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.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
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.
Introduction to Visual Culture
(also offered as VISA 1Q98)
Concepts of art, its vocabulary, structure and varied cultural contexts. Problems of meaning, visual perception and formal structure of the visual arts, functions of art in contemporary society, the function of galleries and museums, and the role of patrons and critics. Contemporary critical methodology.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours week.
Note: no studio work. Materials fee required. Students must take GBLS 1Q98 and 1Q99 to replace previous earned credit in GBLS 1F98.
Completion of this course will replace previous assigned grade and credit obtained in GBLS (VISA) 1F98.
Introduction to the Historyof Western Art
(also offered as VISA 1Q99)
Analysis of key monuments and on the prerequisite technology, as well as on various ways of looking at the visual past and present. Focus on the visual arts from prehistory through the early 20th century.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours week.
Prerequisite: GBLS 1Q98 or permission of the instructor.
Note: no studio work. Materials fee required. Students must take GBLS 1Q98 and 1Q99 to replace previous earned credit in GBLS 1F98.
Completion of this course will replace previous assigned grade and credit obtained in GBLS (VISA) 1F98.
Abrahamic Religious Thought
(also offered as PHIL 2P20)
Roots of the monotheisms of Judaism, Christianity and Islam: Who and what is God? What is our relationship to God? What are the ethical bases of religion? 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 worldviews.
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.
Completion of this course will replace previous assigned grade and credit obtained in POLI 2F90.
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 and credit obtained 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 and credit obtained 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.
Restriction: open to GBLS, HIST (single or combined) and HIST (Honours)/BEd (Intermediate/Senior) majors until date specified in Registration guide.
Note: students minoring in Great Books/Liberal Studies or History may register prior to date specified in Registration guide. Contact the History Department.
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 1Q98 and 1Q99 (1F98) or permission of the instructor.
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 1Q98 and 1Q99 (1F98) or permission of the instructor.
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 and credit obtained 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 and credit obtained 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 and credit obtained 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 and credit obtained 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 such concepts 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 1Q98 and 1Q99 (1F98) or permission of the instructor.
The Ancient Epic Tradition
(also offered as CLAS 3F01 and IASC 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 ENGL or GBLS, or one credit from CLAS 1P91, 1P92, 1P95, 1P97.
Completion of this course will replace previous assigned grade and credit obtained in CLAS 3P00.
Ideas and Culture since 1850
(also offered as HIST 3P00)
Intellectual and cultural developments in Europe and America during the 19th and 20th centuries.
Lectures, seminar, 3 hours per week.
Restriction: open to GBLS, HIST (single or combined) and HIST (Honours)/BEd (Intermediate/Senior) majors until date specified in Registration guide.
Prerequisites: one HIST credit numbered 1(alpha)90 to 1(alpha)99 and one HIST credit numbered 2(alpha)00 to 2(alpha)99 or permission of the instructor.
Note: students minoring in Great Books/Liberal Studies or History may register prior to date specified in Registration guide. Contact the History Department.
Great Books Seminar III: Power, Reason and Imagination
Important works of art, literature, philosophy, science and theology from the 16th through the 19th centuries that shaped our understanding of social order and creativity.
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 and credit obtained 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.
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, ITAL 2F00, SPAN 2P20 and 2P21 (2F10) or permission of the instructor.
Note: given in English. May be counted as part of a major program in French, Italian or Spanish.
Completion of this course will replace previous assigned grade and credit obtained 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.
Banned Books
The study of important works of art, literature, philosophy and science that were banned for religious, moral or political reasons.
Lectures, 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 POLI (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 POLI (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 POLI (single or combined) majors until date specified in the Registration 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 or 2P93 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 POLI (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).
Faith, Philosophy, and Politics
(also offered as POLI 4P09)
Examination of challenges based upon revelation to the sufficiency of unassisted human reason as a guide to human political action.
Seminar, 3 hours per week.
Restriction: open to POLI (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: Modernity
Important works of art, literature, philosophy, science and theology from the 19th and 20th centuries that address such questions as: What does it mean to be modern? Is modernity to be greeted or opposed?
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 POLI 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.
The Modern City as a Cultural Object
(also offered as HIST 4V71 and VISA 4V71)
The city as the site of modernity in literature, poetry, philosophy, social science, music, technology, architecture, art and other forms of visual culture, using Paris from 1839-1939 as a case study. Other cities to be considered include Berlin, London, New York and VIenna.
Seminar, 3 hours per week.
Restriction: open to GBLS and VISA (single and combined) majors with a minimum of 10.0 overall credits, and to HIST (single or combined) and HIST (Honours)/BEd (Intermediate/Senior) majors with approval to year 4 (honours) until date specified in the Registration guide and then open to other students