A North and South Campus Symbiosis

Faculty who teach in the humanities and students who elect a
major or minor in the humanities like to think that these
disciplines form the core of a liberal arts education.

This is not to say that other disciplines are less important,
but only that the core activities of the humanities ““
thinking, speaking, writing ““ are the foundation of the
world’s social and cultural life. The humanities at UCLA
promote reflection on the human condition and critical inquiry into
how individuals in different times and places have understood
themselves.

But our sphere of study is not just the past. It is also
decidedly the future.

We want you to know the equal beauty of an Elizabethan sonnet
and a new protein structure. We want you to recognize that
consciousness cannot be understood without an equal investigation
of cognitive neuroscience and epistemology.

If you expect to clerk for a Supreme Court justice, we ask that
you first discover what gender studies or Latin American literature
can teach you about the nature of justice. If you expect to do
frontier biomedical research, discover first what philosophy can
teach you about the moral dimensions of new medical
technologies.

We presume that the deeper knowledge which comes with choosing a
major and preparing to work at a high pitch of creativity in your
chosen profession requires a broad acquaintance with the theories
and knowledge that have brought us to this moment in history. Our
goal in the humanities is to increase that deeper knowledge and
refine your ability to articulate your own theories with clarity
and imagination. These abilities prepare you for productive,
culturally rich lives as informed and humane citizens.

Academic disciplines have always been dynamic. They are
witnessed in recent arguments over what constitutes the
“canon” of great literature, whether there are
universal moral laws or whether behaviors are encoded in the human
genome.

Your generation, however, may be challenged to build partly
human, partly robotic, nano-engineered “persons” that
will not only rival your own powers to compute and replicate, but
also challenge your conception of what it means to have human
passions, human sexuality and human morality.

As a result of your discoveries, you will face complicated
ethical and legal problems that did not exist just a few short
years ago.

The history books that you will write, the economic and
political theories that will govern your life and the art and
poetry that will characterize your conception of beauty will all
arise in an increasingly complex world of global interaction and
shifting ideas of human identity.

Your time at UCLA is an opportunity to explore those issues in
the many fields of study made available by a great university.

Let us challenge you to notice that the requirements you are
asked to fulfill at UCLA, as well as the electives you may choose
are designed not to separate those fields from one another but to
provide diverse paradigms for learning in unexpected ways.

Our aim is to create a context in which each of you engages
actively in cultivating your intellectual talents and discovering
new pathways to the future. Whatever your major or your
professional aspirations, study in the humanities will show you
crucial dimensions within the future that you will live.

Eric Sundquist is acting dean of humanities.