This course introduces Modern Standard Chinese (also known as Mandarin). This course is designed for two major groups of students with different initial advantages in learning Chinese: a) those who speak the language but cannot read characters, and b) those who know characters but cannot speak the language. Standard pronunciation, grammatical structures and the writing […]
This course provides students with the fundamentals of modern standard Korean in basic conversational & grammatical patterns, assuming that the students have no or little previous background knowledge of Korean. The objective of the course is to equip students with basic spoken and written communicative skills in the interpersonal mode in most essential daily life […]
Basics of spoken Japanese, with strong emphasis on immediate practical usefulness in everyday situations, and on the relationship between facets of language and those of social phenomena. Writing is introduced after some competence in spoken Japanese is acquired: the two Kana syllabaries, approximately 120 Kanji 'Sino-Japanese characters' and elementary reading are introduced. Video files are […]
This course serves as an introduction to Modern Standard Chinese, variously known as "Putonghua" (Common language), "Guoyu" (National language), and "Guanhua" (Mandarin). Classroom activities will focus on: 1) proper pronunciation, development of listening comprehension and oral skills, 2) essential grammatical structures of the language, and 3) acquisition of written Chinese. Students are expected to regularly […]
The myths of the ancient Greeks and Romans constitute a continuous tradition that stretches back beyond the writing of history down to our present day. These narratives have survived for millennia because they continue to compel, fascinate, and inspire their audiences, despite differences in language, historical era, and social context. The legends of complex, larger-than-life […]
Two historical cultures have had an important role in shaping modern thought: the Graeco-Roman and Judaeo-Christian. This course explores these cultures through selective study of their literature, philosophy and religious thought. Successful completion of this course partly fulfills General Education requirements in the Faculty of Liberal Arts and Professional Studies. Alternatively, it can be counted […]
A course for students with little or no previous training in Latin. The course covers the rudiments of Latin grammar and provides practice in the translation into English or French of sentences and short passages from Latin authors.
This course examines the discipline of history through the major works of Greek and Roman antiquity. The course begins with the origins of the historical discipline and proceeds to examine how it changed in response to social and political crises.
Many great writers have reused the literature of the past in order to create new works of art. In order to understand the works of Shakespeare, Milton, Racine, Montaigne, Sartre, and Shaw, among others, we need to know how they refashioned and transformed the works of classical authors, such as Aeschylus Sophocles, Euripides, Seneca, and […]
ANCILLARY COURSE. A study of early Mesopotamian, Greek, Jewish and Christian literature (1) to understand its original meanings and (2) to explore its relevance to our search for personal ethical norms, images of female and male, models of the just society and conceptions of transcendent reality. The course aims to teach students methods of literary […]