Director: Matthew Bolton
The program offers one minor:
Minor in Film Studies
The Film Studies program is an interdisciplinary academic home for the study of film and media analysis. In this program students learn about the formal elements of cinema and other visual media, its history as a medium, its connection to national cultures and values, and its expressions of human experience. Students study film and media analysis through a variety of theoretical frameworks, considering the ways in which different disciplines approach the study of film and media.
Film Studies Minor: 21 credits
| Film and Form - Take one of the following four courses: | 3 credits |
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FILM 221 The Summer Blockbuster
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FILM 229 Studies in Film Form
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FILM 320 Media Aesthetics
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FILM 329 Topics in Film Form
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Film and History - Take one of the following six courses: |
3 credits |
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FILM 230 Hollywood Cinema
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FILM 231 African-American Cinema
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FILM 239 Studies in Film History
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FILM 331 New York City on Film
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FILM 332 The American New Wave
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FILM 339 Topics in Film history
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| Upper Division Requirement |
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| FILM Electives* | 12 credits |
| FILM 499 Senior Capstone | 3 credits |
* FILM electives can be identified on Zagweb using the attribute searched in the advanced look up features for registration.
Lower Division
"An introduction to the techniques of dramatic expression utilizing the body, voice, and imagination. Structured play exercise helps the beginner to overcome physical/vocal inhibitions, and develop a sense of trust and teamwork within the group. Scene work is approached using beats, intentions, scores of physical actions, obstacles, and subtext. The class concludes with a recital to provide practical experience in rehearsal and performance. Fall and Spring."
Equivalent:
THEA 111 - OK if taken since Fall 2023
The First-Year Seminar (FYS) introduces new Gonzaga students to the University, the Core Curriculum, and Gonzaga’s Jesuit mission and heritage. While the seminars will be taught by faculty with expertise in particular disciplines, topics will be addressed in a way that illustrates approaches and methods of different academic disciplines. The seminar format of the course highlights the participatory character of university life, emphasizing that learning is an active, collegial process.
This course serves as an introduction to elements of film form and grammar, including narrative, mise-en-scène, cinematography, editing, sound, and acting. Students taking this course will learn how to describe a film's formal qualities and will use these descriptions to make analytical claims about film.
This course serves as an introduction to the history of film as a medium, ranging from its origins to the current moment. Students taking this course will learn how to situate a film in its historical and cultural contexts and will use these contexts to make analytical claims about film and history.
Born in 1975 with the release of Jaws , the summer blockbuster is one of the defining cinematic genres of our cultural moment, shaping what movies look like, how they get made, what a success or flop is, and how we understand the very nature of the medium. This course examines the six aspects of film form—narrative, mise-en-scène, cinematography, editing, sound, and acting—to understand better how summer blockbusters communicate, what makes for a successful blockbuster film, and how the genre of blockbuster functions.
This course serves as an introduction to elements of film form and grammar, including narrative, mise-en-scene, cinematography, editing, sound, and
acting. Students taking this course will learn how to describe a film's formal qualities and will use these descriptions to make analytical claims about film.
Simultaneously an industry, an entertainment, and an art form, Hollywood cinema is a system that has produced the predominant mass culture of the last 100 years, shaping the way that Americans (and the world) think about American history, culture, and identity. This class examines Hollywood as a business, as an aesthetic, and as a cultural force, considering in particular the following questions: What are the formal and ideological markers of the Hollywood film? How have the poetics and politics of the Hollywood film developed over time? Why has the Hollywood film endured over time? What voices have been neglected by Hollywood history? What does Hollywood history have to teach us about our own moment? In exploring these questions, we will draw on film studies, American studies, cognitive science, economics, cultural theory, history, critical race theory, feminist theory, aesthetics, and ethics to develop a comprehensive understanding of what Hollywood has meant and what it means today.
