HUM 199Y1Y
Section L0021
University College Course
Course Timetable

Representing the Holocaust

This seminar has as much to do with the artistic challenge of narrating and exploring, understanding and commemorating the horrors of the Nazi genocide, as with the genocide itself. A selection of texts by survivors dealing with their own experiences will be studied, as well as of novels and films in which later generations grapple with the historical, psychological and metaphysical reverberations of the Holocaust (the aptness of the generally accepted term will have be considered). Works by Tadeusz Bowrowski, Elie Wiesel, and Primo Levi will be central; others by such writers as Philip Roth, Aharon Appelfeld and Art Spiegelman will also be studied in addition to films by Claude Lanzmann, Marcel Ophuls and Steven Spielberg.

Professor H. Auster, Department of English and University College

HUM 199Y1Y
Section L0031
Victoria College Course
Course Timetable

Renaissance and Baroque Rome

The city of Rome during the Renaissance and baroque was a city in transformation. The return of a united papacy under Martin V in 1420 had created the conditions for the rebuilding of the ruined former capital of the western world. Subsequent popes rebuilt aqueducts, roads, bridges and walls; and many began the reconstruction of important monuments to associate their rule with the authority of ancient emperors. New churches, such as the new basilica of St Peter, and great palaces reflected the important of splendour and magnificence. This course will investigate the building, the culture and the society of Rome from 1420 until 1680.

Professor K. Bartlett, Victoria College

HUM 199Y1Y
Section L0032
Victoria College Course
Course Timetable

Human Nature in Great Literature

In class discussions we will explore various issues concerning human nature, linking perspectives and ideas expressed in great literature to our own experience and reflection. Some issues: the nature and origin of good and evil in human beings; meaning in human life; sexual passion and spiritual aspiration; responding creatively to suffering and dying; playing roles versus being authentic; origins of terrorism and responses to it. Some perspectives: existentialism, psychotherapy. spirituality, sexual liberation, radical activism, "common sense", militant atheism and mysticism. The literature (mostly brief works) will be from Camus, Arthur Miller, D.H. Lawrence, Tolstoy, Alice Munro, Rachel Remen, T.S.Eliot and Dostoevsky. Class discussions will arise from "think-piece" responses to guide-questions concerning an assigned common reading. Each student will write, and be prepared to read, two such (200-250 word) responses for each seminar. The course encourages reflective reading, clear writing and co-operative dialogue.

Professor D. Evans, Victoria College

HUM 199Y1Y
Section L0033
Victoria College Course
Course Timetable

The Many Faces of Berlin

Over the last century Berlin has experienced more radical changes than any other city in the Western World. It was the capital of an empire, a republic, then, a dictatorship. It has been an occupied city, a divided city, a re-united city, and now a capital once again. It has been the artistic and cultural hot spot of Europe, the bull's eye for the Allies' military invasions of World War II, the point of collision between Western and Soviet ideologies, and a major centre of the European Union. This course examines the political and cultural history of these changes, including: Berlin’s emerging status as a metropolis; the path to World War I under Kaiser Wilhelm; The “Golden Age” of German silent film; the Bauhaus design school; the rise of Hitler and life in the Third Reich; Berlin in “Year Zero 1945”; divergent East/West solitudes during the Berlin Wall; and the resurgence of Berlin as the capital of a re-united Germany. No knowledge of German is required. Required Textbook: BERLIN, by David Clay Large.

Mr. P. Harris, Victoria College

HUM 199Y1Y
Section L0034
Victoria College Course
Course Timetable

Words, Rhythm, and Music: What Makes a Song?

Vocal music is a powerful part of the human experience and has aroused strong reactions, ranging from outright condemnation to the belief that words, rhythms and music, if perfectly fitted together, will elevate the listener to a higher moral plane. Opera and oratorio ideally produce this effect, while on the popular level, work songs have invigorated the labourers who sang them and the singing of psalms and hymns have reputedly given the singers the courage to face death. Songs have given voice to protest and revolt, whether of rebellious teenagers, disaffected and marginalized social groups, the union movement, or fighters against tyranny, but they have most often articulated the passions that arise from love. They encourage us to fall in love, and try to comfort us when love has gone, and explore all the feelings in between. Songs drawn from a wide range of popular and classical music will be studied.

