What Are the Disciplines of the Humanities?

The humanities include the disciplines of history, visual and performing arts, language, music, religion, philosophy, culture and literature. The focus of the humanities is on human culture past and present. People who study the humanities at school may enroll in a program that take an interdisciplinary approach focusing on a specific geographical area or language, or they may pursue such majors as creative writing, history, philosophy or comparative studies.

Within these humanities disciplines are more specialized areas like theater, ethics, law, classical languages, dance, feminist studies, urban studies and art history. Research rather than experimentation is often an emphasis of humanities studies, although art and writing courses usually involve hands-on practice of the discipline.

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