Here's a quick look at some giftworthy books and music created by UW faculty and staff in 2020, and a reminder of some recent favorites.

See public a public art exhibition on the side of city buses, watch a talk about "Public Opnion and Polls in the 2020 Presidental Election, revisit Marc Seales Group's performance at Town Hall, and more!

With one of the biggest gift-giving seasons upon us, here’s a quick look at some gift-worthy books and music created by University of Washington faculty and staff, and a reminder of some recent favorites.

At its final colloquium, the Henry Art Gallery invites academics from the UW and other institutions "to think beyond species."

Two UW authors share very different stories about the Korean American experience.