Ralston College’s MA in the Humanities charts their course through Western civilization, from the Greek world of Homer, to Ancient Rome and Medieval Europe, into the Renaissance and up to our modern era. The setting of our four terms parallels this arc by beginning in Greece and then moving to Savannah, Georgia. The curriculum unites the most profound and provocative works of literature, philosophy, and art, inspiring and challenging students to approach the human condition with fresh eyes. Yet to cover this ground in a single year of intense intellectual study requires careful steering and selection. For 2024–25, that focus will be provided by the theme of “Nature”: our multidisciplinary curriculum will trace the origins and development of this concept through philosophy, music, architecture, art, and literature.
What is nature? Is it just a simple shorthand for the totality of organic life, along with the laws that govern it? Or is there some innate underlying order—of patterns and principles—which informs the disparate phenomena of the physical world? And where does “human nature” fit into this whole? There is a similarly immense range covered by two ancient terms for nature, Greek physis and Latin natura; how, then, can a deep knowledge of these classical languages help us to frame, explore, and answer these questions?
Graduate students in our program will face the challenge and joy of discovering—and recovering—what nature has meant historically, across diverse times and cultures, and how this conception continues to inform the assumptions and convictions of our current moment.