W. E. B. Du Bois famously described the African-American experience as a kind of “double-consciousness, [a] sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others,” torn between two identities: “an American, a Negro.” This course reflects this same duality, existing in tension between two simultaneous classes. The first half of the course examines the way that American popular cinema has represented the lives and humanity of black citizens—the “looking at one’s self through the eyes of others” that Du Bois refers to. This portion of the course will consider how the industry of Hollywood—a largely white, straight, and male institution—depicted and shaped the lives of black Americans for the movie-going public. The second half of the course examines how black filmmakers from the earliest moments of American filmmaking to our own moment have used cinema as a form of self-expression and meaning-making. This portion of the course considers black filmmaking both as a response to historical representations of African-Americans and as a cinematic history separate from a relationship to white America. In combining these two separate intellectual impulses, this course aims to instantiate Du Bois’s “double-consciousness” and do justice both to the need to examine Hollywood cinema’s history of racial injustice and to the desire to explore the rich tableau of black filmmaking in the United States.
This course serves as an introduction to the history of film as a medium, ranging from its origins to the current moment. Students taking this course will learn how to situate a film in its historical and cultural contexts and will use these contexts to make analytical claims about film and history.
This course takes the concept of the projected image as a machine for reflection and metamorphosis as its starting point, considering the ways in which film both reflects ourselves and our culture back at us while also influencing and changing the very things it reflects. In particular, this course examines the ways in which world cinema—defined as cinema not in English—creates meaning, examining the movement, the auteur, and the society as particular loci of meaning. This course examines films from the beginnings of cinema to movies released quite recently, all in the service of considering what the cinema is, what it has to say about culture and society, and what we should think, say, do, and feel as viewers looking into our
own distorted reflections.
This course examines the connection between film and national identity, studying at least one non-US cinema in order to explore the relationship between film art and national culture. Students taking this course will learn how to understand a film in its national, political, and aesthetic context,
using these contexts to make analytical claims about the relationship between film and nation.
This course examines the ways a genre of popular film—the horror film—both reflects and alters the way we think about a specific facet of ourselves and our culture—our assumptions, beliefs, and values about gender and sexuality. Content includes films from the United States and from world cinema, from the beginnings of film to the current moment, all in the service of considering what the horror film is, what it has to say about gender
and sexuality, and what we should think, say, do, and feel as viewers looking into our own distorted reflections.
Fundamentals of the process of designing for the theatre - developing the design from the initial script study through the collaborative process in design meetings. Learning how to “see” and developing points of view and approaches are studied. The course also covers the business of design,
working in regional theatres and other professional venues. Fall, even years.
Equivalent:
THEA 235 - OK if taken since Fall 2023
The fundamental techniques of play analysis, actor communication, and composition are introduced and applied to model plays. Organizational,
leadership, and conceptual skills are developed as students audition, cast, and rehearse chosen scenes from the modern realistic repertoire for performance. Fall.
Prerequisite:
THEA 111 Minimum Grade: D
or FILM 160 Minimum Grade: D
Equivalent:
THEA 253 - OK if taken since Fall 2023
An experiential, hands-on course that introduces students to the fundamental aspects of digital filmmaking. Students will learn basic camera operation, audio recording, and video editing while also examining the creative and ethical considerations associated with the craft of filmmaking. Spring
Prerequisite:
VART 170 Minimum Grade: D
or VART 112 Minimum Grade: D
or JOUR 270 Minimum Grade: D
Equivalent:
BRCO 272 - OK if taken since Fall 2024
VART 272 - OK if taken since Fall 2023
VART 272 - OK if taken since Fall 2023
This course examines some aspect of film production (ranging from screen writing to costuming, directing to acting, etc.) with the goal of understanding how the process of film production shapes film meaning. Students taking this course will learn how to use the circumstances of
production to explicate and analyze film and other media objects.
This course examines film as a means of expressing some aspect of human experiences, ranging from the political to the ethical, the philosophical to the spiritual, the cultural to the personal. Students taking this course will learn how filmic language expresses express ideas, emotions, experiences, and beliefs, using this knowledge to understand both particular films and broader questions of spirituality, philosophy, politics, culture, and/or social
justice.
Upper Division
This course examines the connection between film and national identity, studying at least one non-US cinema in order to explore the relationship between film art and national culture. Students taking this course will learn how to understand a film in its national, political, and aesthetic context, using these contexts to make analytical claims about the relationship between film and nation.
Course Description: This course examines the relationship between film and genre, either in the traditional sense of story-type (horror, musical, etc.) or in the sense of a particular filmmaker (Hitchcock, Kurosawa, etc.) or filmmaking movement (the French New Wave, New Hollywood, etc.). Students taking this course will learn how to situate specific films within broader generic contexts and will learn how these broader contexts can operate as an expression and/ or critique of cultural values and ideologies.
