School of Liberal Arts - University of Wollongong

The School of Liberal Arts was founded in 2019. It offers an original and distinctive liberal arts program – one that is historically rich yet forward-looking in focusing firmly on contemporary concerns and questions. In creating opportunities for respectful conversations between Western and non-Western traditions of thought and art, it answers to the needs of a multi-cultural 21st century.

Our Bachelor of Arts in Western Civilisation will expose you to ideas that have been inspiring people since their inception — in Ancient Greece and Rome, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment and the Modern Era. You will have the unique opportunity to directly engage with a carefully curated selection of some of the most influential works in the Western tradition of thought and art.

Spanning the centuries, you will encounter the art and ideas bequeathed to us by figures such as Aristotle, Augustine and Austen; Chaucer and Cervantes; Dante and Dostoyevsky; Cicero, Shelley and Shakespeare; de Beauvoir and Du Bois; Erasmus and Emerson; Wollstonecraft and Wittgenstein. You will wrestle with classics such as The Odyssey; The Republic; The Bible; On the Origin of Species; Das Kapital, and the founding works that inspired modern Western democracies.

Study with us

Course and scholarship

Are you ready to discover the enduring insights of the greatest thinkers, poets and artists of Western civilisation?

UOW Ramsay Scholarship

The Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation has generously donated thirty unique scholarship opportunities of $32,000 per annum for up to five years.

Wollongong campus showing greenery and pond

Life on campus

Wollongong campus is set in native Australian bush and is one of the most picturesque university campuses in Australia.

I was on the hunt to find a degree that paired nicely with Law. Whilst considering several universities, I was immediately drawn by the distinctive structure of uniquely approaching classic texts in philosophy & literature. I hope to pursue a degree in law, to apply the philosophical methods of thinking. The course is teaching me to better interpret and engage with the complexities of the legal system. The financial help of the Ramsay Centre Scholarship will take the pressure off once I graduate Jason Landro Bachelor of Laws / Bachelor of Arts in Western Civilisation

Teaching spotlight

8 November 2023

UOW researchers named as best in 10 fields of research

National list of top institutions and researchers published

Arts and Culture

12 April 2023

The love of reason and helping people

How BA in Western Civilisation helped Seamus rediscover his passion for medicine

Arts and Culture

5 April 2023

Steeped in the arboreal sublime, Thomas Hardy’s The Woodlanders carries a startling urgency

Hardy’s exploration of the relationship between humans and trees resonates in an epoch of environmental catastrophe

This study area gives me a way to keep the important thoughts and stories within the West alive, by engaging and critiquing the great works. It’s allowed a sophisticated way to engage with the past in a non-superficial way but a genuine and expansive approach. It makes you question the fundamental aspects of your existence, the nature of truth, role of storytelling, thought, art and architecture. With an insatiable thirst for knowledge and the tools to build new ideas, I’ll be set up for life. Shanti Pallai Bachelor of Arts in Laws / Bachelor of Arts in Western Civilisation

Study a Bachelor of Arts in Western Civilisation

Our flagship Liberal Arts degree includes a bespoke curriculum for high achieving and intellectually curious students that corresponds directly with the changing nature of life in the 21st Century.

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School of Liberal Arts Highlights Reports

The primary mission of the School of Liberal Arts (SOLA) is to provide its high achieving students – our future thought leaders – with an unprecedented opportunity to participate in Western civilisation’s on-going, great conversation.

Annual Report 2022

This year we finalised our academic appointments and, so, reached our full contingent and teaching strength. It was the year in which our third-year offerings were finalised and ran for the very first time.

Annual Report 2021

In 2021, thanks to the generous philanthropy of the Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation, our program continues to realise Paul Ramsay’s vision, to grow; and take increasingly stable shape.

Annual Report 2020

At the end of the degree’s first year of operation, our students have already proven to be among the highest performing and most satisfied student cohort at the University of Wollongong.