Program Description
The Maya civilization is a Mesoamerican
civilization, noted for the only known fully developed written language of
the pre-Columbian Americas, as well as its spectacular art, monumental
architecture, and sophisticated mathematical and astronomical systems.
What was
life like for the ancient Maya people that inhabited what is now Central
America? This graduate level minor program examines in detail one of the
best-known pre-Columbian (prior to Spanish conquest in ca.1500 A.D.)
civilizations of the New World: Maya civilization. It will explore how
archaeologists use material and textual evidence to understand what life was
like in an ancient civilization. Major topics will include ancient Maya
social, economic, and political systems, subsistence, and religion. The
program focus will be on the achievements of the ancient Maya, but we will
also examine the effects of the Spanish conquest of the Maya area and
continuing Maya resistance to colonial and post-colonial rule. Archaeology
has a crucial role to play in understanding the past, present, and future of
the Maya.
Students may opt to complete the following courses to replace the standard
Level 5 curricula for the Liberal Arts PhD program.
Please note: For this minor, students are
required to do on-site research at the Trinity College Research Facility in
Belize, Central America. Additional costs are
required. The following
substitute curriculum is not based on the Great Works of the Western
Civilization.
The Liberal Studies major is an interdisciplinary program that ensures
the flexibility needed in today’s market. It offers both breadth and depth.
Together with your advisor and other appropriate members of the faculty, you
will craft your curriculum to fit your individual needs and interests.
Doctoral graduates will demonstrate the capacities to:
1. Formulate viable research questions; manage
information, including conventional bibliographic and electronic information
retrieval methods; and design, conduct, and report original research,
contextualized within an international sphere of professional activity.
2. Show a profound respect for truth and
intellectual integrity, and for the ethics of research and scholarship
3. Explore key disciplinary and multi-disciplinary
norms and perspectives relevant to the relationship between the area of
specialization and international development.
4. Apply research to refine the international
development efforts of voluntary organizations, utilizing alternative
approaches while acting as a “change-agent” in seeking to address and solve
problems and issues in his or her organization.
5. Articulate and communicate effectively with
skills in listening, speaking, and writing, in order to disseminate the
results of research and scholarship by oral and written communication to a
variety of audiences.
6. Exhibit the knowledge of an informed
professional about the liberal arts in relation to the chosen field of
specialization, being able to evaluate the relevance and value of their
research to national and international communities of scholars and
co-laborers.
Achievement of these learning outcomes is measured by means of course
assignments, evaluation of field experience, coursework examination, and
completing the doctoral dissertation process.
Course Descriptions
Level 4
HUM 401
Humanities (20 Credit Hours)
Listed by author
and then by title, the review of literature for this subject area includes:
Tolstoy:
Anna Karenina;
Goethe:
Faust;
Hegel:
Phenomenology of Mind, Philosophy of History;
Flaubert:
Madame Bovary;
J. S. Mill: Utilitarianism;
Marx: Communist Manifesto;
Melville:
Billy Budd;
Willa Cather:
My Antonia;
Engels: The
Origin of The Family, Private Property, and the State;
Darwin: Origin of Species;
Nietzsche:
Beyond Good and Evil, Use and Abuse of History; Twain:
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn;
Austen:
Emma;
Freud:
Psychopathology of Everyday Life;
Jung: (Review of
Psychology contribution); Newman:
Development of Christian Doctrine;
Ibsen:
A Doll's House;
Plato:
Phaedrus;
Vico:
The New Science (Selected readings); Tocqueville: Democracy in
America, The State of Society in France Before the Revolution of
1789; Lincoln and Douglas: Debates;
and O'Connor: Elizabeth: My Beloved South.
MAT 401
Mathematics (5 Credit Hours)
Listed by author
and then by title, the review of literature for this subject area includes:
Taylor:
(Review of Integral Calculus contribution); Dedekind: (Review of Theory of
Numbers contribution); and Lobachevski: (Review of Geometrical Researches on
the Theory of Parallels).
SCI 401
Science (5 Credit Hours)
Listed by author
and then by title, the review of literature for this subject area includes:
Einstein:
Relativity: The Special and General Theory;
Huygens:
Treatise on Light;
Maxwell: (Review of
Electricity and Magnetism contribution); Gilbert: (Review of De Magnete);
and Ampere: (Review of Magnetism contribution); Mills: The Grand Unified
Theory of Classical Quantum Mechanics; Moser: Introduction to the
Theory of Numbers; Meyers: (Review of Contributions to C++
Programming); American Institute of Physics: (Review of Heisenberg
Theory, Electrons, and Cosmology).
PHI 401
Philosophy (10 Credit Hours)
Listed by author
and then by title, the review of literature for this subject area includes:
Aristotle:
Metaphysics and
Aquinas:
On Being and
Essence.
THE 401 Theology (10 Credit Hours)
Listed by author
and then by title, the review of literature for this subject area includes:
Aquinas:
Summa Theologiae: On the Trinity, On the
Passion of Christ and
Luther: Large
Catechism.
Level 5
HUM 506 Maya Geography
(6 Credit hours)
This course reviews the human and physical geography of the Maya
civilization. Topics to be covered include: urban and regional planning,
cultural geography, political geography, economic development, physical
geography, (vegetation, animals and topography), environmental conservation,
eco-tourism and deforestation.
HUM
507 Maya History
(8 Credit hours)
This
course reviews pre-classic, classic, the collapse, post-classic, and the
colonial period of Maya history.
HUM
508 Maya Political & Economic Structure
(6 Credit hours)
This course explores the political and
economic structure of classic and post-classic southern Mesoamerica (Maya).
Excavation data, iconography, and inscriptions recovered at sites in those
areas are used to reconstruct political and social organization, ideology,
subsistence activities, and inter-regional interactions.
HUM 509 Maya Art
(3 Credit hours)
This
course surveys the art of the ancient Maya and other cultures. Analysis and
interpretation of the art will be based primarily on its role as a
transmitter of cultural information and worldview. We will focus
primarily on the shared ideologies that characterize Mesoamerican, and
particularly Maya, civilizations from the 2nd millennium BC until the
arrival of the Spanish at the time of the Conquest.
HUM 510 Architecture
(6 Credit hours)
Architecture reflects the civilization and culture of the times. With the
Mayan pyramids we will examine the differences and similarities in the way
buildings are constructed. Analyze examples of the varying levels of pyramid
development.
HUM 511 Writing and literacy
(10 Credit hours)
This
course provides an in-depth review to Classic Maya writing and texts from a
linguistic and anthropological perspective. Students will be exposed to the
writing system, tools, scribes, and literacy level of the Maya culture.
HUM 512 Maya Field Research
(10 Credit hours)
Field research in reading Maya hieroglyphics and excavation conducted
onsite at the Trinity College Research Center in Belize, Central America.
This class will operate as a real life investigation; applied examples will
cover selected geo-archaeological and cultural projects from the Belize
region. We address methods common to these research areas, and the ranges of
scales and reliability of evidences used to reconstruct past environments,
both natural and cultural.
Level 6
SCI 699 or
HUM 699 Dissertation - Research Emphasis (20 Credit Hours)
Committee Formation
Thesis Approval
Dissertation Submission
Defense of Dissertation
Publication of Dissertation
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