Professor J. McClelland, Victoria College

HUM 199Y1Y
Section L0035
Victoria College Course
Course Timetable

Seeing and Believing: Patterns of Visual Communication

This course examines forms of visual communication and perception from the Medieval to the modern periods. The focus is not on art, but on pictures and their patrons, as well as on their recipients or consumers. Yet another perspective is added by the academic discipline that invented the tools that serve to scrutinize these phenomena: the History of Art. Believing by means of seeing pictures, or believing – as a vital prerequisite to understand the pictures' message – are complex issues through time. It will become apparent that in most cases pictures could not and cannot be understood entirely by themselves, but only jointly with written or oral sources and traditions. Pictures are definitely contextual; they depend on and reflect a changing society. The seminar will disclose some of these mechanisms and historical structures concerning the conception and contextual understanding of pictures while choosing some paradigmatic examples from Medieval to modern times.

Professor J. Wollesen, Victoria College

HUM 199Y1Y
Section L0036
Victoria College Course
Course Timetable

Roots of Western Ideas

We are fond of regarding ourselves as the heirs of Greece and Rome. And yet, several other civilizations contributed to the development of Western ideas. In this seminar course we examine the political, social, literary, intellectual, and religious concepts of the Greek, Roman, Persian, Semitic, and Egyptian civilizations that made a lasting impact on Western ideas. In those civilizations lay the roots of Western ideas. Students are encouraged to work on a topic of their own choice.

Professor S. Nigosian, Victoria College

HUM 199Y1Y
Section L0037
Victoria College Course
Course Timetable

Interpretation of History in Society, War, Family and Religion

The course examines the role of the interpretation of history in contemporary society, war, family, and religion in a global setting. The steering effect of historical interpretation is usually quite unseen in daily life. But it takes only the barest scratch of the surface of any sustained human action to reveal the historical infrastructure underneath. The interpretation of history emerges as the bonding of past, present, and future, as people reconfigure alternative pasts in order to construct competing futures. To accomplish the analysis the course looks at various societies, from Canada and France to Russia and China, several religions, from Islam to Christianity to Hinduism, wars big and small, and the ordinary life of families in Toronto. The course proceeds as a seminar, and mingles theorizing about the interpretation of history with the exploration of specific cases. The aim is to understand how the interpretation of history operates in contemporary life. The readings are selected from among pivotal traditional texts (the Bible, the Qur'an, Vishnu Purana), books by historians and theorists (Adam Smith, Marx, and Mao), and materials of contemporary culture.

Professor T. McIntire, Victoria College

HUM 199Y1
Section L0038
Victoria College Course
Course Timetable Michelangelo and the World Around Him

This course will examine the life and times of Michelangelo with an eye to understanding not only the individual, but also the society around him. Michelangelo's works will be examined for their political messages, their innovative artistic theories, their strong religious element, their neoplatonic content, and their powerful sexuality. This course will give students an insight into Italy during a crucial period in Western European history, and will teach them how to examine primary sources, both visual and verbal, with an eye to context and meaning. Readings will include a selection of works by Michelangelo and his contemporaries, among whom Lorenzo de’Medici, Girolamo Savonarola, Vittoria Colonna, and Giovanni Della Casa.

Professor K. Eisenbichler, Victoria College

HUM 199Y
Section L0039
Course Timetable

God and the Machine in Philosophical and Scientific Discourse

Did God create the cosmos as a solution to a fantastic engineering problem? Until very recently, this suggestion, which is of ancient origin, was a staple in scientific, philosophical and popular literature. What underwrites this suggestion is an analogy between God’s act of world-making and the production of contrivances by human artisans, one that scientists have exploited as the basis for mechanical models of natural phenomena. In this course, we will use the divine artisan analogy as a test case for examining the power of analogous reasoning in shaping our beliefs about the natural system and the place of humanity in it. A secondary goal of this course will be to examine the influential role that religious convictions have played in the development of our scientific worldview.

Professor B. Baigrie, Victoria College

HUM199Y1Y
Section L0041
Trinity College Course
Course Timetable Raiders, Traders, and Invaders: the Vikings and Their Descendants

Views on the Vikings are as mixed today as they were throughout the medieval period, and it can be hard to find an unbiased perspective: the Vikings themselves left few contemporary written records, and the reliability of oral accounts allegedly transmitted across many centuries is open to question. By contrast, the Vikings’ victims were often literate and often Christian, and sought to depict their attackers as instruments of diabolical wrath. What is clear is that the Vikings used their swift and efficient ships to penetrate almost every corner of the then-known world, and indeed to push the boundaries further, heading East deep into Russia, South into the Mediterranean and to Byzantium and beyond, and West as successive settlers of Iceland, Greenland, and (for a time) North America. Moreover the descendants of the Vikings had a deep impact in many lands, not least in England (where they seized the crown), in Normandy (where they seized power and branched out again to conquer England), and in the expanded Scandinavian homelands of Denmark, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden where they still remain. This course will cover aspects of the histories, cultures, languages, and literatures of these remarkable peoples across more than a millennium.

