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Culture and Expression (C&E)

It’s about establishing a particular kind of community through shared readings and conversations.
All entering HUHC students begin their Hofstra careers with Culture and Expression (C&E). It is our primary tool for establishing a community among the students of each entering class. Together, they follow a common reading list, attend class-wide lectures and take ownership of the materials via small group discussions with some of Hofstra’s best faculty.

It’s about life’s biggest questions.
Situating ourselves in a pluralistic world where there are so many competing claims and values is not easy. C&E focuses students’ attention on some of the greatest works in literature, history, philosophy, religion the social and the behavioral sciences from the ancient through the modern periods, stimulating genuine reflection about who we are and what values ought to guide us in our lives.

It’s about rigor, complexity and seeing the world from multiple perspectives.
C&E introduces our students to a set of core values – intellectual rigor, disciplinary diversity, and a close-knit academic community. It takes traditional materials and presents them in a dynamic environment that results in individual discovery, critique and new connections.

It’s a starting point.
Our goal is to launch HUHC students’ collegiate careers with a rich, empowering academic experience. Combining study in the arts – including literature, music and fine art – with history, philosophy, behavioral sciences and other disciplines, C&E provides HUHC students with the tools they need to succeed at Hofstra and beyond. With these issues in mind C&E stresses participation and the development of writing skills.

The C&E Format

C&E consists of two year-long, team-taught courses designed by a hand picked team of Hofstra’s distinguished full-time faculty. Each semester, this group selects a unique list of readings and other objects of study in the humanities and the social sciences. Via class-wide lectures and small group discussions students experience the breadth of university learning in microcosm and discover how disciplines approach cultural artifacts differently and thus produce different kinds of knowledge. This experience equips students to negotiate the challenges of whatever field of study they choose.

Where does it fit?

C&E is HUHC’s first-year cluster. It fits into every Hofstra degree program. Specifically, C&E partially satisfies the university-wide distribution requirements in the humanities and social sciences.