Each semester, the Graduate Humanities Program engages the intersection of the arts, literature, culture, and history within an open, exploratory, and experimental educational environment.
Students enrolled in the Graduate Humanities Program explore broad interdisciplinary issues through a diverse array of course offerings. Most of these are offered in a virtual seminar format: discussion-based graduate-level courses focused on reading, open and regular dialogue, collaborative and interactive interpretation, research and writing.
While several seminars are discipline-specific (our core curriculum, for example), most are designed to go beyond individual disciplines and enlist students in the cross-disciplinary study of the humanities.
Click on the links below for registration information for individual seminars. You can find general registration information on the MU Registrar website.
For previous seminar schedules, see our “Previous GHP Seminar Schedules” site.
Before joining any of our seminars, familiarize yourself with the Program’s Seminar Rules of Engagement.
Summer 2026
All courses are in Summer B (May 18 – August 7)
CULS 600: Selected Topics – Black Appalachian Studies (VIRTUAL) (Fain), Wednesdays, 7 — 9:50 PM
Situated within the geo-political, topographical, and demographic contours of Central Appalachia, the course examines the central role of Black Appalachia and Black Appalachians in the American historical experience. Students will learn the ways Black Appalachians have shaped the region’s economic, political, and socio-cultural development, the important role of Black Appalachian based scholarship in challenging the erasure of the stories, experiences, and contributions of Black Appalachians, and the criticality of recent scholarship to animate and elevate the multi-dimensionality of the modern Black Appalachian experience. In sum, students will develop an appreciation of the continuities, discontinuities, complexities, and intersections of the black historical experience within Central Appalachia.
- Cicero M. Fain, III, is a fourth-generation Black Huntingtonian. He received his B.A. from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, M.Ed. from George Mason University, and M.A. and Ph.D. in History from The Ohio State University. He is the recipient of the Carter G. Woodson Fellowship from Marshall University, and has held teaching positions at Marshall, Ohio University-Southern, Niagara University, and the College of Southern Maryland. His first book, Black Huntington: An Appalachian Story (U of Illinois Press, 2019), was a finalist for the Weatherford Award, and in 2021, was awarded the West Virginia Library Association’s Literary Merit Award. His current book project is “Buffalo Soldier, Deserter, Criminal: The Remarkably Complicated Life of Charles Ringo.” He is the Assistant Provost of Access and Opportunity at Marshall University, the Assistant Director of Research and Outreach for the Appalachian Freedom Heritage Initiative, the Marshall Liaison to the Appalachian Studies Association, the chair of the 2026 Appalachian Studies Association conference, and the lead co-editor of Black Appalachia: Race, Place, and Identity, the follow-up anthology to the seminal 1985 publication, Blacks in Appalachia, and scheduled for publication in September 2026 by the University Press of Kentucky.
HIST 600: Selected Topics – Appalachian Studies Research, Arranged (VIRTUAL) (contact Director)
For students enrolled in the Appalachian Studies Certificate who are working on research projects in the Appalachian region. Registration by permission only. Contact the Director.
HUMN 600: Introduction to Study in the Humanities (VIRTUAL) (Lassiter), Tuesdays, 7 – 9:50 PM
Interdisciplinary core course addresses questions/concepts central to the humanities. Texts from philosophy, history, literature, the arts and the sciences provide insights into selected historical periods.
- Luke Eric Lassiter is director of the Graduate Humanities Program and professor of humanities and anthropology.
For students who need to conduct independent research and/or reading in a specific topic in the humanities, the Program will offer independent studies in those topics as funds allow. Contact the Director for more information. Examples of Special Topics might include:
HUMN 680 – Independent Research Symposium, Arranged (contact Director)
A pro-seminar required of all Humanities degree students who are beginning the thesis or final project. Arranged with the Program Director.