Free Humanities Courses

Discover Handel’s Messiah in this installment of First Nights, which will explore five masterpieces of western music.

Learn about the rich and diverse beliefs and practices of Buddhists across time and place. Experience Buddhism through its scriptures, both relationally as well as academically.

Combine literary research with data science to find answers in unexpected ways. Learn basic coding tools to help save time and draw insights from thousands of digital documents at once.

Explore acts of storytelling in Shakespeare’s Othello alongside world-class artists who interpret Othello’s story in new forms and contexts today.

Embark on a global journey to explore the past, present, and future of world literature.

Learn about Claudio Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo, one of the first operas ever written.

Study Japanese scroll art as text and as "little movies" that immerse the viewer through visual narration. 

Learn about the Qin and Han dynasties, and how Buddhism and ideas of self-realization influenced the medieval period.

Learn about the key beliefs and practices of Judaism through an examination of its sacred texts and their interpretation.

Reimagine global health problems with some of the leading global health thinkers and actors through a case-based biosocial framework.

Learn how American women created, confronted, and embraced change in the 20th century while exploring ten objects from Radcliffe’s Schlesinger Library.

Learn about Christianity through a study of its sacred scriptures. We will explore how diverse Christians have interpreted these writings and practiced their teachings over a 2000 year, global history.

Learn the fascinating history of Igor Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring, one of the most challenging and rewarding ballets ever written.

An exploration of the magnetic and ambivalent character of Shylock in William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice.

Explore what makes cities energizing, amazing, challenging, and perhaps humanity’s greatest invention.

Learn about the Quran, the central sacred text of Islam, through an exploration of the rich diversity of roles and interpretations in Muslim societies.

Learn about China’s origins, its integral early thinkers, and competing states and schools of thought.

Examine how cultures of the ancient world defined themselves through literature and how their vision of literature contributes to our understanding of civilization, culture, and literature today.

Explore China’s imperial period, with a focus on the Song dynasty and the role of the exam system in government.

Explore the impact of the conquest dynasties and the world of the Ming.

Examine how great modern writers capture the intricacies of our globalized world and how their works circulate within that world to find their own audiences.

Learn how the Manchus conquered the Qing and established the last of the imperial dynasties.

Explore the archaeology, history, art, and hieroglyphs surrounding the famous Egyptian Pyramids at Giza. Learn about Old Kingdom pharaohs and elites, tombs, temples, the Sphinx, and how new technology is unlocking their secrets.

Explore the reunification of China under the Tang with a focus on aristocratic culture — from poetry to calligraphy to literature.

Gain an understanding of history, museum studies, and curation by looking at, organizing, and interpreting art, artifacts, scientific curiosities, and the stuff of everyday life.

Use the case study method to study China from the rise of Deng Xiaoping to the present.

An exploration of the haunting figure at the heart of one of William Shakespeare’s most famous plays.

This course examines the Sikh scripture from a doctrinal and historical perspective by providing an overview of Sikh teachings as well as the historical context within which the scripture evolved and became canonized.

Join Harvard faculty in this online course to discover the physical history of the Jewish bible.

Traces Albert Einstein’s engagement with relativity, quantum mechanics, Nazism, nuclear weapons, philosophy, the arts, and technology.