COURSE CURRICULUM

The Master of Humanities (MH) program at the University of Colorado Denver is a 36-credit-hour interdisciplinary graduate degree designed to help students develop advanced skills in critical thinking, research, and integrative analysis across multiple fields in the humanities and social sciences. The program is built around three required interdisciplinary core seminars totaling 9 credit hours: Foundations and Theories in Interdisciplinary Humanities, Methods and Practices in Graduate Interdisciplinary Humanities, and Directed Research and Readings in Interdisciplinary Humanities. These courses provide students with a strong theoretical and methodological foundation for interdisciplinary inquiry, emphasizing how different academic traditions can be combined to analyze complex cultural, historical, and social issues. In addition to the core seminars, students complete 21 to 24 credit hours of coursework chosen in consultation with a faculty advisor, allowing them to tailor their studies across two or three academic disciplines such as history, philosophy, literature, gender studies, visual studies, sociology, or related fields. This flexible structure enables students to design a personalized academic pathway aligned with their intellectual interests and career goals while maintaining graduate-level rigor. The program concludes with a final capstone experience in the form of either a 3-credit project or a 6-credit thesis, both of which must demonstrate original scholarly or creative work that integrates at least two disciplines. This culminating requirement allows students to apply interdisciplinary methods to a focused research question or creative endeavor, showcasing their ability to synthesize knowledge and produce meaningful academic work. Overall, the MH program is structured to foster intellectual flexibility, advanced research capability, and interdisciplinary expertise, preparing graduates for careers in education, public service, cultural institutions, nonprofit organizations, and further doctoral study, as well as for roles requiring strong analytical, writing, and problem-solving skills across diverse professional fields.