Professor A. Orchard, Trinity College and Centre for Medieval Studies

HUM 199Y1Y
Section L0051
St. Michael’s College Course
Course Timetable

Christianity: A Religion?

It is a relatively common assumption among our contemporaries that Christianity is a religion like any other. The assumption is usually unexamined. On the premise that human beings share a common religious sense, the course would first address the question of such a sense and of its manifestations in religions which precede Christ. Then, by a close examination of Christ's claims and the reports of his encounters with his first followers as expressed in the Gospels, the course will explore the extent to which the features of these claims and encounters differ from or are similar to those of the other religions. Such a study may put in doubt the notion that religions can easily be said to be equivalent to each other.

Professor G. Silano, St. Michael’s College

HUM 199Y1Y
Section L0171
Course Timetable

The Partition of British India in 1947

The partition of British India in 1947 was the subcontinent’s most traumatic experience in the 20th century. Millions of people were displaced and almost a million lost their lives. This course examines the events leading up to the partition, and its tragic aftermath which continues to this day. The tragedies associated with the partition have been portrayed in many novels, short stories and memoirs in both English and in the regional languages, especially Hindi, Punjabi and Bengali. This course will also discuss historical events, literary sources, and the resulting personal and political consequences. Several novels, such as Khushwant Singh’s Train to Pakistan and Bhisma Sahney’s Tamas, have been filmed in recent years. Such films have a deep emotional impact even on the grandchildren - many of them living in Canada - of those who lived through the violent days of 1947-48.

Professor S. Sandahl, Department of East Asian Studies

HUM 199Y1Y
Section L0172
Course Timetable

Cultural Politics in Modern China

This course will explore the political uses of literature, art, and the media in China both as instruments of state control and as vehicles for protest and social mobilization. The changing role of China’s modern intelligentsia as heirs to the scholar-gentry tradition will be given particular attention. Class discussions will be based on documentary films, literature and various other sources.

Professor V. Falkenheim, Department of East Asian Studies

HUM 199Y1Y
Section L0191
Course Timetable Death, Loss & Remembrance

This course will challenge students to understand the mechanics of literary, philosophical, artistic, and other cultural works that are preoccupied with loss and memory. We will consider novels (some in translation), poetry, philosophical argument, and popular culture essays. Texts about loss tend to provide a forum for exploring the conditions of subjectivity, or personal identity. They also complicate such exploration, however, and so often become negotiations of the reciprocal relationship between the forms of expression and self-identity. We will examine texts from such perspectives as form and formal experimentation, literary and artistic self-fashioning, narrative voice, and form and culture. Since we will also ask questions about the limits and function of the aesthetic, students will have opportunity to study the particulars of literary, philosophical, and cultural structures within broader conceptual frameworks. Authors studied will include (but will not be limited to) Don Delillo, Albert Camus, Virginia Woolf, Pat Barker, Allen Ginsberg, Richard Wilbur, Thomas Hardy, Cathy Song, Seamus Heaney, Thomas Nagel, S. Kiekregaard, S. Freud and others. Professor K. Weisman, Department of English

HUM 199Y1Y
Section L0192
Course Timetable

Reading and Writing Poetry

This course aims to contribute to the next generation of readers and writers of poetry, by making the experience of poetry as compelling and as eclectic as possible. We will be reading, discussing, writing, and exchanging poems in a stimulating but relaxed atmosphere designed to combine the free creative expression of a workshop approach with the breadth of input available through university study. We will build on the students' previous acquaintance with poetry and its means of expression (often drawn from non-literary areas such as popular music, photography, and cinema), and we will open up new possibilities by reading and discussing a broad range of mostly contemporary poetry and poetics. Class discussion will arise both from focus (questions directed to assigned readings) and from work (shopping one another's creative efforts). Although an introductory text on the workings of poetry will be used as a common resource, the main emphasis will be on learning by doing--becoming more sophisticated readers and writers of poetry by reading and responding creatively to the wealth of poetic resources available in our culture and our community. In addition to reading such contemporary Canadian poets as Don McKay, Dennis Lee, Sue Sinclair, and Matt Robinson, and such European and Latin American poets (in translation) as Yves Bonnefoy, Tomas Transtromer, Czeslaw Milosz, Pablo Neruda, and Luis Borges, we will take advantage of the flourishing city poetry scene and attend some of the many live poetry readings in Toronto. Students will be expected to read, look, and listen widely, to write freely, and to give their most enlightened and helpful attention to one another's works.

