Great Books Seminar I: The Individual and Society
Important works of Western art, literature, philosophy, science and theology from the Greco-Roman world to the 20th century.
Seminar, 3 hours per week.
Introduction to the History of Art: from Prehistory to the Present
(also offered as VISA 1F98)
Critical survey of major styles in architecture, sculpture and painting from antiquity to the 20th century. Principal monuments, buildings or studio artifacts, their period characteristics, the artist's cultural role and the critical or theoretical trends that have influenced our reading of the history of art.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
Note: no studio work. Materials fee required.
Completion of this course will replace previous assigned grade in VISA 1F90.
Introduction to Logic and Critical Thinking
Kinds of argument and their employment in everyday affairs as well as in science and the humanities. Topics include the syllogism, analogical arguments, arguments from authority, and inductive arguments. Instruction in the construction and analysis of arguments.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
Great Books World Tour
Selections from the masterworks of world literature and thought, examining human nature from earliest times to the 20th century. Texts include selections from the Gilgamesh epic (perhaps the first written story), Plato, Confucius, Lady Murasaki's Tale of Genji (perhaps the first novel), Jonathan Swift, The 1001 Nights, Mao Zedong, Martin Luther King, Jr., Leacock, and short works by many Nobel Prize winners.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
Cultural Expressions
Fieldtrips to concerts, exhibitions, plays and readings; discussions.
Fieldtrips, seminar, 3 hours per week.
Note: there is an additional field trip fee associated with this course to cover admission and possibly transportation to venues.
Western Religious Thought
(also offered as PHIL 2P20)
Roots of the Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam: Who and what is God? What is our relationship to God? What are the ethical bases of monotheism? What is the nature of faith?
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
Prerequisite: PHIL 1F90, 1F91, 1F92, 1F93 or 1F94
Religions of the World
Development and character of major religious traditions and world views.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
Political Theory I
(also offered as POLI 2P91)
Socratic origins of political philosophy as understood by Plato and Aristotle and their Christian, Jewish and Islamic successors. Machiavelli's critique.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
Prerequisite: GBLS 1F90, or one POLI credit numbered 1(alpha)90 to 1(alpha)99.
Introduction to Argumentation and Rhetoric
Fundamentals of rational persuasion. Classical dialectics and refutation, arguments that make special appeals such as ad hominem arguments, the different functions of linguistic communication, fallacies and the rules governing interpersonal dispute resolution.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
Prerequisite: GBLS 1P91 or permission of the instructor.
Completion of this course will replace previous assigned grade in GBLS 1P92.
Order and Chaos in the Cosmos
Important work of science, art, literature and philosophy addressing the origin and structure of the universe, and its association with the divine. Readings include selections from the Bible, Lucretius, Ovid, Thomas Aquinas, Galileo, Isaac Newton, Rene Descartes, Albert Einstein, Stephen Hawking, and Carl Sagan.
Seminar, 3 hours per week.
Great Books Seminar II - Epics and Ethics: Journeys of Self-Discovery
Works of art, literature, biography, autobiography, philosophy and theology from the classical period to the late 16th century concerned with concepts of responsibility to self and to society. Readings include Augustine, Dante, Machiavelli, Vasari and Marlowe.
Seminar, 3 hours per week.
Prerequisite: GBLS 1F90 or permission of the Director.
Completion of this course will replace previous assigned grade in GBLS 2F90.
Ideas and Culture before 1850
(also offered as HIST 2P99)
Major developments in European intellectual and cultural life such as the Renaissance, the Scientific Revolution, the Enlightenment, Romanticism, and the emergence of modern ideologies.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
Art in Revolution: 1750-1851
(also offered as VISA 2P90)
Art's role and function within the paradigm shifts of the modern world, its relation to politics, social and cultural change. Neoclassicism and the principal movements leading up to the French Revolution and beyond, Romanticism, Realism and the Industrial Revolution.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
Prerequisite: VISA 1F98 (1F90) or permission of the instructor.
Completion of this course will replace previous assigned grade in VISA 2P90.
Modernism, Modernity and Contemporaneity: 1851-1907
(also offered as VISA 2P91)
Thematic examination of individuality, contemporaniety and progress in the context of the period's cultural, political and technological changes.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
Prerequisite: VISA 1F98 (1F90) or permission of the instructor.
Completion of this course will replace previous assigned grade in VISA 2P91.
Shakespeare 1590-1603
(also offered as ENGL 2Q92)
Representative plays from the first half of Shakespeare's dramatic career emphasizing theoretical and cultural issues raised by the plays in the context of fin-de-siècle Elizabethan England.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
Prerequisite: GBLS 1F90, one ENGL credit numbered 1(alpha)90 to 1(alpha)99 or permission of the instructor.
Completion of this course will replace previous assigned grade in GBLS (ENGL) 2F97.
Shakespeare 1603-1614
(also offered as ENGL 2Q93)
Representative plays from the second half of Shakespeare's dramatic career emphasizing theoretical and cultural issues raised by the plays in the context of the opening decade of James I's culturally divisive reign.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
Prerequisite: GBLS 1F90, one ENGL credit numbered 1(alpha)90 to 1(alpha)99 or permission of the instructor.
