Humanities

Courses

HUMA110W: Basic Music Theory Applied to Keyboard

Basic Music Theory Applied to Keyboard offers students a fundamental approach to reading basic music theory and applying what they learn to keyboard. Students must provide their own portable keyboard.

HUMA111W: Freshman Seminar: Light Your Fire

Freshman Seminar: Light Your Fire prepares first-year students to succeed in college, helping them to become active, independent thinkers able to consider challenging topics from various perspectives. The course promotes intellectual curiosity by encouraging exploration through independent inquiry and group activities. Students become aware of their individual qualities and strengths. They select topic(s), conduct research, explore viewpoints, think critically, collaborate with peers, and use information technology, sharing what they learn through oral and written communication.

HUMA120W: Environmental Issues

Environmental Issues examines the environmental issues that are relevant today, focusing on the interactions and relationships among society, the individual, and the physical environment. Students increase their awareness of how they fit into the environment and what their responsibility is as part of the biosphere. Topics include politics, regulations, constraints, change, environmental policies, population growth, economic growth, and the impacts of resource development. The course also discusses individual attitudes and actions, and the extent to which these factors affect the environment, policies, and regulations. Methods of assessment include writing assignments, group projects, and class presentations.

HUMA126W: The Cinema: History and Art (American Cinema)

The Cinema: History and Art explores Hollywood film as an industry, art form, means of communication, and system of representatives. In one sense, this is a language course, the language of film. The course also examines the way Hollywood films work technically, artistically, and culturally to both challenge and reinforce America's national self-image.

HUMA187W: World Music Drumming

World Music Drumming offers a fundamental approach to world music drumming primarily based on the traditions of West Africa and the Caribbean Islands. Students play tubanos, djembes, shekeres, and other traditional instruments of West Africa. They listen to and communicate with their fellow students, they learn the value and techniques of cooperative teamwork, and they sing songs from various multicultural traditions.

HUMA212W: Legal and Ethical Issues

Legal and Ethical Issues introduces concepts of ethics from their origin in antiquity to their application in today's world. The course explores morality, moral values, and the codification of these values into our legal system. It likewise examines major contemporary ethical issues, thereby enabling students to engage in the process of ethical decision making.

HUMA214W: World Religions

World Religions is an introduction to the history and worldviews of the major world religions. It takes a comparative approach to present common elements of all religious traditions: rituals, symbols, founding narratives, the spiritual experience, the nature of the divine, the place of humans in the world, and the meaning of life after death. The course also examines the ideological implications of these various religions within a global context.

HUMA228W: Special Topics: Mythology

Mythology has influenced and shaped the art of storytelling from ancient times to today, from Gilgamesh and Homer to Star Wars and Marvel. In this course we read, discuss, and analyze classical works of world mythology, alongside more contemporary authors who weave mythology into their work. We examine literary techniques, particularly allusion, archetypes, and metaphor, and demonstrate how knowledge of world myths can enhance our own creative endeavors. Through close reading and annotation, as well as creative exercises and literary criticism, we discover what mythology tells us about culture and humanity and how myth has shaped and enriched the literary canon.

HUMA240W: Critical Thinking Seminar

In Critical Thinking Seminar, students are immersed in a process that encourages them to practice and value objective inquiry over subjective preconceptions. By careful examination of their own thinking processes and the strategies of successful problem-solvers, students build a diverse repertoire of effective critical-thinking skills. Students then apply these numeric, deductive, and evaluative strategies to a host of complex, difficult scenarios from the practical to the abstract.

LANG111W: Sign Language I

Sign Language I teaches students basic conversational skills in American Sign Language (ASL). It includes basic grammatical structures, non-verbal signals, sign vocabulary, and conversation regulators. It likewise addresses cultural aspects of the deaf community. The course emphasizes students using ASL in one-to-one small-group conversations.

LANG181W: Spanish I

Spanish I develops the students’ fundamental ability to both comprehend and converse in Spanish. It introduces early reading and writing skills and acquaints students with the customs and cultures of the Spanish-speaking world.

Effective Fall 2023: this is a CCSNH Access course and will display on transcripts, count as credits attempted, and count towards the cumulative grade point average for all seven colleges: Great Bay, Lakes Region, Manchester, Nashua, NHTI, River Valley, and White Mountains. Students cannot receive credit for more than one of the CCSNH Access courses or equivalents and the most recent course on the college transcript will be used in the cumulative grade point average (CGPA) calculation. For graduation residency purposes, only home campus Access courses will be used. 

  • GBCC’s SPAN110G (SPAN110G)
  • LRCC’s SPAN120L (SPAN120L, SPAN1200L, LSPA1200, LHUM1810)
  • MCC’s SPAN110M (SPAN110M, SPAN110)
  • NCC’s SPAN105N (SPAN105N, LNGN105)
  • NHTI’s SPAN111C (SPAN111C, FL120, FL111)
  • RVCC’s LANG105R (LANG105R, LNGN105, LNGK105, LNGC105)
  • WMCC’s LANG181W (LANG181W, HUMA181W)

LANG182W: Spanish II

A continuation of LANG181W, Spanish II involves intensive oral practice, combined with the study of grammar and composition. Students also read basic Spanish texts.

LANG183W: French I

Open to students with little or no prior experience in French, French I emphasizes the four basic language skills of listening, speaking, reading, and writing, and provides insight and context into French culture.

LANG184W: French II

A continuation of LANG183W, French II emphasizes at a higher level the four language skills of listening, speaking, reading, and writing, and provides further insight and context into French culture.

PHIL101W: Introduction to Philosophy (The Examined Life)

Introduction to Philosophy traces the history of Western philosophy from its beginnings in ancient Greece to contemporary developments in the modern world. The course treats philosophy as distinct from religion and science, while at the same time shows how all three disciplines interrelate. The course leaves students with a clear notion of philosophy as a unique and critically important discourse.

PHIL130W: Philosophy for Modern Times

Philosophy for Modern Times addresses several of the "big questions" that preoccupy philosophical inquiry: the existence of God, the meaning of life, the nature of truth, the limits of knowledge, the nature of ethics, human freedom, and the quest for happiness. Using contemporary methods, the course places such questions within the context of social and political thought.

PHIL140W: Science Fiction and Philosophy

Science Fiction and Philosophy is for students seeking to open their minds to new possibilities in philosophy. The course uses science fiction as a genre to explore ideas students may never have examined, such as immortality, time travel, artificial intelligence, gods and aliens, paranormal phenomena, and the nature of humans and their minds.