Professor J. Reibetanz, Victoria College

Jointly sponsored by Victoria College and Department of English

HUM 199Y1Y
Section L0211
Course Timetable

Wonder

Wonder is the energy that motivates us in the world. It is the first passion, according to René Descartes, and it has no opposite. This course explores wonder, its manifestations and meanings. We will look at wonder first in the form of the rainbow, the perfect sign of the wonder that links nature, the human form, and the desire to make sense of the world. Next we will look at wonder in terms of exploration and discovery; marvels of the wunderkammer; and finally the creation of artificial life. Wonder is often about the spaces between: between life and death, normal and the extraordinary, secular and divine, human and artificial. Wonder blurs these boundaries disrupting our preconceptions and making us look anew. Our material for study will include literature, science, philosophy, films, art, institutional studies (the library, the university), and psychology.

Professor C. Anderson, Department of Art

HUM 199Y1Y
Section L0212
Course Timetable

Visual Culture in the Ancient World

Much of what we know about life in the ancient world comes not from texts but from tangible historical documents in the realm of art and architecture. This seminar course will examine the ways that people in Ancient Greece and Rome expressed their ideas through art objects and buildings, andthe degree to which such material will help us reconstruct life in the ancient world. Of particular interest is the way that many of the artistic and intellectual solutions devised by ancient artists and architects have become the models for modern thought and practice, a topic also to be addressed in this seminar.

Professor C. Katsougiannopolou, Department Art

HUM 199Y1Y
Section L0221
Course Timetable

More Than Just a Dinner Party. High Style and Serious Attitude in the Literary Salon of 1830s Paris

Money, Love, Heroism, the Occult, War, Revolution, Royalism and Opium; such were the variety of subjects explored in a literary salon in Paris around the year 1830. In an age of uncertainty (the Napoleonic Age over, the restored Monarchy faltering under a mad king), a generation of writers, artists and musicians were searching for meaning. Several met regularly in the elegant drawing room of the Arsenal library in Paris, creating what is called a salon. Along with exquisite food, music and dance, they took a steady diet of wit, debate, humour and passion. We will explore their works as well as the literature, music and art of those who inspired them. Victor Hugo, Balzac, Stendhal, a young Franz Liszt, the artists Delacroix and David d’Angers all had attended. Finding inspiration in Byron’s poetry, Hoffmann’s tales, Goethe’s and Scott’s legendary works and the music of Berlioz and Chopin, their ideas about artistic style and conviction have influenced Western culture to this day. Readings are in English or English translation.

Dr. B. Ferguson, Trinity College and Department of French

Jointly sponsored by Trinity College and the Department of French

HUM 199Y1Y
Section L0222
Course Timetable

Writing the French Revolution

How does one tell the story of the great turning points in human affairs? When the lives of millions of people are radically changed - as they were by the reformation, the 1914-18 War and the Holocaust - it is hard if not impossible to get a handle on what really happened. Over the last two hundred years, the events known as the French Revolution (1789-94) have attracted the notice of all kinds of writers; rightly so, since many things that we take for granted in Western society (individual rights, representative government, the nation-state) had their origins in those tumultuous years. The purpose of this course is to compare the different accounts given by four distinct groups of commentators: contemporaries, who lived through the Revolution, whether as participants or observers from abroad; first-generation historians like Michelet and Carlyle, who wanted to celebrate a victory or deplore a terrible mistake; novelists such as Dickens and Hugo who tried to convey to their readers the sense of what it must have been like to live through a period of such violent change; and finally, modern historians who use the advantages of hindsight and better documentation to give us their version of the truth. The working premise of the course (though not necessarily its last word) is that writing history (what "really" happened) and writing fiction (what "might have" happened) have much more in common than is generally believed.

Professor G. Falconer, Department of French

HUM 199Y1Y
Section L0251
Course Timetable

Ancient Europe

Early European history was determined by constant interaction between northern barbarians and the civilizations of the Mediterranean. This interaction was tumultuous and often tragic, but it infused the continent with an energy which would enable it ultimately to dominate most of the world. The seminar will study: the Ice Age hunters and gatherers, the early European farming cultures; the invading Indo-European tribes who brought with them the ancestors of almost all present European languages, the Celts whose vigorous and imaginative culture was later absorbed by Rome, the Germanic tribes of northern Europe (from the Teutons to the Vikings) who took over the Western Roman Empire, and the Frankish empire of Charlemagne at the beginnings of the Middle Ages. We will study how these peoples lived, what they produced in technology and art, what they thought and believed, and finally, how they were similar to, or different from us.