This course examines some aspect off film production (ranging from screen writing to costuming, directing to acting, etc.) with the goal of understanding how the process of film production shapes film meaning. Students taking this course will learn how to use the circumstances of production to explicate and analyze film and other media objects.
This course examines film as a means of expressing some aspect of human experiences, ranging from the political to the ethical, the philosophical to the spiritual, the cultural to the personal. Students taking this course will learn how filmic language expresses express ideas, emotions, experiences, and beliefs, using this knowledge to understand both particular films and broader questions of spirituality, philosophy, politics, culture, and/or social justice.
Images and sounds saturate our daily lives and while we often pay attention to content, we may neglect the visual and aural dimensions of these media. As citizens and consumers, we need to develop critical visual and aural interpretive frameworks to make sense of media. This course invites students to sharpen their analytical tools to attend to the sights and sounds that animate everyday life. This course examines media aesthetics through mise-en-scene, camera and point of view, editing techniques, visual style, and sound. From still to moving images, from print to online, students will conduct detailed aesthetic analyses of movies, television, radio, advertisements, podcasts, art, photography, websites, gifs, memes, and other forms of digital media. Additional topics may include industry, genre, power, visual culture theory, and identity. Fall.
Prerequisite:
COMM 210 Minimum Grade: C
and COMM 275 Minimum Grade: C
Equivalent:
COMM 360 - OK if taken since Fall 2023
This course serves as a continued study of elements of film form and grammar, including narrative, mise-en-scene, cinematography, editing, sound,
and acting. Students taking this course will learn how to describe a film's formal qualities and will use these descriptions to make analytical claims about film.
This course embraces the concept of “text as city,” using film to read the urban landscape and to understand history, geography, and culture, with a particular focus on films from the “long Seventies,” 1969 – 1981, that were filmed in and take place in New York City. Using these narrow chronological and geographical boundaries, this course explores ways of reading this singular moment in history, interrogating local demographics and neighborhoods, national culture, and the visions of a variety of filmmakers to understand what is important and distinct about New York City, about the 70s, and about film. In particular, these movies document the city’s racial and ethnic populations, emergent queerness, elite enclaves and decaying districts, and the vicious eruption of neoliberalism. In considering these films, this course also studies the reciprocal relationship between film and culture, as well as a variety of parallels between the 1970s and our own moment.
The word “interregnum” refers to an interval of time between the reigns of two monarchs, a liminal moment between one ruling system and another when possibilities flourish, and this political term gives us a perfect metaphor for the moment of film history—sometimes called “New Hollywood” or “the American New Wave”—students will study in this course. In the mid-sixties, the studio system of Hollywood collapsed, and in the late seventies, a new blockbuster era emerged, an era we still live in today. What will interest students in this course is what happens between the fall of one system and the rise of another, when there were no rules and American filmmakers were more free to create than they ever had been before . . . or since.
This course serves as an continued study of to the history of film as a medium, ranging from its origins to the current moment. Students taking this course will learn how to situate a film in its historical and cultural contexts and will use these contexts to make analytical claims about film and history.
This course will focus on a series of representative Latin American films in order to explore issues of national formation and cultural identity. Emphasis will be given to the social, political, and economic factors which affect the production and reception of these films.
Prerequisite:
SPAN 320 Minimum Grade: C
Equivalent:
INST 404 - OK if taken since Fall 2023
SPAN 351 - OK if taken since Fall 2023
SPAN 351 - OK if taken since Fall 2023
This course provides an introduction to the history of Spanish cinema through the study of representative films of different historical periods (Francoist and/ or democratic period). Particular attention will be given to the historical, social, and cultural context of the production and reception of those movies, as well as to questions of authorship/genre, gender/sexuality, and national/cultural identity.
Prerequisite:
SPAN 320 Minimum Grade: C
Equivalent:
INST 415 - OK if taken since Fall 2023
SPAN 352 - OK if taken since Fall 2023
SPAN 352 - OK if taken since Fall 2023
A study of French cinema as it has evolved in the last two decades. The films viewed will be used as a means to encourage reflection on the history, ideas and values that have gone into the making of modern France. The course is offered in English and French in separate sections. For students who take the English section of the course through the INST cross-listing, there is no French prerequisite. Spring.
