Degree Requirements
CASE Culture Studies
The purpose of the Culture Studies curriculum is to introduce students to cultural systems, to allow students to define what is commonly meant by the term “culture,” and to examine critically specific examples of culture. The curriculum also provides students with the opportunity to explore the relationship between cultural artifacts and the community that produced them and/or draw comparisons between different cultures. This exposure can lead students to understand the facts, possibilities, and limitations of their own cultural conditioning.
Diversity in the U.S. (CASE DUS) courses will offer students the chance to explore cultural artifacts and the communities that produced them and may also allow for students to learn about the choices made by individuals and communities as they create, refine, and blend cultures. Students will study values, attitudes and methods of organizing experience that may diverge or dissent from the predominant American culture, allowing them to better understand the facts, possibilities and limitations of their own cultural world view. Under the rubric of diversity, the College includes race, ethnicity, gender, class, age, sexual orientation, religious practice, and multiple other categories. We wish to ensure that students are introduced to a cultural system in the United States which differs from that of mainstream America.
Global Civilizations and Cultures (CASE GCC) courses examine cultures and/or cultural artifacts from outside the United States as a means of understanding the communities that produced them and the relationships of these communities to other groups of people. Such courses convey the distinctive world view, institutions, and patterns of organization of another culture. Not restricted to a chronology of events or one aspect of the traditions or institutions of a particular cultural group, these courses instead teach the relationships among some of the following aspects of the culture: art, religion, literature, philosophic traditions, social behavior and institutions, and linkages with other cultures. A course on one specific aspect of a culture--for example, its art or political institutions--would fulfill the spirit of the requirement only if it devoted a substantial amount of time to the relationships between that specific aspect and the culture more generally. Similarly a course might have a broad conceptual focus within a narrow geographical and temporal setting (such as the intellectual and aesthetic traditions of Russia under Catherine the Great) or a narrow conceptual focus across a broad geographical or temporal setting (such as the political institutions of Africa in the pre-colonial period.)
Please note that the College’s CASE Culture Studies requirement is different from the campuswide General Education curriculum’s World Languages and Cultures requirement. Students in the College must fulfill the CASE Culture Studies requirement, the CASE Foreign Language requirement, and the campuswide General Education’s World Languages and Cultures requirement. Fulfillment of the CASE Foreign Language requirement for B.A. and B.F.A. degrees will, in most cases, also fulfill the campuswide General Education’s World Languages and Cultures requirement. For information about the latter, please see http://gened.iub.edu/requirements/genedrequire.html.
Students pursuing a B.A., B.F.A., or B.L.S. degree in the College must observe the following guidelines when fulfilling the CASE Culture Studies requirement:
- Students are required to complete two courses that carry CASE Culture Studies credit, one from "Diversity in the U.S." and one from "Global Civilizations and Cultures" (for a list of designated courses, please use the CASE Course Designations tool).
- Students who successfully complete a semester (or more) abroad in a program sponsored by the Indiana University Office of Overseas Study will satisfy the “Global Civilizations and Cultures” component of the CASE Culture Studies requirement. These students must still complete a course designated “Diversity in the U.S.”