Master of Arts in Liberal Studies Program, Northwestern University School of Continuing Studies

Program Overview:

Liberal Studies

The part-time Master of Arts in Liberal Studies program cuts a wide swath though the humanities and social sciences, studying the work of some of the world’s most powerful thinkers. As students explore a broad variety of subject matter, they enrich their understanding of social and cultural issues, and improve their ability to analyze, write and complete research. MALS graduates strengthen and refine the analytical, critical, and communicative skills that are highly transferable to any number of professional contexts. Secondary-school teachers gain a competitive edge by deepening their subject-area knowledge. For other students, the program can clarify the next stage in career or in life or provide excellent preparation for further graduate study. The MALS program recently hosted a lecture on the "Adventuresses: Women in Public, Vice, and Art from 1893 World's Fair to the Jazz Age" — Read more.

Inside MALS

Kasey Evans, PhD
Instructor in the MA in Liberal Studies program and associate professor of literature in the department of English. Evans specializes in Renaissance literature and has published Colonial Virtue: The Mobility of Temperance in Renaissance England. Her current project, Renaissance Resurrections: Making the Dead Speak in Reformation Texts, considers how grief and mourning are translated into new literary forms after the Protestant Reformation. Awarded the 2010 Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences Distinguished Teaching Award.

Program Goals

Exposes students to Northwestern University’s distinguished and world class instructors.
Provides students with countless opportunities to engage with others who are passionate to learn more about vitally important social and cultural issues through history, religion, philosophy, art, literature and film.
Prepares students for the intellectual demands of professional life by enriching students’ understanding of a broad array of social and cultural issues while improving their ability to analyze, write and complete research.
Sharpens analytical and writing abilities, which can help prepare students for application to PhD programs.

Areas of Focus

Students who wish to lend more structure to their MALS experience may complete a specialization in:

History
Religious and Ethical Studies
American Studies
An individualized plan of study

A specialization may be especially beneficial to educators, students who are thinking of going on to a PhD program, or anyone who wants to combine interdisciplinary methods with specific subjects. Students complete four thematically linked courses to earn a specialization.

Curriculum Requirements

Current students should refer to curriculum requirements in place at time of entry into the program.

9 total courses need to be completed. Students need to complete 3 core courses, 5 elective courses and a capstone project. The core courses consist of IPLS 410 Introduction to Cultural Analysis and two MALS seminar courses (IPLS 401, 402 or 403). Students can take electives that cover such topics as philosophy, history, art history and literature.

Final Project

Students sign up for the final course in the program during the term in which they start their master's essay. The capstone project for the MALS program is a thesis (45-75 double-spaced pages) written under the supervision of an approved faculty member. The capstone project presents an opportunity to research and explore a topic thoroughly. Students often elect to expand a seminar paper from a previous course. With the approval of the program director, students can create an interdisciplinary project rather than writing a traditional thesis.

Core Courses:

IPLS 401-0 Seminar I: The American West
In this seminar, the guiding question runs contrary to customary ways of doing cultural history: What different perspectives open up when students of American cultures begin from the borderlands? The United States has two very long borders, one north and one south, each of which has produced borderlands cultures that are both different from mainstream American culture and yet recognizably American. By pursuing important themes in these borderland cultures, this seminar aims to cast new light on American cultural history.

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IPLS 401-0 Seminar I: Poverty

This course explores recurrent attempts to define, explain, and ameliorate urban poverty in the United States from the late-18th to late-20th centuries. Topics include changing (and unchanging) ideas about the connections between poverty and moral character, education, unemployment, gender, and ethnic/racial inheritance; the periodic emergence of poverty as a political issue; the concept of the "underworld" and "underclass"; and the shifting rhetoric of sympathy and fear. This course treats poverty in every period as a problem that is both constantly present and constantly redefined. Counts toward all three specializations.