Equivalent:
FREN 331 - OK if taken since Fall 2023
This course explores African history by examining the roles that Africans have played historically as creators, audiences, and subjects of films. Using both film studies and African studies concepts, the course interrogates African film as both artifacts and interpretations of the past.
Equivalent:
HIST 342 - OK if taken since Fall 2023
Survey of the parties, institutions, political processes, issues and policies of the major western European industrialized nations. Special focus on
England, France, and Germany, but coverage extends to the other European democracies as well. Fall, even years.
Equivalent:
INST 395 - OK if taken since Fall 2023
POLS 354 - OK if taken since Fall 2023
POLS 354 - OK if taken since Fall 2023
This course examines the connection between film and national identity, offering advanced study in at least one non-US cinema in order to explore the relationship between film art and national culture. Students taking this course will learn how to understand a film in its national, political, and
aesthetic context, using these contexts to make analytical claims about the relationship between film and nation.
The goal of this course is to examine the Western film genre in depth, exploring its historical development, American and international instantiations, the structural, sociopolitical, and aesthetic features that define it, and the contemporary state of the genre. This course will engage with of the breadth and depth of the genre, particularly from historicist and structuralist perspectives, and explore the relationships between the Western film
and the historical, cultural, social, ethical, and material contexts from which it emerges.
This course explores the life and career of Akira Kurosawa, one of the greatest filmmakers to ever live. Kurosawa’s films return again and again to a central question: “why can’t people be happier together?” In examining this question—one that touches on fundamental questions of ethics, history, and society—Kurosawa will take us to burning medieval castles, modern Shakespeare adaptations, samurai battles, the atomic aftermath of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and even his own dreams. This course will consider how Kurosawa’s films offer an ethic and a philosophy for life in the modern world, while at the same time offering a template for films like A Fistful of Dollars , A Bug’s Life , and Star Wars …and ultimately, contemporary cinema itself.
This class examines the life and works of Alfred Hitchcock, not only one of the most important filmmakers to ever live, but perhaps the most important image-maker of the 20th century. The director of 53 feature films—including Vertigo , named as the best film ever made by the BFI in 2012—Hitchcock worked in the early beginnings of silent movies, made films in Germany, England, and the United States, made careers (and ended them), revolutionized cinematic technique and storytelling, and changed the way we think about the movies. This course examines Hitchcock’s stories, filmmaking craft, and cinematic philosophy, exploring how these reflect both their own times and the obsessions, impulses, and genius of the man behind the camera.
By any measure, Breaking Bad , Vince Gilligan’s “story about a man who transforms himself from Mr. Chips to Scarface,” is one of the most successful television series of all time. It was one of the most-watched cable shows in the United States, was recognized by the Guinness World Records in 2013 as the highest rated show of all time, and was nominated for sixteen Emmy awards (among many other accolades). In addition to its compelling characters and propulsive plot, part of Breaking Bad ’s popularity can be attributed to its aesthetic, thematic, and ethical complexity. Indeed, Breaking Bad draws on modes of Greek and Shakespearean tragedy, asks the same questions that appear in Faust and Paradise Lost , and emplots the philosophical arguments of Machiavelli and Nietzsche. This course will examine Breaking Bad in detail, considering what the series means within the material and formal contexts of television, early 21st century American economy and culture, and broader ethical, political, philosophical, and artistic discourses.
This course offers advanced study in the relationship between film and genre, either in the traditional sense of story-type (horror, musical, etc.) or in the sense of a particular filmmaker (Hitchcock, Kurosawa, etc.) or filmmaking movement (the French New Wave, New Hollywood, etc.). Students taking this course will learn how to situate specific films within broader generic contexts and will learn how these broader contexts can operate as an
expression and/ or critique of cultural values and ideologies.
With a foundation in conceptualization, play analysis, actor communication, and design, student directors will create a vision for a short play. Student directors cast their shows and collaborate with a design team to realize the production in a public performance. Emphasis is placed on building conceptually rich, unified productions and the development of an individual creative voice. Spring.
