Welcome to the Faculty of Humanities at Brock University! Since a Faculty of Humanities is rare in Canadian universities (there are only three!), you may well ask, What is a Faculty of Humanities? And what is this Faculty of Humanities?
The Humanities are the areas of study that promote understanding of our world, our place in it, and our very lives, through stories, ideas, images and arts. They help us decide what is important by introducing us to people, cultures, and thought. Most of all, they focus on individuals: the stories of individual people (within, and also instead of, large groups) as they navigate the world.
A Faculty of Humanities is an organizational structure that brings together these areas of study, and the scholars, creators, and instructors who pursue them. It is a place with common passions and purposes, expressed through the various academic and creative disciplines. We look together at cultures and communities, words and images, and what is created and preserved – and destroyed – and how and why. We examine with curiosity and courage the best and worst that has been thought, said, and expressed, with both curiosity and courage.
This Faculty of Humanities, at Brock University, is the home of several Departments, Centres, and programmes that study the human experience across time and space. We have Departments of Philosophy, History, English Language and Literature, Classics and Archaeology, Modern Languages, Literatures, & Cultures, and Digital Humanities – where the experience of being human in a digital world is an important focus. We have Centres for the study of Canada, and of the Mediaeval and Renaissance worlds. And we’re the home of the fantastic Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine & Performing Arts, where you can study Visual Art, Music, and Dramatic Arts, as well as Arts & Culture, in our stunning purpose-build facility – Brock Humanities is the home of dedicated scholars, creators, and instructors. We come together to share our passions, and look forward to sharing them with our students and our communities. We look forward to sharing them with you. Join us at Brock’s Faculty of Humanities; we offer you the world, the whole world, the real world.
Carol U. Merriam, PhD
Dean, Faculty of Humanities