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Philosophy

How a Philosophy, Politics and Economics Major Helped Shape a Policy Brief for Congress

Senior Liam Little ’26 has used the interdisciplinary PPE major to explore global issues, conduct research and gain hands-on experience in diplomacy and policy.

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American Studies, Art, Art History and Archaeology, Classics, College of Arts and Humanities, Communication, English, History, Joseph and Rebecca Meyerhoff Program and Center for Jewish Studies, Linguistics, Philosophy, School of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures, School of Music, School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies, The Harriet Tubman Department of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies

2026 ARHU Commencement: Undergraduate Ceremony

We look forward to celebrating the important milestone of commencement with our graduates, their families and friends and our faculty and staff.

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What interests you?

learning about...

a career in...

Whatever your interests and aspirations, ARHU is committed to providing the knowledge, skills and opportunities all our students need to write their own stories and chart their own paths.

"In ARHU, you’re learning about how people interact with the world and each other. My goal is to build things that people are going to use. Just technology knowledge can only go so far. You have to understand how people are going to use them to be truly successful."

Ozzie Fallick '14, Software Engineer, Google
Linguistics

"Cross-cultural communication is one of the most important skills that I learned at ARHU, and I use it to engage and inform the community in Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean about our events, exchanges and any other information that supports our key policy priorities in the region. ARHU gave me the tools to understand why in diplomacy, it’s as much about what you say as how you say it."

Krystle Norman '08, Foreign Service Officer, U.S. Department of State
Spanish and Portuguese

"I had always loved art, but I never knew you could make a career out of it until I studied abroad in Rome. There, I took a full course load of art courses and learned all about the factors of being an art professional. It was life-changing. Now I feel lucky that I’m doing something that I’m so passionate about."

Laura Sheridan Raiffe '09, Regional Account Manager, Christie's Fine Arts
Art History and Archaeology

"One of the most important things I got out of my ARHU experience is my ability to parse arguments, think critically and see multiple sides of an issue. Being in law school, it’s important to do that—it’s a skill I use every day. Not a class goes by, not a case gets read that this skill doesn’t come into play."

AJ Clayborne '13, Student, Harvard Law School
English

GRAND CHALLENGES

DEMAND FEARLESS IDEAS

The research and creative works of our faculty, students and alumni are setting the agenda for transformative dialogue about the value of the arts and the humanities in the world today.

Research Highlights

New Scholarship from The College of Arts and Humanities

Explore Our Research

Happening at ARHU

A new artist has joined the stable of painters, sculptors and photographers represented in the collection of the University of Maryland Art Gallery—though, with a birth date in the 17th century, they’re not exactly new, and their uncredited work keeps their identity a mystery. In January, the gallery acquired a roughly 400-year-old portrait of St. Jerome, a 4th-century cardinal best known for translating the Bible into Latin; the painting is the first Old Master painting in the gallery’s collection, marking an important expansion of its largely modern and contemporary holdings. “We try as best we can to procure works of art that can give students an opportunity to engage in the object-based scholarship that’s the cornerstone of museum work,” said Taras W. Matla, director and chief curator of the UMD Art Gallery. “One of the major things on my to-do list has been trying to procure our first Old Master painting.” The market for Old Master paintings—defined as pieces created by skilled European artists working before 1800—is more approachable than one might think, said Aneta Georgievska-Shine, UMD senior lecturer in Renaissance and Baroque art. Paintings by Leonardo da Vinci or Rembrandt go for eye-watering prices at auction (Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is widely believed to be the buyer behind the 2017 $450 million sale of Leonardo’s “Salvator Mundi”), but works by less significant artists exist in a liminal area: not important enough to be of interest to museums, and not appealing to private collectors who want to buy big-name artists. “It’s a good opportunity for a teaching gallery to acquire them,” said Georgievska-Shine. Read more at the link in our bio.
Muralist and UMD alum Corie Mattie ’12 (aka La Hope Dealer) talked with Honors Humanities students yesterday about art, democracy, anger, spreading hope and the challenges and joys of making a living as a creative. Mattie graduated with a degree in kinesiology and has made a mark in Los Angeles creating bold public art for change. Over the past few weeks, students built the structure for a mobile mural which will be painted this Thursday with a design by Mattie. The Terps Take Action mural shows two feisty, retro Testudos, one with a bullhorn and the other with a can of spray paint in hand. The opposite side of the structure will allow students, faculty, staff and community partners to write timely messages that express support for a cause or issue related to doing good in the world. The mural will debut at EarthFest 2026 on April 16 on McKeldin Mall.
Our Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs and Research, Trevor Parry-Giles, talks about three books by ARHU faculty that are engaging some of the most urgent questions of our time around power, protest, empire and identity. In "In the Shadow of Empire: Art in Occupied Japan," Alicia Volk examines the artistic production of postwar Japan, drawing on extensive archival research to reveal how artists navigated the American occupation while redefining modern art. In "No Justice, No Peace: The Ethics of Violent Protests," Avia Pasternak offers a philosophical analysis of political violence, questioning the moral assumptions that shape public responses to protest movements and asking how violence functions in contexts of systemic injustice. In "Extravagant Camp: The Queer Abjection of Asian America," Chris Eng explores how queer Asian American artists use camp as both aesthetic practice and critical method, using performance, humor and excess to confront histories of exclusion and reimagine cultural belonging. These books demonstrate how humanities scholarship not only interprets the past but also provides critical frameworks for understanding the present and envisioning more just futures.

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