Prerequisite:
THEA 253 Minimum Grade: D
Equivalent:
THEA 354 - OK if taken since Fall 2023
With experience of basic acting techniques in hand, the student actor works in front of the camera to meet the challenges of electronic media. Simplicity of presentation, performance of the authentic person, and active listening are key skills. Work is in a variety of forms, from feature films to
public service announcements. The class concludes with a public showing of student work. Periodic offering.
Prerequisite:
THEA 111 Minimum Grade: D
Equivalent:
THEA 316 - OK if taken since Fall 2023
This course offers advanced study of some aspect of film production (ranging from screen writing to costuming, directing to acting, etc.) with the goal of understanding how the process of film production shapes film meaning. Students taking this course will learn how to use the circumstances of
production to explicate and analyze film and other media objects.
Explore different ways in which religion (and theology) and film can be placed into mutually critical conversation. Specific attention given to
constructing mutually enriching dialogues between recent films (1999-present) and specific biblical texts. How can biblical texts provide new lenses for the viewing of films? In what ways can films enrich the understanding and interpretation of biblical texts? Offered every semester.
Equivalent:
HONS 325 - OK if taken since Fall 2024
RELI 302 - OK if taken since Fall 2023
RELI 302 - OK if taken since Fall 2023
Explore Asian religions in contemporary Asian, European, and North American cultures through film. By focusing on how Asian religious themes are treated in each film, we learn to identify longstanding Asian religious themes in contemporary films. We also investigate how Asian religions are
employed in films to address contemporary issues. Offered every year.
Equivalent:
RELI 364 - OK if taken since Fall 2023
This course explores different ways in which religion (and theology) and film can be placed into mutually critical conversation of central concern are
the diverse responses by theologians (Jewish and Christian) and films to trauma such as the Holocaust. Offered every year.
Equivalent:
RELI 365 - OK if taken since Fall 2023
This course offers advanced study film as a means of expressing some aspect of human experiences, ranging from the political to the ethical, the philosophical to the spiritual, the cultural to the personal. Students taking this course will learn how filmic language expresses express ideas, emotions, experiences, and beliefs, using this knowledge to understand both particular films and broader questions of spirituality, philosophy, politics, culture, and/or social justice.
The Core Integration Seminar (CIS) engages the Year Four Question: “Imagining the possible: What is our role in the world?” by offering students a culminating seminar experience in which students integrate the principles of Jesuit education, prior components of the Core, and their disciplinary expertise. Each section of the course will focus on a problem or issue raised by the contemporary world that encourages integration, collaboration, and problem solving. The topic for each section of the course will be proposed and developed by each faculty member in a way that clearly connects to the Jesuit Mission, to multiple disciplinary perspectives, and to our students’ future role in the world.
A course offering the student an opportunity to study aspects of classical civilization, with a specialized focus on aspects of the Roman world and its culture.
Equivalent:
CLAS 420 - OK if taken since Fall 2023
The course explores documentary film as both a popular art form and as an instrument for constructing social knowledge. From early cinematic experiments to contemporary award winners, students will critically review the evolution of non-fiction filmmaking while analyzing the techniques that documentary filmmakers use to craft their documentaries. The larger ethical and societal impacts of documentary film will also be explored. Spring.
Prerequisite:
INMD 101 Minimum Grade: D
Equivalent:
JOUR 374 - OK if taken since Fall 2023
Documentary filmmaking provides an environment in which students experiment with the combination of digital film aesthetics and documentary storytelling to produce an original short non-fiction work. The course includes examination of ethical issues in documentaries, the use of animation
and interactivity in film and the role of documentary work in different cultures. Lab fee. Spring.
Prerequisite:
VART 170 Minimum Grade: D
or BRCO 303 Minimum Grade: D
Equivalent:
JOUR 470 - OK if taken since Fall 2023
An exploration of moving images and digital video as they relate to documentary films and art. Students learn how artists employ digital video and moving images in their artistic work. They also learn how to apply fundamental visual strategies of digital media and technological tools, including media editing software such as Adobe Premiere Pro and After Effects, to the creation and editing of video. Lab fee. Fall.
