Courses

Course: CLAS 320: Greek Literature | Songs for Ilion: the Trojan War in Archaic and Classical Literature
Term: Fall 2023
Section: AS01
Instructor: Dr. Jessica Romney

The age of heroes died on the fields of Troy, in the return to Greece. Their actions and deeds inspired bards, poets, tragedians, artists, historians, and more as the decade-long war against Troy cemented itself in the stories, literature, and histories of ancient Greece. In this course we will look at the memorialization of the heroes who fought at Troy, Greek and Trojan both, and the place of the great epics about Troy in the literary traditions of ancient Greece. We will begin with the mythic cycles, looking at the “plan of Zeus” to relieve the burden of humanity on the earth by setting great quests and wars among the Greek heroes; from the stories of the wars against Thebes to the Trojan War, the Iliad rises as an epic that celebrates the momentary brilliance of Achilles, his divine wrath, and the transcendent, uniting qualities of social connection and community that overcome the division of war. We will then turn to the lyric poets of the Archaic period, where the Trojan War served to memorialize a brilliant, now lost, past as the Homeric heroes offered impossible exempla for aristocrats to aspire to. The questioning of individual and community at the heart of the Iliad will then drive the performance of Trojan War scenes on the Athenian stage: what does the community owe a hero, dangerous and capricious, and what does the hero owe his community, particularly when they betray him? The class will then end by looking at the reception of the Trojan War and the retelling of an “old story for our modern times” (Odyssey 1.10, translated by Emily Wilson) and the continued relevance of the questions the Trojan War myth and Iliad pose for today’s world.

Prerequisites: A minimum grade of C- in one of CLAS 221, CLAS 225, or CLAS 270.

Permission Required: No

Course: HIST 411: Topics in Med & EM Brit. Hist. | Conflict, Community and Control, c.1450-c.1750
Term: Fall 2023
Section: AS01
Instructor: Dr. Rob Falconer

The history of the British Isles is itself a site of conflict. From at least the start of the sixteenth century, historians have attempted to conceptualise British history in a way that accurately reflects the interactions of the four constitutive nations that make up the British Isles. In this seminar-based course, students will discuss, criticize, and analyse readings that focus on a different forms of conflict that helped to shape the British Isles in the period leading up to the creation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707 (and tested it beyond that date). Through an examination of historiographical, social, religious, and political conflicts in the British Isles, we can arrive at an understanding of how conflict, community, and control shaped the lives of the inhabitants of the British Isles. Topics may include the Wars of the Roses; the Reformations in England, Scotland, and Ireland; Scolding (women and crime); Tyrone’s Rebellion in Ireland; Covenanters; The War of the Three Kingdoms; the Enclosure / Corn Riots of the seventeenth century; Glencoe; the Glorious Revolution of 1689, the Act of Union; and the Jacobite Rebellions.

Prerequisites: Minimum grades of C- in 9 credits of 200- or 300-level HIST, including at least 3 credits from HIST 206, HIST 211, or HIST 311.

Permission Required: No

Course: HIST 460: Topics in Canadian History | The Transformation of the Canadian Prairies, 1869-1905
Term: Fall 2023
Section: AS01
Instructor: Dr. Robert Irwin

Canada’s acquisition of British claims to Rupert’s Land and the Northwestern Territories in 1869 provoked the Red River Resistance and set the stage for a radical transformation of the social, cultural, economic, and ecological landscapes of the Canadian prairies. Canada established a system of government, made treaties with Indigenous people, imposed Canadian law, built a transcontinental railway, surveyed and settled the land, encouraged agriculture, ranching, and mining, and fought battles against the Metis and First Nation communities. The great transformation culminated in the formation of the provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta and the expansion of Manitoba in 1905. This seminar examines this era of change and discusses the lasting impacts.

Prerequisites: Minimum grades of C- in 9 credits of 200- or 300-level HIST courses including either HIST 260 or HIST 261.