Professor W. Hempel, Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures

HUM 199Y1Y
Section L0252
Course Timetable Turks, Jews and Other Foreigners in German Culture

According to Samuel Huntington, the end of the cold war marked the beginning of a new form of conflict: the so-called "clash of civilizations" primarily between Islamic and non-Islamic cultures. While the current global "war on terror" between the West and Islam in the wake of 9/11 appears to confirm Huntington’s theses, the main goal of this course is to challenge it on several grounds: Are civilizations as cohesive as he seems to think? How do transnational movements and multicultural societies play into the picture? And what about alliances between countries across the civilizational divide? We will address these questions by focusing on the history and representation of ethnic and religious minorities in Germany. Course themes include: Crucifiers, Crusaders and Infidels/Islam and the West/Humanism and the East/Germany’s Imperial Fantasies/Nationalism and Genocide/Creating Colonies Inside/Jews and Turks: Discourses of the "Other"/ Transnationalsim and the Borders of Europe. Class discussions will mainly be based on fictional and theoretical texts and on short film clips.

Professor E. Boran, Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures

HUM 199Y1Y
Section L0261
Course Timetable

The Dragon and The Eagle: China vs. the United States in the Asian Arena

There is little question that both China and the United States are powerful players in the Asia of the 20th century. This seminar will study past, present, and future relations between these two superpowers of the Asia-Pacific region. Emphasis will be placed on considering what historians and historical analysis can bring to an understanding of current issues and to longer-term planning. Topics will include: early 19th century commercial relations and the Opium Wars; later 19th century missionary activities, the scramble for markets, and the "Open Door" notes; earlier 20th century reactions to a Chinese revolution and nationalism; mid-20th century struggles over the future of China in which Japan and the Soviet Union (as well as the United States) played major roles and the establishment of the People’s Republic of China; the seismic shifts beginning with Nixon’s visit to Beijing and the take-off of Chinese economic power. The seminar will regularly utilize current media resources, particularly television and websites. Scholars from the university community and guests from the worlds of law, business, and government will be occasionally invited to join discussions.

Professor R. Pruessen, Department of History HUM 199Y1Y
Section L0262
Course Timetable

Telling Lies with Maps

How has map-making served to deceive and misinform the public through the ages? This course considers this question from many perspectives. It examines the fluidity of political frontiers in history and today. It explores the subjective side of map-making, asking what map-makers thought was important to include or omit on their maps. And it investigates how a "sense of place" can animate local autonomy movements, nationalism, and efforts at globalization. We also consider other means to display quantitative information visually. What makes a good map legible or illuminating? What makes a bad map confusing or deceitful? Are certain kinds of data (e.g. election results) displayed to best effect in map form, or do maps skew the results? This course encourages students to share in the sense of discovery that has inspired explorers and map-makers alike. It may also help them catch out liars and cheats who still use maps to hoodwink an unsuspecting public.

Professor J. Retallack, Department of History

HUM 199Y1Y
Section L0271
Course Timetable

Machiavelli and the Power Game

The Prince, The Discourses, and The Art of War are certainly the best known works of Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527). Yet this versatile Renaissance writer also produced comedies (including La mandragola), humorous letters, a misogynistic novella about the devil who took a wife, and some meditative verse. The course will cover both the political tracts and the more literary compositions (all in English translation) and will stress those concepts that are central to the thought and teachings of Machiavelli, especially his idea of the natural pursuit of power and his analysis of strategies needed to obtain and hold it, including the art of effective performance required of public leaders and private schemers.

Professor O. Pugliese, Department of Italian Studies

HUM 199Y1Y
Section L0272
Course Timetable

Images of Alterity: Representation of Otherness in Modern Italian Literature and Film

Historically, Italian society has enjoyed a certain degree of homogeneity. In this seminar we will explore how images of the Other, as perceived threat to this cultural and religious homogeneity, are represented in modern Italian literature and film. From the persecution of the Jews under the Fascist regime to the conflicted response to recent waves of immigration, the works studied will provide students the opportunity to examine the representation of various forms of Otherness through the analysis of the North/South divide, social class, race, sexual orientation, gender and ethnicity.

All readings will be in English and films will have English subtitles.

Dr. R. Longo Lavorato, Department of Italian Studies

HUM199Y
Section L0273
Course Timetable

The Fine Art of Murder: Reading Detective Fiction

Since its inception in the Nineteenth century, detective fiction has been one of the most popular literary genres, immediately recognizable in spite of the many changes it has undergone. While Sherlock Holmes, with his scientific approach to investigation, remains one of its most enduring archetypes, he has little in common with the morally complex private eyes of the "noir," with the cops of the procedural novel, or with the socially engaged sleuths of feminist mysteries, to name just a few permutations of the figure of the detective. This course will explore the many faces of detective fiction, addressing questions such as: Why does crime hold such a fascination for modern audiences? What kind of pleasure do we derive from reading stories that often follow established conventions and rules? How have the notions of "good," "evil," and "justice" changed in the history of the genre? What do these novels about crime and punishment tell us about broader social and political issues?

