This course examines the wide range of lives, experiences and histories of Black peoples in Canada by focusing on expressive cultures. The approach is broadly interdisciplinary and we will study a range of Black Canadian literature (novels, poetry, plays) as well as other forms of cultural production such as film, musics, and visual art. Through […]
The Digital Humanities aims to conceive imagine, experiment, and create a substantive humanities-related digital project that critically interrogates a research topic of personal interest focused on humans and human communities. In the process, students strengthen their project management and digital literacy skills. Previous experience with digital media is not required or expected but genuine curiosity […]
An exploration of the ways fantasy has shaped modern sensibility since the French Revolution.
Shiism is the oldest self-identified movement in Islam, defined by the belief that Muhammad appointed Ali as his successor and transmitted to the Imams his charismatic authority. The course explores the imprint of these beliefs on Shi'a Quranic exegesis, theology, and jurisprudence; on gender, popular practices, pilgrimage sites; and the expression of Shi'i piety in […]
Indigenous language and cultural revitalization is centrally important-not only for providing Indigenous peoples with a sense of pride about their identities, but for the knowledge the languages contain about living sustainably in the world. This course addresses the importance of language and cultural revitalization efforts through focusing on Indigenous languages and cultures.
Explores the representation of terrorism and terror in a range of forms, disciplines and historical contexts, complicating the simplistic binary of good and evil characterizing terrorism that functions in dominant political and media discourse.
This course assembles a selection of late twentieth- and early twenty-first century life writing by Black thinkers across boundaries of form and geography. In addition to traditional forms of autobiographies and memoirs, we read poems, letters, and essays as modes of worldly articulation of the self, family, and community.
An examination of the various modes, models, functions and traditions of fantasy, this course includes consideration of mythology and folklore material, utopian and dystopian literature, romance and horror, psychological studies, and speculative fiction. Historical contexts are examined in detail, drawing on appropriate theoretical materials and classic fantasy texts.
Nietzsche's famous, prophetic claim that "God is dead" is often taken as describing the declining significance of God within modernity. Adopting neither a pro- nor anti- theistic stance, this course critically examines the relationship between atheism and modernity in Western thought and culture by drawing upon religious, philosophical, scientific, literary, historical, sociological, artistic, and cinematic […]
This course examines contemporary manifestations of antisemitism and Islamophobia in Canada. To provide historical context it explores the antecedents of anti-Jewish and anti-Muslim thought in the medieval and early modern periods. The course is interdisciplinary in nature drawing on both Humanities (primary texts, films, literature) as well as social science approaches. It begins by providing […]