Permission Required: No

Course: HIST 476: Topics: History of Religion | Secrets of Early Christianity
Term: Fall 2023
Section: AS01
Instructor: Dr. Sean Hannan

In this section of HIST 476, our goal is to rediscover the forgotten texts fueling early Christianity’s historical development. Documents left out of the Biblical canon are usually referred to as “apocryphal,” derived from the Greek adjective apokryphos: concealed, hidden, or secret. But how did these texts get to be so secret in the first place? To answer that question responsibly, we need to trace the history of four related debates about God in early Christianity. These debates concerned: (1) Jesus’ relation to the Torah (divine law as conveyed via the Hebrew Bible); (2) Jesus’ social function; (3) Jesus’ identity with God the Father; and (4) the reason that evil exists in a divinely constructed universe.

Prerequisites: Minimum grades of C- in 9 credits of 200- or 300-level HIST, including at least 3 credits from HIST 204, HIST 205, HIST 304, or HIST 308.

Permission Required: No

Course: HUMN 201: Human Relationships | Human Relationships - Isolation and Exile
Term: Fall 2023
Section: AS01
Instructor: Dr. Kelly Summers

This iteration of HUMN 201 will explore human relationships through a prism of estrangement and loss. As the world struggles to recover from the disruptions unleashed by COVID-19, isolation is obviously a timely topic; but a selection of “great works” (both texts and images) from across human history will show it is also a timeless one. Whether the result of disease, war, banishment, incarceration, religious revelation, ostracization, or a natural disaster like a shipwreck, humans have often become alienated from each other and themselves by circumstances beyond their control. This course will compare how individuals have endured and in some cases thrived during episodes of enforced solitude.

Prerequisites: None

Permission Required: No

Course: PHIL 383: Philosophy of Film | Film Noir and Philosophy
Term: Fall 2023
Section: AS01
Instructor: Dr. Alain Beauclair

This course will offer an examination of film noir, and its treatment of various philosophical themes including but not limited to agency, technology, progress, masculinity, sexism, pragmatism, fatalism, and nihilism.

Prerequisites: Minimum grade of C- in 3 credits of 200-level PHIL courses.

Permission Required: No

Course: PHIL 402: Topics in the History of Philosophy | Descartes’s Meditations
Term: Fall 2023
Section: AS01
Instructor: Dr. Susan Mills

Descartes’s Meditations on First Philosophy is one of the most well-known books in the history of philosophy, but that is not to say that it is well understood by most who know of it. For many students of philosophy, it is one of the first philosophical texts that they read. For others, the Meditations is a text known by reputation rather than by close examination. In this seminar, we will address those faded memories or misunderstandings with a close study of the Meditations as the philosophically subversive and rhetorically sophisticated text that it is. A selection of scholarly articles about Descartes’s philosophy will be assigned to support and enhance that study.

Prerequisites: A minimum grade of C- in 9 credits of 200- or 300-level PHIL, with at least 3 of those credits at the 300-level.

Permission Required: No

Course: PHIL 403: Topics in Moral Philosophy | Emerson’s Ethics
Term: Fall 2023
Section: AS01
Instructor: Dr. Alain Beauclair

This course will examine the ethics of Ralph Waldo Emerson. The class will involve a close reading of a number of his essays, lectures, and addresses in an effort to understand his moral project of self-formation.

Prerequisites: A minimum grade of C- in 9 credits of 200- or 300-level PHIL, with at least 3 of those credits at the 300-level.

Permission Required: No

Course: CLAS 321: Latin Literature | Love in the City: Ovidian Poetry in Augustan Rome
Term: Winter 2024
Section: AS01
Instructor: Dr. Colin Bailey

In this offering of CLAS 321, we will focus on the poetry of Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso). Building on the work of his elegiac predecessors, Ovid continually innovated on established poetic conventions, drawing attention to the poet’s poetic activity. With particular attention to the Amores and the Metamorphoses, we will discuss and analyze how Ovid self-consciously blurs distinctions between poetic genres and how he innovates upon elegiac tropes as he explores and complicates constructions of masculinity, femininity, and gender in the politically and socially charged period during which Augustus established imperial rule in Rome.

Prerequisites: A minimum grade of C- in one of CLAS 221, CLAS 225, or CLAS 271.

