Well, what do we mean by humanities? We're going to start off the class just by kind of thinking generally about this very broad term. And think about why we're studying the humanities. Why should we care? Um what are we doing here? And you know, many of you may have registered for this class not even understanding what that means. It's just something that you know is part of the requirements of your degree program. And so here you are. Um well let's think about what the word actually means. So by humanities we mean the study of human cultures and civilizations primarily through visual arts, music, literature, architecture, philosophy and religion. So the humanities center around things that make us human. Now you might be like, well, okay, sure, but you know, birds sing. Uh, you know, animals make nests. Surely there's music and architecture and and maybe at a very basic level there is. But the way that humans do all of these things above are very different. they do them creatively. So the humanities when we talk about the things that make us human, we're not talking about instinct. That's how a bird sings. A bird sings through instinct. The bird doesn't go, you know what, I think uh instead of singing that song this way, I'm going to write a new song or I'm going to change different ways that I that I sing. Um, no. Birds have very specific ways that they sing through instinct. Uh, you might look at a spiderweb and go, "Wow, look at that intricate thing." You know, surely this is, uh, you know, a thing of beauty. And it is, but it's instinctual beauty. uh the spider, you know, the spider doesn't make a web and then kind of sit back and look at it and go, you know, next time I'm going to do this different or uh you know, I'm going to try another tactic, another uh design. That's not how it works. Um the humanity is the things that make us human are about our creativity. We go to music in order to express emotions. Whether that be love, whether that be pain, whether that be uh just thinking about beauty, or maybe it's, you know, thinking about patriotism or um friendship even. uh you know those are all kind of things that that that you know music kind of ways that we express that and we can change that and we can all do it very differently. We can all write differently you know literature we could all write a poem about something and again you know millions upon millions of things that we could write poetry about and we're all going to do it a little differently. We're all going to do it creatively. Some of us have been trained to do it with creativity, maybe in ways that others haven't, but we all have that inner capacity. So, we're looking throughout this semester at the things that humans do um creatively. Um but we're also looking at searching at a search for beauty and meaning. Um, and so, you know, so you might look at like, uh, think of like a sunset. Um, you know, you may be driving along, um, and, you know, you see a beautiful sunset and you just want to stop and take a picture. Um, but, you know, if you do that, you know, it's not really going to turn out. So, don't waste your time with the picture. But um you know we're searching for beauty and meaning and those kinds of things that we do that with. And so you know the again the spider when he makes his web isn't looking for beauty isn't pursuing meaning. He's just doing something that he is instinctually uh made to do. And so again, it's very beautiful and it's very, you know, it has important meaning, um, an important function, but that's not why the spider's doing it. These are the things that we do for these reasons. So, we're not going to talk about history, though, we will be looking at in all of these classes, we'll be looking at, you know, very historical things. We're looking at things in context of history and how history shapes things and how history ultimately shapes us. But, you know, we're not talking about dates and, you know, wars and, you know, not you, you know, pro, you know, prominent figures anymore than to talk about how they influenced culture, how they influenced the way that people live. Um, and so those are the the things we're going to do. I do just have a little note here. Don't confuse humanities with humanitarianism. Humanitarianism is when uh you know there's a there's a giant tsunami and we uh and we send aid, right? We send people to help. We send food. We send clothing. We send money. We send water. Those are humanitarianism. So the humanities are something very different. Okay. So that's what we mean by the humanities. Well, why are we studying the humanities? Why does Eastern Oklahoma State College, and indeed virtually every college, require students to take courses like this? Because let's face it, Eastern doesn't have a humanities major. And for many of you, this course is probably not something you would be taking unless it was part of your program requirements. So, why are you here? Well, you're here at the very least and humanities courses are a part of every reputable college program because the the purpose of the college is to shape our students into individuals that have a full and well-rounded education. Humanities have been not just the core but the very purpose of university and college education since the first universities over a thousand years ago. So you wouldn't have taken a business degree at the first universities. You would learn those skills in the workplace as an apprentice. So you wouldn't go to a place like Oxford University here. So this was one of the first universities in Western Europe established in 1096 and that was what they focused on. The humanities, the liberal arts broadly um especially philosophy and theology were really the in the in the height of the middle at the at the at the kind of middle of the Middle Ages. Um these are the the the things that universities are are focused on. If you were going to be, you know, doing business, you'd go apprentice under someone. You wouldn't go to university. You wouldn't go to college for it. You would go find someone who does that and work under them and study under them. And so what we're doing here is giving that well-rounded education. We're not just doing business or math or English or egg or whatever. All of these are wonderful things. All of these are important things to do. Um, but what we're doing with the humanities part of your education is helping you become a a a larger person, metaphorically speaking, kind of expanding your world. And so that's uh you know the interestingly enough the the very first business school was at Harvard. So if you think about Harvard's the United