Department of History and Humanities

Department of History and Humanities

See the program of the international conference "Rome in the Renaissance," which will be held at JCU on April 5 and 6, 2024.

Welcome to the Department of History and Humanities at John Cabot University in Rome, Italy. The Department offers courses in a wide range of Humanities disciplines, as well as majors in Classical Studies, History, and Humanistic Studies and minors in Classical Studies, History, Humanistic Studies, and Philosophy.

Our courses and largely interdisciplinary degree programs help students learn how to carry out thoughtful and well-crafted research and develop their abilities to understand and grapple with the challenging issues that face us as citizens of a complex world. In doing so, we prepare our students for professional studies and careers in a manner firmly rooted in the liberal arts tradition, and in what we believe to be the best way possible—by helping them to become life-long learners.

Many, including a large percentage of those of us drawn to them, perceive the humanities as not being terribly ‘pragmatic’ or ‘practical’, but rather as promoting personal growth and developing intellectual curiosity.  Nevertheless, while the study of classics, history, music, philosophy and religious studies certainly can open minds and build characters, the creativity and mental flexibility fostered by such an education, along with communicative and research skills learned along the way, are highly demanded in professional contexts ranging from museum work to public relations and marketing to software development to publishing and beyond.

With this in mind, our department promotes a wide range of cultural activities for our students as well as the larger JCU and Rome communities, including lectures by first-class international scholars, international conferences in history and classics, and field trips to museums and archaeological sites in Rome and beyond.  In these ways, among others, our international faculty, who hold advanced degrees from prestigious universities in Europe and the United States and who are actively involved in research and publication, seek to teach our students by example.

Prof. Gene E. Ogle
[email protected]
Chair, Department of History and Humanities