Skip to main content

Master of Liberal Arts and Science

Master of Liberal Arts and Science
  2. Course Information
  3. Upcoming Roster

Upcoming Roster

Spring 2026

The MLAS Spring 2026 term will run from Monday, January 12 through Monday, April 20.

 

MLAS 6400: Seminar in Literature and Creative Writing: Social Justice and Global Literary Studies
Prof. Michelle Murray ,  Department of Spanish and Portuguese
Monday evenings, 6:00-8:30 pm
Course Description: This course explores literature as a tool to examine social issues across the globe. Moving from Africa to Asia, Europe, and the Americas, we read novels that confront colonialism, migration, gender, class, and trauma (texts will include  Things Fall Apart, Season of Migration to the North, Lost Children Archive, The Reader )   alongside theorists whose viewpoints inform and complicate our readings (theorists will include Fanon, Spivak, Said, hooks, and Nussbaum). Through discussion, close reading, and research, students will situate texts within global histories, grapple with questions of justice and representation, and develop their own frameworks for engaging world literature today.
(Literature and Creative Writing, Social Science)

 

MLAS 6600: Seminar in Social Science: Human flourishing: a life well lived
Prof. Michael Bess ,  Department of History
Tuesday evenings, 6:00-8:30 pm
Course Description: In this course we explore what it means to live a good life.
The topic will be divided into four thematic levels – personal/psychological, spiritual, national, and global. 

  • The personal/psychological part of the course will explore two millennia of writings about what constitutes a life well lived, and seek practical ways to apply these ideas to our own lives in the present. 
  • The second phase of the course focuses on the question of transcendence – the powerful relationship that many people find (or at least seek) between their individual selfhood and a greater sense of purpose or meaning.  For many this quest finds fruition through organized religion, while for others it assumes more informal or secular forms.  We’ll survey the history of this quest for transcendence among the people of many cultures, exploring how their experiences might be relevant to our own lives today.
  • Next we’ll look at the national and community level, analyzing the socioeconomic systems of the Scandinavian countries, and comparing them point by point with the American system – assessing the relative strengths and weaknesses on either side. 
  • Finally, we’ll turn to what it means to be a good global citizen, and how much impact a single individual can make.  Surveying the major planet-level challenges facing humankind over the coming century, we’ll study the solutions that have been tried, why they have fallen short thus far, and various possible pathways toward a safer, more democratic future.

(Social Science, History)

 

MLAS 7340: Interdisciplinary Capstone Workshop 
Faculty Instructors: Professors Robert Barsky and Michael Bess. 

 

11/3/25