Humanities Program | July 5–July 24, 2026
The Arts of Power and Knowledge in the Renaissance
The Humanities cultivate our awareness of the many factors and forces that shape the actions and beliefs of individuals or group through time. Most of all, it strengthens our capacity to enter into the lives and thoughts of others so as to understand more fully, subtly, and sympathetically “what makes them tick,” a capacity that ultimately helps us be and do better in every aspect of our lives.
Students in the Humanities Program will seek to understand the complex connections between vision, performance/experience, knowledge, and truth and the ways in which people have used texts, images, and performance to encounter new and different ideas and realities. We will see how human beings have used maps, history, literary fiction, and the visual and scientific arts to understand, control, and challenge their world.
A Letter from the Director
Dear Students and Families,
When describing the goals that shaped his work, the seventeenth-century philosopher Benedict Spinoza remarked: “I have labored carefully, not to mock, lament, or execrate, but to understand human actions.”
This project — to understand human actions in the fullness of their origins, development, and consequences and to comprehend the dynamic world of ideas and sensibilities that inspires and is inspired by them — lies at the heart of the Humanities. To allow the myriad and diverse voices from the past to speak and to see through others’ eyes, we draw on many disciplines and forms of human expression: from historical documents to religious and philosophical writings to literature to works of art and performances.
Such humanistic inquiry requires a unique blend of the skills of observation, analysis, interpretation, imagination, empathy, and criticism. Our work teaches us how to examine and interpret small details to gain larger insights, to see the variety that exists within categories and generalities, to dismantle stereotypes and understand their making, and to trace ideas and actions back to their origins and forward to their effects.
The Humanities cultivate our awareness of the many factors and forces that shape the actions and beliefs of individuals or groups at a single moment or over time. Most of all, they strengthen our capacity to enter into the lives and thoughts of others so as to understand more fully, subtly, and sympathetically “what makes them tick,” a capacity that ultimately helps us be and do better in every aspect of our lives today.
With my colleagues Jacqueline Lombard in Art History and Victoria Morse in the History of Maps and Mapmaking, we will explore together the ways in which people have sought knowledge and grappled with doubt, difference, and uncertainty in texts, on their stages, and in their maps. Through these pursuits they came to represent, criticize and transform different forms of power, identity, and value in their world and challenge traditional notions and sources of truth.
In the different strands of the Humanities program, we will examine closely primary sources, including the writings of Florentine political advisor Niccolò Machiavelli and French jurist and philosopher Michel de Montaigne; the visual arts between 1300 and 1600; and Renaissance maps and their understandings of the world and its peoples.
Through our discussions, we will seek to understand the complex forms and functions of power and identity; the connections between vision, knowledge, and truth. We will also see how human beings have used history, mapmaking, philosophy, and the visual and scientific arts to understand, control, and challenge their world. At the same time, we will also explore how these diverse media and activities confronted people in Europe with diverse cultures and ways of being that challenged and inspired them.
Each participant in the Institute will chose one of the strands as a focus. This will be your research cohort and, in that context, you will develop and present guided research projects in one of the following:
- History & Philosophy
- Art History
- History of Maps and Mapmaking
Special sessions and field trips will connect the cohorts in shared conversations. Through individual and collaborative work, you will learn to use effectively techniques of research, interpretation, and presentation essential to achieve the goal of humanistic research: to understand with depth and complexity the nature of human thought, action, and expression and to convey this understanding to others.
We look forward to working with you!
Sincerely,
Bill North
Professor of History and Director of the SLAI Humanities Program
Academic Credit
Summer Carls can earn up to six Carleton course credits (typically transfers as three semester credits) for successfully meeting faculty expectations and completing course requirements. In addition to receiving written feedback about course performance from faculty, students will receive one of the following three possible grade designations: satisfactory (S), credit (Cr), or no credit (NC). Formal academic transcripts are available upon request for Summer Carl alumni and will reflect the name of the course and grade earned.
Want to experience Carleton without a graded outcome? Check out our 1-Week Non-Credit Programs!
Writing Sample Requirement
Each applicant to the Humanities Program must submit a writing sample along with their online application. The writing sample must be submitted during application process and an application will not be considered complete without the writing sample.
The writing sample should be a recent sample of your best academic writing for review by the Humanities Program Admissions Committee. Your writing sample should be a minimum of two pages long, typed and double spaced. The essay may be on any topic of your choice and should be of an academic nature. While not required, we suggest a literary analysis or research paper. If you have questions about the qualification of a writing sample please contact our office.
When uploading the document to your application please note the following are supported file formats: .txt (plain text); .doc or .docx (Word); or PDF (portable document file).
Courses and Faculty
Click on each topic below to view the course description and faculty information.
Seeking Truth and Wielding Power in the Renaissance
The Renaissance witnessed dramatic changes in how people thought and about power and authority, and writers like Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527) challenged assumptions and sought to make experience and practice the foundation of political life. He investigated the role of perception and knowledge in the accumulation, use, and loss of political power. At the same time, developments like the Protestant Reformation, European encounters with the New World, the printing press dramatically, sometimes violently, shook traditional ideas of God, the world, human beings, and the self. Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) confronted this confusion and used observation, scholarship, wit, and empathy to seek the truth in new ways.
With these authors as guides and inspiration, students will develop research projects that explore the ways in which people sought to cope with the conflicts, confusion, and opportunities brought by new knowledge, new technologies, and new kinds of power… a situation not so different from our own time.
Program Director: Bill North, Professor of History, Carleton College
William North became fascinated by history, religion, and the classical tradition at Princeton University. He went on to receive his Ph.D. in medieval history from the University of California, Berkeley in 1998. After a post-doctoral year pursuing Byzantine history at Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, DC, North came to Carleton in 1999. At Carleton, Bill teaches courses on the later Roman Empire, Byzantium, the early and central Middle Ages; medieval Latin and Greek; and maintains an active interest in Renaissance humanism and the methods and meaning of the recovery and study of the people, both ancient and contemporary.
Bill is a fellow of the American Academy in Rome and at Carleton co-directs an off campus study program in Rome with his colleague Victoria Morse. In his research and teaching, he is particularly interested in the dynamics—institutional and intellectual—of controversies, the creation and maintenance of institutional and political cultures, and the role of the past in creating and dismantling structures of authority and knowledge. Bill enjoys all things concerning Italy past and present—music, food, history, literature—and loves conversation.
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