Through encounters with great literary and philosophical works, we strengthen your capacity for ethical and reflective thought, allowing you to refine your own thinking in light of the record of human intellectual and creative expression. The integrated curriculum of philosophy and literature fosters an appreciation of language and the art of thoughtful questioning. Both are central capacities without which meaning eludes us.

Learning to engage with a literary or philosophical text and apply it to real world challenges is an essential first step in human self-understanding. The practice of ?deep reading,? as understood and developed in this major, is itself an experiential and engaged activity, often overlooked and undervalued in today?s technology-saturated world.