Eminent faculty from across all four divisions of UChicago teach MLA courses in a Socratic seminar format. Students come to class having carefully read the assigned material and then engage in rich discussions, confronting fundamental questions and respectfully debating complex ideas. In this program, you’ll sharpen your critical, analytical, and writing skills as you examine topics from fresh perspectives that enrich your personal and professional life.
Classes meet once a week via Zoom with sessions scheduled on evenings or Saturdays to fit into a full-time work schedule. You also have the option to participate in our week-long, immersive residential seminars on the UChicago campus, which are offered twice a year in the Spring and Autumn Quarters.
You will not take many exams in this program. Instead, MLA faculty primarily evaluate students based on their participation in discussions and their performance on writing assignments. In both verbal and written communication, you’ll be expected to analyze complicated issues, make persuasive arguments, and synthesize information from multiple sources.
The Master of Liberal Arts brings the University of Chicago’s extraordinary intellectual assets together. You have the opportunity to engage deeply with professors from every division of our University in small, Socratic classrooms. Big ideas, eminent faculty, extraordinary peers—it’s a transformative combination.
Seth Green
Dean of the University of Chicago Graham School
Core Courses
Through four core courses, you’ll gain an interdisciplinary framework to break down complex topics into their basic components and answer challenging questions with methodological approaches from the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. Each class will require you to think critically, write thoughtfully, respond to your peers, and address problems.
Our core distribution requirements provide the foundation of our interdisciplinary curriculum. To meet the core requirement, students take one course in each of the four main academic divisions of the university: the Humanities, Social Sciences, Biological Sciences, and Physical Sciences:
Humanities
Grapple with foundational literary and philosophical texts, learning to interrogate subtle uses of language and ask important questions about the historic and cultural contexts in which texts were produced. Training in humanistic inquiry equips students to read closely and communicate original insights through writing and discussion. You’ll leave your humanities courses a more attentive reader, stronger writer, and better organized thinker.
Social Sciences
Pursue nuanced questions about human interaction and how societies form and function. The social sciences courses will equip you with modes of analysis to examine the effects of economic, political, and cultural phenomena on human behavior. Through rigorously scrutinizing the competing viewpoints from classic texts and thinkers, these classes deepen critical and analytical thinking. You’ll hone your analytic and communication skills by conveying thoughts in concise and persuasive prose.
Biological Sciences
Study living systems and the processes that shape life on Earth. Biological science courses help students understand how scientists investigate the natural world through observation, experimentation, and evidence-based reasoning. Students strengthen their ability to analyze complex systems and to think carefully about the relationship between scientific discovery and human life.
Physical Sciences
Examine the fundamental principles that govern the universe. Physical science courses develop students’ understanding of how scientists use measurement, modeling, and experimentation to explain natural phenomena. Students leave these courses with stronger logical reasoning skills, along with a deeper appreciation for how scientific knowledge shapes technology, public life, and our understanding of the world.
Electives
To meet the elective requirement, you may either take three general electives in any discipline or choose a concentration and take all three courses in one area of study. The available concentrations are:
In this course, we will draw upon the anthropology and history of technology, as well as science and technology studies, to critically examine theories about technology, society, and self.
While the Soviet Union is our focus in its own right, we also use it as a case study to reflect on broader humanistic questions of progress and its darker side, utopian social engineering, creativity under censorship, self-expression in conditions of physical duress, cultural mainstream and underground, propaganda and literature, fiction and journalism.
This course will focus on the nervous system, how the nervous system produces behavior, how we use our brain every day, and how neuroscience can explain the common problems afflicting people today.
We often think about Moby Dick as a description of American society as told through the microcosm of a whaleship. But Moby Dick is also a book about what knowledge is, what is knowable in the world, how humans relate to nature, and how scientific knowledge impacts society.
This course will focus on dark matter, dark energy, the destiny of the universe, the origin of (ordinary) matter, cosmic inflations, and the multiverse.
This course looks at some models of leadership – Platonic, Aristotelian, Roman imperial, medieval chivalric, Machiavellian, Nietzscheian – and at the ways in which these various ideals are represented and tested in works of literature, art, and film
The period of High Classical Athens saw a people ruling itself in an utterly free state. In this week-long Residential Seminar, we will examine how historical texts, tragic dramas, and marble sculpture and building attest to the rule of the people, by the people, and for the people.
In this week-long Residential Seminar, we will read and probe some of Homer’s epics’ most famous episodes in various English translations from the Renaissance to today. We will also explore some of the vast array of responses to and transformations of Homer’s strange and wondrous tales in painting, cinema, and other arts.
I have always had a passion for learning and a desire to challenge myself. The MLA program presented a way to enhance my skills—not only as an individual but also as a participant and leader in our society. The MLA attests to the fact that there is inherent value associated with studying the humanities and in developing a background and comfort with the diverse topics that comprise the liberal arts.
Andrew F. Shorr
Division Head, Pulmonary, Critical Care, & Respiratory Services, Medstar Washington Hospital Center; and Professor of Medicine, Georgetown University
A faculty advisor will support you in selecting a thesis or project that aligns with your interests. MLA students have the flexibility to choose projects that hold value and meaning for them personally or that can be applied to their careers.
Examples of past MLA thesis topics include:
A Comparative Analysis of the American & Chilean Revolutions
Economic Survival of Small Chicago Area Farmers During COVID-19: Leadership Skills that Enabled Success in the Pandemic
Using Poetry as Leadership Training: Fostering a More Diverse, Equitable and Inclusive College
The format of special projects is flexible. Past examples include a piece of visual art and a book of poetry.
Once your thesis topic or project is approved, you will be paired with a faculty advisor, who will remain heavily engaged throughout the process. The advisor serves as a vital resource by pointing you toward scholarship and other sources of information that can guide your work. You will remain in contact as your project evolves, receiving meaningful feedback on drafts.
In most cases, it takes two quarters for students to complete a thesis or special project.
Seth GreenDean of the University of Chicago Graham School
Andrew F. ShorrDivision Head, Pulmonary, Critical Care, & Respiratory Services, Medstar Washington Hospital Center; and Professor of Medicine, Georgetown University