Prerequisite:
INMD 101 Minimum Grade: D
and VART 170 Minimum Grade: D
Equivalent:
BRCO 472 - OK if taken since Fall 2024
INMD 410 - OK if taken since Fall 2023
VART 472 - OK if taken since Fall 2023
INMD 410 - OK if taken since Fall 2023
VART 472 - OK if taken since Fall 2023
Many current films raise first-order philosophical questions or issues, though few films are particularly good at solving those same problems or resolving the conflict underlying the issues. This course seeks to explore many contemporary films (none older than Blade Runner) and the philosophical issues they raise, both by their explicit content and by their implicit content. Metaphysical issues about the mind and body relationship, the nature and extent of free will, and the nature of personal identity will be included. Some epistemological issues having to do with how well we can expect to have access to reality, and what might be among the impediments to the access will also be included. The course generally avoids treating ethical or moral issues, but also takes an interest in the use of the emotions in films, the treatment of violence and human sexuality in films and the nature of comedy in films. Some attention will also be given to film techniques, especially from the point of view of the audience.
Equivalent:
PHIL 485 - OK if taken since Fall 2023
This capstone course synthesizes student learning through the film studies program by examining some aspect of film and media studies (determined by the instructor) through multiple disciplinary lenses. Students taking this course will learn about the topic in depth, apply a variety of disciplinary and theoretical frameworks to the topic, and conduct student-driven research about a topic within film and media studies.
Second Language Competency
Competency in a second language (classical or modern) at the intermediate level (courses numbered 201) is required for students continuing in the study of a language. Students beginning study in a language they have not previously studied can fulfill the requirement by completing one year at the beginning level (courses numbered 101-102). Non-native speakers of English who have completed the required English core credits at Gonzaga may petition the Associate Dean of Arts and Sciences for a waiver of this requirement.
Additional information on this requirement can be found at
Language Requirement Information
In addition to their major and minor areas of study, all undergraduate students follow a common program designed to complete their education in those areas that the University considers essential for a Catholic, Jesuit, liberal, and humanistic education. The University Core Curriculum consists of forty-five credits of course work, with additional designation requirements that can be met through core, major, or elective courses.
The University Core Curriculum is a four-year program, organized around one overarching question, which is progressively addressed through yearly themes and questions. Hence, core courses are best taken within the year for which they are designated. First year core courses encourage intellectual engagement and provide a broad foundation of fundamental skills. Second and third year courses examine central issues and questions in philosophy and religious studies. The fourth year course, the Core Integration Seminar, offers a culminating core experience. Taken at any time throughout the four years, broadening courses intersect with the core themes and extend students’ appreciation for the humanities, arts, and social and behavioral sciences. Finally, the designation requirements (writing enriched, global studies, and social justice) reflect important values and reinforce students’ knowledge and competencies.
Overarching Core Question: As students of a Catholic, Jesuit, and Humanistic University, how do we educate ourselves to become women and men for a more just and humane global community?
Year 1 Theme and Question: Understanding and Creating: How do we pursue knowledge and cultivate understanding?
- The First-Year Seminar (DEPT 193, 3 credits): The First-Year Seminar (FYS), taken in the fall or spring of the first year, is designed to promote an intellectual shift in students as they transition to college academic life. Each small seminar is organized around an engaging topic, which students explore from multiple perspectives. The FYS is offered by many departments across the University (click here [PDF] for list of FYS courses).
- Writing (ENGL 101, 3 credits) and Reasoning (PHIL 101, 3 credits): The Writing and Reasoning courses are designed to help students develop the foundational skills of critical reading, thinking, analysis, and writing. They may be taken as linked sections. Writing (ENGL 101) carries one of the three required writing-enriched designations (see below).
- Communication & Speech (COMM 100, 3 credits): This course introduces students to interpersonal and small group communication and requires the application of critical thinking, reasoning, and research skills necessary to organize, write, and present several speeches.
- Scientific Inquiry (BIOL 104/104L, CHEM 104/104L, or PHYS 104/104L, 3 credits): This course explores the scientific process in the natural world through evidence-based logic and includes significant laboratory experience. Students pursuing majors that require science courses will satisfy this requirement through their major.
- Mathematics (above Math 100, 3 credits): Mathematics courses promote thinking according to the modes of the discipline—abstractly, symbolically, logically, and computationally. One course in mathematics, above Math 100, including any math course required for a major or minor, will fulfill this requirement. MATH 100 (College Algebra) and courses without the MATH prefix do not fulfill this requirement.