Completion of this course will replace previous assigned grade in GBLS (ENGL) 2F97.
Shakespeare's Comedies
(also offered as ENGL 2Q94)
Representative comedies and tragicomedies emphasizing the variety of Shakespeare's comic modes, from the grotesque to the miraculous, and on theoretical approaches to the comic.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
Prerequisite: GBLS 1F90, one ENGL credit numbered 1(alpha)90 to 1(alpha)99 or permission of the instructor.
Completion of this course will replace previous assigned grade in GBLS (ENGL) 2F97.
Shakespeare's Tragedies
(also offered as ENGL 2Q95)
Shakespeare's development of tragedy as a genre in the context of early modern aesthetic and cultural concerns. Attention to recent theoretical approaches.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
Prerequisite: GBLS 1F90, one ENGL credit numbered 1(alpha)90 to 1(alpha)99 or permission of the instructor.
Completion of this course will replace previous assigned grade in GBLS (ENGL) 2F97.
Shakespeare's Problem Plays
(also offered as ENGL 2Q96)
Shakespeare's most theoretically and culturally challenging plays. Attention to such issues as generic hybridity and breakdown, parody and metatheater.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
Prerequisite: GBLS 1F90, one ENGL credit numbered 1(alpha)90 to 1(alpha)99 or permission of the instructor.
Completion of this course will replace previous assigned grade in GBLS (ENGL) 2F97.
Shakespeare as Poet
(also offered as ENGL 2Q97)
Study of poetic practices of William Shakespeare. Includes plays or selections from plays as well as significant portions of his non-dramatic works.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
Prerequisite: GBLS 1F90, one ENGL credit numbered 1(alpha)90 to 1(alpha)99 or permission of the instructor.
Completion of this course will replace previous assigned grade in GBLS (ENGL) 2F97.
The Artistic Experience
(also offered as PHIL 2Q98 and VISA 2Q98)
Classical theories of art through analysis of painting, photography, video, film, music, and drama examining concepts such as beauty, creativity, artistic intention, perception, interpretation and the nature and possible role of art.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
Prerequisite: one PHIL credit or VISA 1F98 or permission of the instructor.
The Ancient Epic Tradition
(also offered as CLAS 3F01)
Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, Apollonius Rhodius' Argonautica, Vergil's Aeneid and Ovid's Metamorphoses. Topics include the conventions of epic, the original oral transmission of heroic verse and its transformation into a written genre, concepts of heroic conduct and character.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
Prerequisite: one credit from CLAS 1P91, 1P92, 1P95, 1P97.
Note: open to students who lack the prerequisite but have taken one credit in ENGL or GBLS.
Completion of this course will replace prvious assigned grade in CLAS 3P00.
Ideas and Culture Since 1850
(also offered as HIST 3P00)
Intellectual and cultural developments in Europe and North America during the late 19th and 20th centuries.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
Note: one or more of HIST 2F20, 2P02, 2P16, 2P51 recommended.
Great Books Seminar III
Important works of art, literature, philosophy, science and theology from the 16th through the 19th centuries.
Seminar, 3 hours per week.
Origins of Life
Important works of science, art, literature, philosophy addressing the origin of life and the nature of our species' relationship with our planet. Readings include selections from the Bible, Aristotle, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Mary Shelley, Charles Darwin, Aldous Huxley, Stephen Jay Gould, E. O. Wilson, and Richard Dawkins.
Seminar, 3 hours per week.
Literary Criticism
(also offered as ENGL 3P94)
Literary criticisms from Aristotle to Brooks and Leavis emphasizing enduring literary critical problems.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
Prerequisites: two ENGL credits numbered 2(alpha)00 to 2(alpha)99 or permission of the instructor.
Completion of this course will replace previous assigned grade in GBLS (ENGL) 3F93.
Aesthetics of Music
(also offered as MUSI 3P95)
Issues of meaning, beauty, value, and greatness in music through analysis of selected readings from Aristoxenus to the present.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
Prerequisites: MUSI 1F50; MUSI 2F90 or GBLS 2P94 or permission of the instructor.
Medieval Literature and Culture
(also offered as MLLC 3P97)
Literature and culture of the Middle Ages in Europe. Works selected from among poetry, the epic and the romance.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
Prerequisite: one of FREN 2F03, GERM 2F90 (2F20), ITAL, 2F00, SPAN 2P20 and 2P21 (2F00 or 2F10) or permission of the instructor.
Note: given in English.
Completion of this course will replace previous assigned grade in MLLC 3P91.
Renaissance Literature and Culture
(also offered as MLLC 3P98)
The Renaissance as transcultural phenomenon; historical and geographical parameters; social and political factors in its emergence and development; intellectual and aesthetic foundations as expressed in essential literary texts and essays.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
Prerequisite: one of FREN 2F03, GERM 2F90 (2F20), ITAL 2F00, SPAN 2P21 and 2P21 (2F00 or 2F10) or permission of the instructor.