Professor L. Somigli, Department of Italian Studies

HUM 199Y1Y
Section L0274
Course Timetable

Sorrows and Joys of the Immigrant Experience and the Myth of America

This course will examine the way North America was seen by Italians in the first half of the twentieth century and the living conditions that led entire villages to seek their fortunes in the new world. It will also examine the economic and psychological difficulties the new Italo Canadian immigrants experienced in a search for a new home and a new identity. In the first term the image of America will be studied through the novels and films of Italian writers of the thirties and forties who projected both positive and negative feelings on it (Vittorini, Carlo Levi, Silone, Pavese). The new country was seen as a land of freedom, opportunity and economic growth, with a strong and vibrant culture, but also as the home of crass capitalism, shameless profiteering, economic inequality and ethnic discrimination. In the second term the novels and poetry of Nino Ricci, Gianna Patriarca, Mary di Michele and other contemporary Italo Canadian writers will be studied to examine the feelings of nostalgia, isolation and difficulty in adapting to Canadian culture they and other immigrants experienced, as well as their successes and triumphs in the new country. All readings and films will be in English or with subtitles.

Professor G. Katz, Department of Italian Studies

HUM 199Y1Y
Section L0275
Course Timetable

Classics of the Italian Cinema. Obsession, Passion, Dreams and Death

Forbidden loves for unattainable men and women. Melodramatic stories of love and death. Sensual and dangerous femmes fatales who destroy the men they attract and angelic women who save them. This is the stuff of Italian opera which appears in various guises throughout Italian cinema, even when the films reproduce everyday reality. In this course we will examine how Italy’s most important directors have dealt with these burning themes. We will go from Visconti’s melodramatic films where love is destructive and brings inevitable death (including Ossessione, Senso, Death in Venice), to Antonioni’s frozen passions in an alienated world (including Il grido, L’avventura, Blow Up), to Fellini’s humourous view of the world (including The White Sheik, 8 ½). We will also look at the way De Santis, Bertolucci, Wertmuller, Pasolini and Scola combine tales of love with political messages, using realistic stories, myth and satire. We will read some novels and short stories, on which the movies are based. All course material is in English or with English subtitles. Students will be able to view the movies either during a set class time, or independently at the Audiovisual Library (Robarts, 3rd floor), or by renting them from a video store. Most movies shown are available in the AVL library.

Professor G. Katz, Department of Italian Studies

HUM 199Y1Y
Section L0301
Course Timetable

The Status of Women in Judaism

Status questions concerning women cannot be studied in isolation. The topic is developmental, constantly changing and comparative in nature. This seminar will examine status in the social and legal domains of Judaism. Comparison and contrast will be made to the status of other groupings such as men, children, slaves, Gentiles, caste, and class within various Judaic systems (biblical, Second Temple, late antiquity, Medieval, pre-modern and contemporary). In the context of justification and apologetics we shall critically examine approaches to status in various genres of literature which present ideas such as separate but equal, the different nature of males and females and the different spiritual needs and obligations of men and women. Assigned readings for discussion in each seminar will be selected from the texts and included in a reading package. Reading and preparation of the material assigned for class discussion will be a major component of the course.

Professor T. Meacham, Department of Near & Middle Eastern Civilizations

HUM 199Y1Y
Section L0302
Course Timetable

Israelis and Palestinians As They See Themselves

The self-reflections of various segments of Israeli and Palestinian culture are examined, primarily through the medium of literature. Literary sources allow us to familiarize ourselves, not only with the views of insiders, but also with the issues that are of primary concern to each culture. The writers set the rules of the game, more often than not, stepping out of the circle of facts provided by the media and third-party observers. We will hear from those who are significant sources of cultural information, but who may not be considered newsworthy in more accessible sources about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Professor R. Sandler, Department of Near & Middle Eastern Civilizations

HUM 199Y1Y
Section L0303
Course Timetable

Art, Love & Culture in the Middle East: Middle Eastern Literatures and Cultures in Translation

This course is designed to expose students to the richness of the languages and cultures of the Middle East, from antiquity to contemporary times. These include biblical, Egyptian, Persian, Hebrew and Arabic texts. The theme chosen to explore these literatures is "Art, Love, and Culture in the Middle East." Some of the questions to be addressed are: the integration of love and art in the cultures of ancient Israel, Egypt, Persia, Al-Andalus, Medieval Spain and Islam. How did the lyric sensuality of the biblical Song of Songs translate into allegorical, religious and mystical poems; how was love poetry integrated into art and culture; what interaction, if any, existed among the different linguistic communities? Did the themes of wine, women and love in poetry and art pose problems to the composers' adherents, and, if so, why and how? What is the importance of Middle Eastern languages and culture in contemporary world literature? What is their legacy? This course will be enhanced by presentations by experts in these languages and cultures in the form of guest lecturers, slide and musical presentations.

