Area VI: Literature and Fine Arts

Literature and fine arts courses help you understand how the attitudes, ideas, and values of individuals, groups, societies, or cultures are represented in their literature, arts, and creative activities. Many people consider the art and literature of a culture a measure of that culture's highest achievements. Creative activities also represent a culture's identity--to itself and to others--providing unique access to its history, institutions, preoccupations, and aspirations. Studying literature and fine arts can help you understand your own culture as well as those of others.

The approved list in this area includes a wide range of literature courses as well as courses in music and in the visual arts. Students with good skills in certain foreign languages can satisfy the requirement by taking literature courses taught in the original language. Courses in literature and the arts include surveys of broad areas, courses that focus on significant eras, and courses that focus on a significant writer. They may involve the study of a specific literary or artistic genre or more analytical and abstract approaches to the arts.

Courses approved for distribution credit