Note: given in English.
Completion of this course will replace previous assigned grade in MLLC 3P92.
Modern Narratives
(also offered as MLLC 3P99)
French, German, Italian and Hispanic 20th-century narrative writing. May include avant-garde, surrealist, existentialist, modernist and postmodernist issues.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
Prerequisite: one of FREN 2F03, GERM 2F90 (2F20), ITAL 2F00, SPAN 2P20 and 2P21 (2F00 or 2F10) or permission of the instructor.
Note: given in English.
Completion of this course will replace previous assigned grade in MLLC 3P93.
Special Topics in Great Books/Liberal Studies
Selected topics in Western or non-Western works of art, literature, philosophy, history, science and/or theology.
Seminar, 3 hours per week.
The Philosophy of Law
(also offered as POLI 4P01)
Traditional and contemporary accounts of law and their implications for issues of contemporary concern.
Seminar, 3 hours per week.
Restriction: open to GBLS (single or combined) and POLS (single or combined) majors with either a minimum of 14.0 overall credits and a minimum 70 percent major average or approval to year 4 (honours).
Ancient Political Theory
(also offered as POLI 4P02)
Premodern political philosophy examined in the works of Plato and Aristotle, emphasizing those features distinguishing ancient political science and philosophy from that of modernity.
Seminar, 3 hours per week.
Restriction: open to GBLS (single or combined) and POLS (single or combined) majors with either a minimum of 14.0 overall credits and a minimum 70 percent major average or approval to year 4 (honours).
Modern Political Theory
(also offered as POLI 4P03)
Modern political theory examined in selected texts. Topics may include historicism, consent, progress, equality or a selected author such as Rousseau, Kant, Hegel.
Seminar, 3 hours per week.
Restriction: open to GBLS (single or combined) and POLS (single or combined) majors with either a minimum of 14.0 overall credits and a minimum 70 percent major average or approval to year 4 (honours).
Politics and Tyranny
(also offered as POLI 4P04)
Comparative accounts of ancient and modern tyranny examined in light of the question: has political domination varied significantly in the Western tradition?
Seminar, 3 hours per week.
Restriction: open to GBLS (single or combined) and POLS (single or combined) majors with either a minimum of 14.0 overall credits and a minimum 70 percent major average or approval to year 4 (honours).
Shakespeare's Politics
(also offered as POLI 4P05)
Issues of justice; politics, law and morality; republican, monarchical and tyrannical government as explored in selected Shakespearean comedies, tragedies and histories.
Seminar, 3 hours per week.
Restriction: open to GBLS (single or combined), INPE and POLS (single or combined) majors until date specified in the BIRT guide. After that date open to ECUL, ENGL (single or combined) and HIST (single or combined) majors. Students must have either a minimum of 14.0 overall credits and a minimum 70 percent major average or approval to year 4 (honours).
Philosophy, Politics and the Family
(also offered as POLI 4P06)
Family relations and their significance for the political community as both have been treated by ancient and modern political philosophers and by contemporary feminists and their critics.
Seminar, 3 hours per week.
Prerequisites: POLI 2P91; POLI 2P92 (2F90), 2P93 (2P01 and 3P01) or permission of the instructor.
Postmodern Political Theory
(also offered as POLI 4P07)
Perspectives on the postmodern condition in the works of selected 20th-century thinkers. Topics may include notions on the self; aesthetics and politics; reason and power; the construction of meaning.
Seminar, 3 hours per week.
Restriction: open to GBLS (single or combined) and POLS (single or combined) majors with either a minimum of 14.0 overall credits and a minimum 70 percent major average or approval to year 4 (honours).
Great Books Seminar IV
Important works of art, literature, philosophy, science and theology from the 19th and 20th centuries.
Seminar, 3 hours per week.
Practicum in Great Books/Liberal Studies
Independent study combined with teaching responsibility in Great Books Seminar I.
Restriction: permission of the Director.
Note: each participant will team teach for four weeks with a senior faculty member and complete a written assignment reflecting on the best pedagogical approach to the texts read, suggesting alterations and/or innovations which might enhance the learning process. Post-class discussion and analysis are central to the course. Enrolment by Application to the Director.
Apocalypse in Literature, Art and Music
Fear and hope in the coming end of time, as portrayed by artists, writers and musicians. Focus on the long Judeo-Christian apocalyptic tradition.
Seminar, 3 hours per week.
Senior Essay and Workshop
Discussion of Great Books/Liberal Studies and issues related to the preparation of a senior essay.
Seminar, tutorial, two terms.
Selected Problems in Political Theory
(also offered as POLI 4V00-4V09)
Particular writer, work or theoretical problem in political philosophy examined.
Seminar, 3 hours per week.
Restriction: open to GBLS (single or combined) and POLS single or combined) majors with either a minimum of 14.0 overall credits and a minimum 70 percent major average or approval to year 4 (honours).
Text and Context
Topics in Literature and Intellectual History