Professor L. Garshowitz, Department of Near and Middle Eastern Civilization

HUM199Y1Y
Section L0321
Course Timetable

Science and Religion

Science and religion are belief-systems about the nature of the world we live in. Both exercise immense influence, but there has always been tension and occasionally open conflict between them. The last serious display of hostility occurred when Darwinists confronted traditional Christianity over the origin and evolution of life on Earth, and forced many, but by no means all, Christians to revise their literal interpretation of the Old Testament. The beginning of the twenty-first century is witnessing a renewal of hostilities, with the publication of several polemical and highly-publicized attacks on religion, contrasting it unfavourably with the allegedly more critical, evidence-oriented methodology of science. This course will provide students with the tools to come to a reasoned evaluation of the claims and counterclaims, and to a view of the degree, if any, there is an intrinsic incompatibility between religion and science.

Professor C. Howson, Department of Philosophy

HUM 199Y1Y
Section L0331
Woodsworth College Course
Course Timetable

Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice in Her Time and Ours

Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen’s 1813 novel about spirited Elizabeth Bennett and forbidding Mr. Darcy, is the central focus of this seminar. Admired by both critics and readers since its publication, Pride and Prejudice rewards study both for its own sake, a model of English prose fiction and a revealing image of England on the threshold of modernity, and for what its contemporary popularity reveals about our time, which has witnessed an outpouring of retellings and adaptations of the novel since a highly successful 1995 BBC television production starring Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth. The seminar has two principal goals: to appreciate Austen’s fiction in historical context and to consider whether or not Austen’s original vision survives in contemporary versions of her story. Works studied will include Pride and Prejudice, a number of film and television versions of the novel, two other novels by Austen, and one or more modern novels and films based on Pride and Prejudice, including Bridget Jones’s Diary.

Dr. T. Moritz, Woodsworth College

HUM 199Y1Y
Section L0332
Woodsworth College Course
Course Timetable

Fatal Attraction: The Lure of the Villain in Literature

Why is it that literary villains, such as Satan, Iago, Heathcliff, and the Wicked Step-Mother get all the best lines? Villains are usually intelligent, devious, scheming, and nefarious, often eloquent and refined or even charismatic. The defining characteristic of many villains is that they know that they are villains and are often proud of it, yet as Tillyard comments “to be greatly bad, a man (or woman) must have correspondingly great potentialities for good”. Villains are not only compelling as fictional characters, but their wrongdoings often begin and drive the plot. In this seminar, we will examine some remarkable villains, including some female characters, selected from literature. After identifying some archetypal characters and themes, students will observe how villains have been reshaped over the centuries and what role women play in the villainous impulse. Texts include John Milton’s Paradise Lost, William Shakespeare’s Othello, Daniel Defoe’s Moll Flanders, Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights, Robert L. Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, Herman Melville’s Billy Budd, and Patricia Highsmith’s The Talented Mr. Ripley; a selection of fairy tales will also be used. Films will be integrated with written texts where appropriate. This seminar will assist students to develop skills in academic writing and seminar presentations.

J B Rose, Woodsworth College

HUM 199Y1Y
Section L0333
Woodsworth College Course
Course Timetable

The Force is With Us: A Consideration of Culture and Film

The impact that a simple movie may have upon us is easily underestimated. Movies can influence our feelings, values, beliefs, and ideas; in short, they can have a fundamental effect upon our understanding of ourselves and our world. Movies often directly or indirectly address questions of meaning, and implicitly or explicitly comment upon how we should live. This is just as true (if not more true) for popular movies as it is for movies that are considered more serious or artistic. This course will consider these issues by examining a variety of topics (violence, gender, redemption, love), critical approaches (ideological, psychological, theological, genre studies), and types of film (action, science fiction, horror, superhero, teen comedy).

