Examines the role and representation of the Christian in popular film. It identifies and analyzes ways in which contemporary cinema reflects, shapes and embodies Christian myths, histories, rituals and doctrines and non-Christian attitudes towards them.
Explores how the colonial encounter shaped the academic study of Buddhism and the image of Buddhism in the West. Reading popular and scholarly accounts of Buddhism written from the early nineteenth century to the present day, the course analyses how the legacy of and response to colonialism have coloured our understanding of Buddhism as a […]
Explores Buddhist responses to the changing conditions of modernity in Southeast Asia. Seeking to understand Buddhism as a living religion, it investigates how Buddhists have drawn on religious narratives, symbols and rituals to respond to social and political challenges from the nineteenth century to the present, including issues of religious reform, colonialism, nationalism and ethnicity.
This course places the development of novels, tales, folk operas and other narratives focusing on the family within the context of changing cultural patterns in modern Korea.
This course explores the development of literature and films in North Korea from the late 1940s to the present. Students use various approaches to the study of literature and film to analyze literary works and films in the context of the evolving socialist culture. Emphasis is placed on the historical background and the continuity and […]
This course provides students with practical experience analyzing issues through the lens of Black Canadian Studies with placement in the offices of elected officials. Prerequisites: 21 credits of courses in the Black Canadian Studies Certificate with a B+ average in those courses Open to: Students completing the Black Canadian Studies Certificate
This course draws on oral history, novels, and some of the most accessible and entertaining social scientific studies to explore some of the central themes of both Latin American and Caribbean history and contemporary life, including revolution, resistance and repression, rural life, politics of race relations, and national and international migration. Prerequisite: One course in […]
This course examines the effects of technologies of information and communication upon the construction and functioning of a personal identity. The course also examines the cultural, political, psychological and spiritual dimensions of recent changes in the nature of personal identity.
Examines texts in Ancient Greek philosophy, the Bible, and modern European thought in order to assess the fruitfulness of viewing modern self-consciousness in terms of the relationship of faith and reason.
This interdisciplinary course compares the cultural history of two modes of affective experience: melancholy and nostalgia. Based on carefully selected examples, students follow how the two concepts were framed and shaped over time in medical, literary, philosophical and other discourses, and how they have in turn shaped European identity.