The questions that Renaissance humanists cultivated are central to the humanities today: why study the Liberal Arts? How does the life of the mind relate to an active professional career? What defines humanity? What is the individual’s proper relation to the state? What is the role of sexuality, faith, and money in the pursuit of […]
This course examines British debates on science and its application to pressing moral and social problems through a reading of the scientific literature on materialism, the mind, and the economy during the Victorian era.
This course examines the social construction of 'the Black athlete' through race and gender politics, and capitalism. Sport is more than entertainment; the course considers sport as a site where stereotypes, prejudices, and inequalities manifest themselves. It also considers athletes who engage in resistance, and examines the ways dominant representations of Blackness in sport are […]
This course is an introduction to the historical, cultural, and religious formations of the Sikh tradition from its beginning in fifteenth-century Punjab to its present-day transnational and diasporic forms.
This course addresses the relationships that Indigenous peoples maintain to their lands in Canada, and their resistance to Canadian resource extraction. It also explores how Canadians have learned to accept unsustainable economies based on consuming Indigenous lands as resources, and possible alternatives.
Introduces students to the canon of European utopian fiction in historical context. Emphasis will be on literary utopias and their social, cultural, and philosophical backgrounds.
An exploration of the ways fantasy has shaped modern sensibility since the French Revolution.
This course examines a collage of complex relationships and emergent cultural identities in Israel. Readings relate to Israel's roots, cultural milieu, contemporary and classical literary canon. Readings, subtitles, and analysis are in English, peppered with selected translations of Hebrew terminology.
Offers an interdisciplinary exploration of the values and cultures of Israel and their evolution, expression, and reflection in cultural production, social structures, politics and history.
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 […]