Humanities - American Education

Those formal courses dealing with human thoughts and feelings rather than natural processes. Courses traditionally included in the humanities are literature, languages, history, music, art and philosophy. Often called the LIBERAL ARTS, the humanities generally do not include empirical sciences such as physics, chemistry or biology, although their exclusion becomes somewhat difficult when, for example, the fine arts such as sculpture or architecture reach into mathematics or physics. In the strictest sense, however, those colleges and universities offering degrees in the humanities limit studies to five areas: literature, history, fine art, music and philosophy.