Year 2 Theme and Question: Being and Becoming: Who are we and what does it mean to be human?
- Philosophy of Human Nature (PHIL 201, 3 credits): This course provides students with a philosophical study of key figures, theories, and intellectual traditions that contribute to understanding the human condition; the meaning and dignity of human life; and the human relationship to ultimate reality.
- Christianity and Catholic Traditions (RELI, 3 credits). Religious Studies core courses approved for this requirement explore diverse topics including Christian scriptures, history, theology, and practices as well as major contributions from the Catholic intellectual and theological traditions (click here [PDF] for a list of approved courses) .
Year 3 Theme and Question: Caring and Doing: What principles characterize a well lived life?
- Ethics (PHIL 301 or RELI, 3 credits): The Ethics courses are designed to help students develop their moral imagination by exploring and explaining the reasons humans should care about the needs and interests of others. This requirement is satisfied by an approved ethics course in either Philosophy (PHIL 301) or Religious Studies (click here [PDF] for a list of approved courses).
- World/Comparative Religion (RELI, 3 credits): Religious Studies courses approved for this core requirement draw attention to the diversity that exists within and among traditions and encourage students to bring critical, analytical thinking to bear on the traditions and questions considered. These courses carries one of the required two global-studies designations (see below) (click here [PDF] for a list of approved courses).
Year 4 Theme and Question: Imagining the Possible: What is our role in the world?”
- Core Integration Seminar (DEPT 432, 3 credits). The Core Integration Seminar (CIS) offers students a culminating core experience in which they integrate the principles of Jesuit education, prior components of the core, and their disciplinary expertise. Some CIS courses may also count toward a student’s major or minor. The CIS is offered by several departments across the University (click here [PDF] for list of CIS courses).
The Broadening Courses
- Fine Arts & Design (VART, MUSC, THEA, 3 credits): Arts courses explore multiple ways the human experience can be expressed through creativity, including across different cultures and societies. One approved course in fine arts, music, theatre, or dance will fulfill this requirement (click here [PDF] for a list of approved courses).
- History (HIST, 3 credits): History courses are intended to develop students’ awareness of the historical context of both the individual and the collective human experience. One course in History (HIST 101, HIST 102, HIST 112, HIST 201, HIST 202) will fulfill this requirement.
- Literature (3 credits): Literature courses foster reflection on how literature engages with a range of human experience. One approved course in Literature (offered by English, Classics, or Modern Languages) will fulfill this requirement (click here [PDF] for a list of approved courses).
- Social & Behavioral Sciences (3 credits): Courses in the social and behavioral sciences engage students in studying human behavior, social systems, and social issues. One approved course offered by Criminal Justice, Economics, Political Science, Psychology, Sociology, or Women and Gender Studies will fulfill this requirement (click here [PDF] for a list of approved courses).
The Designations
Designations are embedded within already existing core, major, minor, and elective courses. Students are encouraged to meet designation requirements within elective courses as their schedule allows; however, with careful planning students should be able to complete most of the designation requirements within other core, major, or minor courses.
- Writing Enriched (WE; 3 courses meeting this designation): Courses carrying the WE designation are designed to promote the humanistic and Jesuit pedagogical ideal of clear, effective communication. In addition to the required core course, Writing (ENGL 101), which carries one of the WE designations, students must take two other WE-designated courses (click here [PDF] for a list of approved courses).
- Global-Studies (GS; 2 courses meeting this designation): Courses carrying the GS designation are designed to challenge students to perceive and understand human diversity by exploring diversity within a context of constantly changing global systems. In addition to the required core course, World/Comparative Religion (RELI 300-level), which carries one of the GS designations, students must take one other GS-designated course (click here [PDF] for a list of approved courses).
- Social-Justice (SJ; 1 course meeting this designation): Courses carrying the SJ designation are designed to introduce students to one or more social justice concerns. Students must take one course that meets the SJ designation (click here [PDF] for a list of approved courses).
Major-specific adaptations to the University Core Curriculum
All Gonzaga students, regardless of their major, will complete the University Core Curriculum requirements. However some Gonzaga students will satisfy certain core requirements through major-specific programs or courses. Any major-specific adaptations to the core are described with the requirements for the majors to which they apply.