States, right? So you know it wasn't founded in the Middle Ages. Um in fact the Harvard Business School is 1881 is when that founded. So if you look at this the first universities this is a thousand years old. Um business schools 150 years old. uh you know that's a relatively modern concept. So we're taking in the the full extent of what education in the liberal arts more broadly speaking looked like. So this is why we study the humanities. Um one of the most important things that the humanities do is they deepen and broaden us as human beings. Mark Twain wrote, "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness." So, let me stop there for just a second. You might be like, "Travel? Well, you know, this isn't the the Denmark group. What am I doing here?" Um, no, we're we're doing uh virtual travel. Whether you're traveling across time, whether you're traveling across space, across cultures, whatever we are traveling to other parts of the world. And that is what Twain tells us will kill our prejudice, will kill our bigotry, will kill our narrow-mindedness. Many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. He says broad wholesome charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all of one's lifetime. So travel is really about changing us and this class again virtual travel. I've been blessed in my life to do real travel, not only all over the United States. Um, I've been in most of the states, the United States, um, but also, uh, over the world. Um, I've been in Eastern Europe. I've been in Russia, Ukraine, Romania, um, a bunch of other countries. Um, I can't think of off top of my head. Slovakia, uh let's see, Estonia, um Austria, uh I also had the chance to uh United Kingdom. I was in England and Scotland. And all of these are things that were greatly enriching uh enriching times in my life that I'm very grateful for. And so travel changes us. It helps us see a bigger world. you know, we're trying different foods and we're seeing different sites and we're hearing different languages and all the all the things that that that world has for us and and those are things that we're going to do here on a virtual level. Look, college is not just about developing skills to make you ready for the workforce. You know, we're not just here to make you the the proper shaped peg to fit the hole that society society's assigned you to. College is a place where, among other things, you get the opportunity to explore the humanities, the liberal arts, these things that broaden us. They allow us to enjoy more in life. my uh my trips to to Russia, I learned to really eat some interesting foods and um and in my trip to uh to England, um some of the architecture I saw there that is, you know, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years older than anything you'll find in the United States. Um it was it was really it really shaped me in very real ways. Okay. So, we've talked about what the humanities are. We've talked about why we study them. Now, how do we study them? How do we study the humanities? Because the humanities, they're they're the core of what we call the liberal arts. Um, and this doesn't mean liberal as opposed to conservative. Um, that's not what liberal arts means. Liberal arts. Liberal here comes from the classic sense of the word liberal which the Latin word is liebear and liebear means free. And so the idea of liberal in this in the you know kind of in ancient times had to do with having free time. And if you think about a lot of ancient cultures where um they were much more dependent on kind of working in order to go you know working from moment to moment in order to eat in order to survive and it was a real luxury in order to be able to sit back and read or you know maybe today you know we might watch a movie or something we don't even think about it um but that was not a common thing to be able to do and so the liberal arts since the time of the ancient Greeks were a pursuit for someone who has leisure time and that would be used to read and to think and reflect and those are the things that we're doing in this course. All right, this class is not about a checklist where we come in and we mark off each item as we complete it like a math assignment. Again, there's nothing wrong with that with a math assignment. That's what you do. This is a different kind of class. Reading, thinking, reflecting, these take time. So, take your time. Don't don't wait until the start date, please, to start learning material. Soak it in in order to get out of this class what it has to offer. And so, this is one of the reasons that this class does not allow AI to be used. So again, as I've as I've mentioned in the in the in getting started with the getting started video, you know, AI has a place. Um, it's certainly everywhere, but one of the things AI cannot do is reflect. It cannot think emotionally. It cannot talk about its experiences. Um, because it doesn't have experiences. It doesn't have emotions. It can't reflect. It's not it's not able to do that. These are human activities. And so by using AI to write our assignments, we're not learning anything. And as I've said, that's the whole purpose of this class is not to get points, but to learn. And then you know so when we assess your learning it's not just kind of adding up points but it's going how much have I you know how much have I how much have I as a student stepped into the content of this class and really soaked it up really sought to understand it really sought to um make it you know make it kind of help me think differently about things because school needs to be that we're not just here to kind of, you know, give you a thumbs up on what you already know. That's not what school is. Um, school is a place to learn and grow and be exposed to things that are brand new to us. And so that's why you're here and that's how you do this. Do this reflectively. Watch a video. Maybe there's a video uh after this video. Maybe while you're watching your next video, take notes while you're watching it. And then after you're done, read through your notes, think about it. Maybe write a sentence or two that kind of it helps you think about. Um, you know, it's all about taking that time. It's all about taking that reflective time. And if you do that, man, if you just do a little bit of that with every kind of assignment, you're going to get so much out of this course. I promise you, um that you you'll come back on the other side and you'll be like, "Wow, um I really learned a lot. I'm going to take another one of those courses." And I hope you do. So that's what we're doing here in the humanities.