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IPLS 410-0 Intro to Cultural Analysis

This course asks the question, "how do we picture culture and society?" and
introduces students to multiple perspectives on cultural analysis and social
criticism. Readings span topics such as history, politics, anthropology, sociology,
visual studies, sound studies, aesthetics, Marxism, liberalism, conservatism, race,
gender, ethnicity, globalization, imperialism, and cultural studies. The course
features authors such as Marx, Gramsci, Foucault, Arendt, Mills, Barthes, Geertz,
Habermas, Hayek, Schumpeter, Raymond Williams, Matthew Arnold, TS Eliot,
Susan Sontag, Michael Walzer, WEB Dubois, Edward Said, Arjun Appadurai, and
Slavoj Zizek. Intensive reading and discussion are at the heart of the course, along
with weekly online blog posts of "connected criticism," responses to posts by
fellow students, and follow-up reflections. The course concludes with a larger final
assignment: either a comparative analysis of texts, an intellectual biography of one
thinker, an interpretive digital humanities project, or a prospectus for a capstone
project. This is a required course for all specializations.

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IPLS 590-0 Thesis Research

This final project is meant to represent the culmination of students’ experience in the program and must demonstrate mastery of the curriculum and ability to conduct sustained independent research and analysis. The project may be applied or may be a traditional scholarly paper, in both cases a write-up following the paper’s program-specific guidelines is required. Students must submit a proposal and secure a first reader in order to register; for further details students are advised to review the student handbook and contact their academic advisor.

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Elective Courses:

IPLS 405-0 Topics: Modernity
The cliché of the wild party of the "roaring 20s," symbolized by the cabaret, comes to a crashing stop with the rise of fascism. But there is much more to this story than decadence and its violent reaction: the end of this era also represents the apogee of classical modernity, and its crisis. It is a time of stark contradictions and conflicts: nationalism/multiculturalism, individual/mass society, sexual liberation/backlash, artistic experimentation/"degenerate" art. Through literature, film, journalism, and art, we will examine this period of intense struggle for the future of modernity, exemplified by its crucible city: Berlin. We will explore works of theory by thinkers such as Benjamin, Cioran, Kracauer, Peukert, Simmel, Weber; literature of Döblin, Keun, Isherwood, Roth; films such as Fritz Lang's Metropolis, Brecht's Kuhle Wampe, Pabst's Joyless Street; modernist art and architecture, and others. Counts toward the History and Religious & Ethical Studies specializations.

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IPLS 405-0 Art History and Science

This course will explore the intersections of art and science in Europe in the century roughly 1750-1850. We will study the role of the senses and observation in the study and representation of nature and how scientific and visual culture responded and contributed to major shifts in style and point of view. Topics include the histories of collection and display, landscape and still life painting, illustrated science and encyclopedism, objectivity, optics and instrumentation, the status of amateurs and professionals in light specialization and new disciplines, philosophies of nature in literature, music and art. Required work includes short critical response papers, slide exams, visits to local collections, a proposal for original research. All images and course readings will be available on Blackboard.

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IPLS 405-0 Religions of Asia

This course introduces and explores the great religions of Asia by focusing on some of the central figures who have inspired and guided these traditions. These beings, who have been regarded as sages, founders, mystics, saints and Avatars, represent some of the most interesting figures in Asian history and shaped not only the religious traditions but also the thought and culture of Asia. In this seminar we will read and discuss writings by and about these extraordinary exemplars in order to understand who they were, what they did and what they taught, and how they influenced the spiritual and religious ideals of Asia and the world. In addition we will view some films illustrating these personalities and their traditions. The class will also consider the parallels between these figures and similar figures in Western religions. For example, how does sainthood in Asian Religions compare to sainthood in Western religions? Among those considered in the course will be classical figures such as Krishna, Rama, Gautama Buddha, and Mirabai from India, and Lao Tzu (Laozi), and Confucius from China, as well as modern figures such as Mahatma Gandhi, the Dalai Lama and others.

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Northwestern University SCHOOL OF CONTINUING STUDIES

Liberal Studies

Inside MALS

MALS at Northwestern University

Teaching Adult Students

Program Goals

Areas of Focus

Curriculum Requirements

Final Project

Core Courses:

Elective Courses:

Liberal Studies

Graduate Options