About the School of Humanities

Exploring the Past, Shaping the Future

What we offer is an exciting, challenging and thought-provoking suite of disciplines and units. All of our subject areas — Ancient History, Archaeology and Palaeoanthropology, Asian Studies, Classical Languages (Latin and Greek), History, Indigenous Studies, Islamic Studies, Local, Family and Applied History, Peace Studies, Philosophy, Political and International Studies, and Studies in Religion — are taught by internationally recognized scholars who possess strong and diverse teaching and research backgrounds.

The term ‘Humanities’ comes from the Latin word humanitas, which means in essence ‘human nature’ or ‘humanity’. So the Humanities involve the study of everything relating to humankind, its history, and its behaviour. In this School we will engage you in questions about belief systems, social organization, creative expression, historical realities and cultural norms — essentially, you will be studying what it means to be human. The Roman poet Terence, over 2,000 years ago, wrote: ‘there is nothing relating to mankind that does not concern me.’ Similarly many hundreds of years later the English poet Alexander Pope was to comment: ‘the proper study of mankind is man.’

The study of Humanities does not train you for a single career path — it does much more than this. Through the study of Humanities you will acquire the skills of critical thinking, communication and the ability to integrate information, ideas, and opinions from a variety of sources and perspectives, as well as the ability to engage in independent research. But more importantly, we will arouse your curiosity and foster your creativity, enabling you to acquire a lifelong cultural awareness and a passionate love of learning and investigation from your encounter with other civilizations and the world’s greatest thinkers and achievers.

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