THE UNIVERSITY of Limerick plans to introduce two four-year arts degree programmes in 1997 - a BA in history, politics and social studies and a BA in language and cultural studies.
The history, politics and social studies programme aims to provide students with a broad general arts education and to develop awareness of the historical, political and social features of modern Irish and European society. Course subjects include history, politics, and sociology, all of which are available as major or minor subjects, and economics, human geography, public administration and women's studies, which are available as minor subjects only. Students may choose to major in either one or two subjects.
The language and cultural studies programme offers students two distinct pathways. Students who choose to major in either French, German - which include language, literature and cultural elements - or English literature will also take a general cultural programme, which offers six modules - including media studies, film studies, women's studies and cultural theory - and one elective - either Spanish, German, French, English studies, Japanese, Irish, technical writing or teaching English as a foreign language. Conversely, students who opt for the four-year Irish studies programme study one European language elective - either Spanish, German or French.
Meanwhile, the BA in humanities offered by St Patrick's College, Drumcondra, Dublin, is a three-year honours programme. In year one, students select three subjects from bioscience (a biology-centred course which has been specifically designed for arts and humanities students), English, French, Irish, geography, history, human development, maths, music, and religious studies. In second and third years students continue with any two of their chosen subjects, other than bioscience.
St Patrick's has been a designated college of DCU since 1993 and the humanities degree is awarded by that university. Seven of St Patrick's academic departments - English, French, Irish, geography history, maths and music - are part of DCU's joint faculty of humanities, which also includes DCU's schools of communications, applied languages and intercultural studies.
