literary study vs humanities

literary study and humanities both are nouns.

Word	Noun	Adjective	Verb	Adverb
literary study	Yes	No	No	No
humanities	Yes	No	No	No

As nouns, humanities is a hypernym of literary study; that is, humanities is a word with a broader meaning than literary study:

literary study: the humanistic study of literature
humanities: studies intended to provide general knowledge and intellectual skills (rather than occupational or professional skills)

Other hypernyms of literary study include arts, humanistic discipline, liberal arts.

literary study (noun)	humanities (noun)
the humanistic study of literature	studies intended to provide general knowledge and intellectual skills (rather than occupational or professional skills)