Degree Structure

Following the introductory core seminar, Introduction to Liberal Studies: Methods of Knowing, students select seven courses from the MLS Program electives.  In the final semester, students enroll in a summative project course, in which they apply interdisciplinary research frameworks to a subject of intense personal interest.

Students typically take one course a semester, which meets once a week in the evenings.  Courses are offered year-round: fall, spring, and summer semesters.  This degree can be finished within three years. 

Units and Tuition

To complete an MLs degree, students take nine three-unit courses, for a total of 27 units.  Consult the University Schedule of Classes for the tuition and fees applicable to graduate units for the semester of enrollment. 

Degree Courses
Non-Degree Courses

Degree Courses

• LBST 500 Introduction to Liberal Studies: Methods of Knowing
  Professor Jenny Price - Fall '07
  Professor Tok Thompson - Spring '08/Fall '08
  Introduction to research methods in the social sciences, humanities, and natural sciences, as well as applied interdisciplinary research. Explore different “ways of knowing” – or alternative models of inquiry which are used in our everyday lives, in our professional lives, and in the lives of disciplinary specialists.

• LBST 510 Cities and Globalization
  Contemporary urban theory and comparative urban analysis, emphasizing how globalization is shaping urban form and problems. See how world cities have emerged in a global context, and learn about the development of public policies toward urban growth and change.
  
  
• LBST 512 Language in a Globalizing World
  Professor Tok Thompson - Fall '07
  Relationships between language and geopolitical change, endangered and minority languages, and the public policy implications of multilingualism and multiculturalism. Investigate the role of language in a world in which English has become the global lingua franca for commerce, government, science and technology.
  
  
• LBST 514 Ideas of Nature
  Professor Jenny Price - Spring '08
  Examination of how Americans have used nature to think about themselves, environmentalism, American identity, gender/class relations, the American West, and the mythology of Los Angeles.

• LBST 516 Urban Conservation Biology
  Professor Travis Longcore - Fall '08
  Nature is frequently thought to be found only “out there” beyond the city.  Yet conservation of many species requires protection of their habitats in urban areas.  Using the Los Angeles basin as a case study, this course will explore the many issues that arise from the recognition that cities too can have natural values.  The course will begin with an exploration the ecology of cities and our knowledge about the factors that affect the distribution and persistence of plants and animals in urban landscapes.  Then we will explore the major threats to urban biodiversity and their interaction with human attitudes, particularly in a Mediterranean climate.  Finally, we will review controversies and successes of urban nature conservation projects in the Los Angeles basin, with a concentration on adaptive management as a methodological framework.  The course will include field visits to Los Angeles-area urban habitats.

• LBST 520 Tradition and the Modern World: A Focus on Ireland
  Professor Tok Thompson - Summer '08
  Studies the continuing interplays between tradition and novelty; between locale and globalization; and between heritage and post-modernity, with a focus on Ireland.

• LBST 525 The Revolution That Made America
  Professor Peter Mancall - Spring '10
  Delve into the ideas and politics of the world's first modern revolution, which transformed thirteen colonies into a nation.
  
  
• LBST 530 Portraits of Leadership
  Professor Paul Knoll - Spring '09
  Examine several forms of cultural leadership in their historical, literary, and philosophical context, such as the European Renaissance of the 14th through early 16th centuries.

• LBST 540 Hell, Purgatory and Paradise: Dante’s Divine Comedy
  Professor William G. Thalmann - Spring '08
  In-depth reading and analysis of Divine Comedy in order to develop an appreciation for changing values from medieval, to Renaissance and contemporary culture.

• LBST 542 The Culture of Comedy
  Professor James R. Kincaid - Fall '08                                                                     
  Comedy is a technique and a pattern of storytelling, but it is also an outlook on life, a position from which to understand the world.  Comedy is a matter of jokes; it is also a matter of philosophy.  Comedy is a way to have your life, a way to live.  It is not simply "relief" or a secondary, minor position.  The comic is not the opposite of the serious.  This interdisciplinary course will explore the broadest range of the idea of comedy as it speaks to the ways in which philosophers, artists, and everyday wise-guys have understood the world and went to its fringes.

• LBST 544 Representations of Los Angeles
  Professor Judith Freeman - Fall '07
  Study of literary, artistic and/or dramatic expressions of Los Angeles and its inhabitants, drawing from photography, art, “noir” cinema, and detective fiction set in Los Angeles, from James M. Cain and Raymond Chandler through the 1990’s and beyond.
  
• LBST 545 Imagining the American West
  Professor Bill Handley - Summer '09
  

  The historian and novelist Wallace Stegner wrote that in its mythic sense, the West is “America, only more so.”   This course will explore facets of that myth and what they say about America, how cultural representations have made sense of America and imagined its past and future through the West.  The West is geography, but it is also a place in the mind, a cultural reference point that often forgets history, often evinces nostalgia for a mythic past, and often wrestles quite consciously with American historical and cultural contradictions.   In the course, we’ll read novels, short stories, poems, historiography, essays, and legal documents—but also view films, photography, and paintings (making a field trip to the Autry National Center’s Museum of the American West).

  
  

• LBST 547 Acts of Interpretation: Literature, Film, and Methodology
  Professor Tania R. Modleski - Fall '09
  

  Analyze literature, film, and methodologies for approaching issues of interpretation, readership, and spectatorship.  Examine how interpretation varies across gender, race, class, and sexuality.

• LBST 550 Cultural Studies
  Professor Judith Halberstam - Spring '09
  Learn about the current debates and themes in the field of cultural studies, which examines cultural practices in various societies.  Examine issues of ideology, ethnicity, social class, gender, film and media, and technology through approaches from history, literary theory, anthropology, communications, geography, sociology, and philosophy.  
  

• LBST 570 Ecology of Night
  Professor Travis Longcore - Summer '07
  Explore the world of night and learn about past and present human perceptions of the stars and the role of night in history. Understand the role of artificial night lighting on non-human species and habitats.

• LBST 571 Food, Fashion & Furniture: Commodities in the Global Economy
  Professor Josh Newell - Summer '08
  

  Have you ever considered how everyday things— the food we consume, the clothes we wear, the furniture we sit on—intertwine us with distant people and places? Through academic and popular texts, documentaries, newspapers, and other media, we ‘track’ commodities from their origins to their final consumption.

  Students will develop insight into how seemingly innocuous food and consumption decisions have impacts far beyond their local households and communities.

• LBST 572 Controversies in Science, Medicine and Ethics
  Professor William May - Spring '07
  How scientific developments drive ethical issues in medicine. Explore how scientific advances such as stem cells, genetic engineering and reproductive technologies influence how new ethical issues arise and how we are dealing with them.

• LBST 574 Advances in Genetics and Evolutionary Biology
  How DNA directs an organism’s development. Learn how our DNA can be ‘read’ to understand human diversity, diseases, defects, and evolution.

• LBST 585abz Master's Project
  Professor Jim Kincaid - ongoing                                                                                             This project provides an opportunity for students to work closely with their adviser and a committee of three MLS faculty, chosen by the student, to apply interdisciplinary research frameworks to a subject of intense personal interest.