TBA, Woodsworth College

HUM 199Y1Y
Section L0371
Course Timetable

Origins, Transition and Diversity in Christianity

This seminar course seeks to understand how a religion originating in one culture among one set of people expands to other peoples and enters new cultures, and how these new peoples and cultures begin to transform under the aegis of the new religion. The focus is on Christianity, the religion that in one form or another embraces one-third of the world’s population. It is the largest religion in the world, and distinctive in being the only religion with communities found in every country of the world. The seminar examines how Christianity with its extraordinary diversity came to occupy this position by the time of the twenty-first century. It draws examples from all continents and many periods, and considers factors from religion, missions, and spirituality to society, migration, empire, trade, and war. The study asks when and in what way various forms of Christianity entered and set up in new regions and new cultures? The dominant themes are origins, transitions, and diversification. The method is participatory, as students select and explore particular countries, and contribute to the overall project of the course.

Professor T. McIntire, Department for the Study of Religion

HUM 199Y1Y
Section L0372
Course Timetable

Society, Religion and Architecture in the Ancient Mediterranean

How did society function 2000 years ago in the Eastern Mediterranean? What features of its architecture would have struck a careful observer? How did religion influence urban forms? This seminar will examine the countries from Italy eastwards around the great inland sea, emphasizing the intersection of various cultural features (architecture, art, urban design, religion, literature, beliefs, burial practices, daily life, for example). The approach will emphasize ways in which Greek and Roman religion influenced the shapes of cities and towns, and how gradually new religious movements such as Mithraism and Christianity reshaped its character. Attention will be paid to the juxtaposition of physical evidence and literary productions reflecting specific cities or regions in the eastern half of the Mediterranean, using authors such as Strabo, Pliny the Younger and Pausanias as guides.

Professor P. Richardson, Department for the Study of Religion

HUM 199Y1Y
Section L0381
Course Timetable

Language, Power and Identity

What is the relationship between language and identity? What is linguistic nationalism? How are language rights encoded in laws? Where do dialects end and languages begin? What is the relationship between language and religion? What is a standard language? In this course we will examine and contrast political and identity issues in terms of the languages and dialects of South Eastern Europe (including Albanian, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Croatian, Macedonian, Romany, and Serbian), and issues arising from the break-up of the former Soviet Union. During the first term we will also discuss key issues in language and politics that have occurred in other regions, including Canada and the United States.

Professor C. E. Kramer, Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures

HUM 199Y1Y
Section L0382
Course Timetable

Border Crossings: A Journey into Hungary and Central Europe

This course pursues the theme of border crossings on various planes. It investigates the main features and key elements of Hungarian and Central European cultures, with a special emphasis on the connections between distinct disciplines and arts, such as history, literature, ethnography, folklore, film, painting, photography and music. The course also looks into the question of nation, nationalities and multi-nationality, comparing their development and characteristic features in Hungary and Central Europe to their manifestation in Canada. Literary representations of actual border crossings are also examined.

Professor J. Kenyeres, Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures

HUM 199Y1Y
Section L0401
Course Timetable

Dying of Love: Sexuality, Identity and Power Throughout the Ages

The preoccupation with love and sexuality has dominated Western European thought in fictional and non-fictional texts from classical antiquity to the present. Love and sexual desire have been presented as passions that undermine reason and result in physical sickness; that can be sublimated into philosophical knowledge; or that can be played as a game. The performance of human affectivity according to different cultural scripts has been central to the sense of the formation of gender and class identity in Western culture. Some of the authors to be discussed are Plato, Ovid, St. Augustin, Petrarch, Garcilaso, Montemayor, Shakespeare, Neruda, F.F. Coppola, Zayas, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Freud, Foucault, to mention but a few. All readings will be in English. Students will be invited to bring their own textual examples (visual or written) to complement the syllabus.

Professor S. Munjic, Department of Spanish and Portuguese

HUM 199Y1Y
Section L0402
Course Timetable

Twentieth Century Caribbean Culture and Society

During the twentieth century, the Caribbean has produced a large number of writers and thinkers of great regional and international importance, including several Nobel Prize winners. Pursuing a pan-Caribbean perspective, this course will examine novels, poems, short stories and films from across the Caribbean and its different linguistic zones. It will focus on key themes in Caribbean culture: colonial and postcolonial identity, resistance culture, exile and migration, tourism and globalization. These will be examined in the context of the historical moments out of which they emerged: the labour strikes of the thirties, the independence struggles and the impact of the Cuban Revolution during the fifties and sixties, and the onset of international mass tourism and globalization during the last few decades of the century. In classroom discussions, we will also seek to bring out the central relevance of these Caribbean themes to a global, international understanding of the present time.

Professor N. E. Rodríguez, Department of Spanish and Portuguese