Permission Required: No

Course: FREN 365 Topics in Francophone Lit | History and Literature
Term: Winter 2024
Section: AS01
Instructor: Dr. Marla Epps

This course focuses on the different ways French and francophone literature engages with the past. We will look at works written during times of historical upheaval, texts written about the past, and consider the evolution of the ways in which French and francophone literature writes about history. Texts will be selected from across the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries and from a variety of geographical locations. This course is conducted in French.

Prerequisites: A minimum grade of C- in FREN 298 or any 300-level FREN course.

Permission Required: No

Course: HIST 410: Topics in European History | The French Revolution
Term: Winter 2024
Section: AS01
Instructor: Dr. Kelly Summers

This seminar will immerse students in the exhilarating world of the French Revolution, which was inspired by noble Enlightenment ideals yet unleashed terrifying violence. With close attention to primary sources and scholarly debates, we will use the tools of intellectual history to define the era’s most contentious terms: what was a revolution, anyway? What about a constitution, a right, or a republic? A radical, as opposed to a reformer or conservative? As students design and execute independent research projects, they will also apply varied lenses of analysis (political, economic, military, religious, gendered, colonial, etc.)—some complementary, some contradictory—to illuminate the Revolution’s core causes, events, leaders, and constituencies, as well as its legacies for France and the world. It is recommended that students have some additional familiarity with the era from HIST 215 and/or 315.

Prerequisites: Minimum grades of C- in 9 credits of 200- or 300-level HIST, including one of HIST 205, HIST 209, or HIST 210.

Permission Required: No

Course: PHIL 301: Comparative Philosophy | Comparative Philosophy: The Philosophy of Meditation and Contemplation
Term: Winter 2024
Section: AS01
Instructor: Dr. Cyrus Panjvani

In this course, students philosophically examine meditation, contemplation, and related notions, in connection with themes of desire, detachment, self-denial, suffering, soul, and spiritual development in Eastern and Western perspectives. We will focus on primary sources, such as the Satipatthana Sutta (Discourse on the Foundation of Mindfulness) of the Buddha, the Dark Night of the Soul by St. John of the Cross, and related writings of Simone Weil, as well as secondary sources.

Prerequisites: A minimum grade of C- in 3 credits of 200-level PHIL courses.

Permission Required: No

Course: PHIL 305: Studies in the Self | Aquinas On Human Nature
Term: Winter 2024
Section: AS01
Instructor: Dr. Celia Hatherly

In this course, we will read St. Thomas Aquinas' Treatise On Human Nature from his philosophical masterpiece, the Summa Theologiae. We will investigate whether a human being is just their body, their immaterial mind, or both, along with whether and how humans can have knowledge and free will. We will also consider the barrings that these questions have on the nature and possibility of human happiness. We will also consider objections to Aquinas's arguments raised by later Medieval philosophers.

Prerequisites: A minimum grade of C- in 3 credits of 200-level PHIL courses.

Permission Required: No

Course: PHIL 370: Studies in Political Philosophy | Aristotle
Term: Winter 2024
Section: AS01
Instructor: Dr. Edvard Lorkovic

This term, PHIL 370 focuses on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics and Politics. Although we will work through both texts in their entirety, we will also pay special attention to the relation between virtue, good rule, and education: which qualities of character do citizens and rulers need in order to be good, and how should a state cultivate those character traits? Students should expect to read both of Aristotle’s texts at least twice during the semester.

Prerequisites: A minimum grade of C- in 3 credits of 200-level PHIL.

Permission Required: No

Course: PHIL 402: Topics in History of Philosophy | The Philosophy of Religion of Simone Weil
Term: Winter 2024
Section: AS01
Instructor: Dr. Cyrus Panjvani

In this course, students study the philosophy of religion of Simone Weil. In addition to being a philosopher and prolific writer, Weil was an activist committed to several compassionate endeavours, and has been characterized as a mystic. The relation between her life and thought is a point of focus in the course. Students will read primary and secondary source materials, be expected to participate regularly, do presentations, and complete a major paper.

Prerequisites: A minimum grade of C- in 9 credits of 200- or 300-level PHIL, with at least 3 of those credits at the 300-level.

