Humanities include disciplines that study the condition of human beings. Humanities cover a broad, interdisciplinary study of society and culture throughout history. PhD researchers use methods that are primarily analytic, critical, or speculative to study subjects belonging to languages, literature, law, history, philosophy, religion, visual and performing arts, and others.

PhD in humanities begin by developing a specific research direction and selecting a program area of interest relevant to their preliminary research problem. Students use this area to leverage prior knowledge and study, along with work and life experience, in developing a foundation that leads to interdisciplinary research on that area and a distinguished doctoral dissertation or thesis.