Overview and Program Benefits
Through a three-course series, the Certificate offers Ph.D. and master’s degree students the opportunity to supplement their major areas of study with courses that explore cities through a variety of disciplinary approaches. In particular, the Certificate emphasizes the intersection of interpretive approaches from the arts and humanities (including close reading, formal analysis, discourse analysis and the making of artistic work products) with methods from the environmental design disciplines (including spatial analysis, representation, and iterative design interventions as a means of research).
Program Benefits
Intellectual Community: The Certificate in Urban Humanities provides a unique opportunity for making connections with students and faculty from across the campus with a shared interests in linking interpretation of history to intervention in urban futures.
Interdisciplinary Approach: The certificate offers a framework for incorporating theories and methods for interrogating urban places from disciplines both within and outside students’ home departments. For students planning to enter the design and planning professions, the Certificate will provide an opportunity to incorporate critical approaches from the humanities in their work. For students in the humanities and social sciences, the Certificate will facilitate their participation in coursework that addresses both urban form and urban experience, and provide a chance to experience the research studio method, a pedagogy central to environmental design education.
Enhancement of Employability: For Ph.D. students, the Certificate will demonstrate not only your knowledge of urban life, but your exposure to methods of experiential, project-based learning that may be valued by academic employers. GSI opportunities may give you a chance to build your pedagogy portfolio.
For students interested in non-traditional PhD career paths, the skills in teamwork, project management, communication, and community engagement that you can gain from taking and assisting in teaching Future Histories courses may open up doors for you. Museums, archives, and other public humanities settings are among the employers that might value your Certificate in Urban Humanities.
For students in professional programs, the Certificate shows your interest in the human dimension of cities and your ability to to interpret urban culture and experience through ethnography, storytelling, mapping, visual representation and other methods.
Eligibility
- Currently enrolled as a master’s or PhD student at UC Berkeley
- In good academic standing (GPA of 3.0 or better)
Curriculum
1. Future Histories Lab Studio Course (complete list here)
2. Elective in the College of Environmental Design (partial list here)
3. Elective in the College of Letters & Science (partial list here)
Electives must be approved by petition (See link below)
Note: Any Future Histories Lab course listed as HUM 132AC/ENVDES132AC, HUM C132/ENVDES C132, or HUM133AC/ENVDES133AC can be counted as the required elective in either the College of Environmental Design or the Letters & Science.
Enroll
We recommend you submit your completed application form before you take courses. That way we can keep you in the loop on exciting opportunities in our program. You may petition to have a course you select count as an elective. In some cases you may receive Certificate credit for courses you have already taken.
Contact
For questions about the program, contact susanmoffat@berkeley.edu.