Permission Required: No

Course: FREN 365: Topics in Francophone Literature | Representing the City
Term: Fall 2024
Session: AS01
Instructor: Dr. M. Epp

This course focuses on the different ways in which a city can be portrayed in literature, taking two francophone cities, Paris and Montreal, as examples. Students will study a variety of literary texts as we consider the multiple ways these cities can be experienced and represented. In addition to analyzing the urban landscapes of Paris and Montreal, students will be asked to use the techniques studied in class to create their own representation of Edmonton. This course is conducted in French.

Prerequisites: A minimum grade of C- in FREN 298 or any 300-level FREN course

Permission Required: No

Course: HIST 442: Topics Imperialism/Colonialism | Transportation, Communication, Globalization
Term: Fall 2024
Session: AS01
Instructor: Dr. A Forth

In a world where smartphones and AI are rapidly transforming the way human beings interact with each other and with the environment around them, it is useful to learn lessons from previous eras of technological change. This class examines nineteenth-century innovations in transportation and communications, and the ambiguities they entailed. How did steamships, railways, and telegraphs change the world in the “first age of globalization”? To what extent did new technologies promote human empowerment and liberation? How did they connect people together and facilitate cross-cultural interaction and understanding? And in what ways did they foster imperial domination, social segregation, racial discrimination, ecological degradation, and human alienation?

Prerequisites: Minimum grades of C- in 9 credits of 200- or 300-level HIST courses.

Permission Required: No

Course: HIST 460: Topics in Canadian History | Spies, Lies, and Deception? Intelligence and National Security in Canadian History
Term: Fall 2024
Session: AS01
Instructor: Dr. M. Carroll

Communists, sex scandals, and the suspension of civil liberties. Who would have thought it all happened right here in Canada? From Fenian threats against the British Empire to the Cold War to modern day economic espionage, Canadians have been intricately involved in espionage activities whether they were aware of it or not. This seminar will examine the role that Intelligence and National Security has played in Canadian history throughout the 20th Century focusing on events, personalities, policies, and the relationship to human rights.

Prerequisites: Minimum grades of C- in 9 credits of 200- or 300-level HIST courses including either HIST 260 or HIST 261

Permission Required: No

Course: HIST 476: Topics: History of Religion | Mysticism & Gender
Term: Fall 2024
Session: AS01
Instructor: Dr. S. Hannan

This sectionof HIST 476 focuses on the connection between mysticism and gender. A 'mystical' text is one that aims to communicate an experience of God's presence or other special knowledge concerning the divine. Our goal is to track how mystics transformed their own relationship to the category of gender, which led to celibate monks referring to themselves as 'brides,' medieval nuns wielding power over popes, and the general undermining of categories like 'male' & 'female'

Prerequisites: Minimum grades of C- in 9 credits of 200- or 300-level HIST, including at least 3 credits from HIST 204, HIST 205, HIST 304, or HIST 308.

Permission Required: No

Course: PHIL 305: Studies in the Self | Aquinas on Human Nature
Term: Fall 2024
Session: AS01
Instructor: Dr. C. Hatherly

In this course, we will read St. Thomas Aquinas’ Treatise On Human Nature, which comprises questions 75-89 of the first part of his philosophical masterpiece, the Summa Theologiae. We will investigate whether a human being is just their body, their immaterial mind, or both, along with whether and how humans can have knowledge and free will. We will also consider objections to Aquinas’s arguments raised by later Medieval philosophers.

Prerequisites: A minimum grade of C- in 3 credits of 200-level PHIL courses.

Permission Required: No

Course: PHIL 402: Topics in the History of Philosophy | Anne Conway
Term: Fall 2024
Session: AS01
Instructor: Dr. S. Mills

In this seminar, we will study the curious and captivating ideas of the early modern English philosopher Anne Conway (1631-1679) through a close and careful reading of her one and only book, The Principles of the Most Ancient and Modern Philosophy. A selection of contemporary scholarly sources about Conway’s life and philosophy will be assigned to support and enhance our study. Course requirements will include participation, presentations, short papers, and a final essay.

Prerequisites: A minimum grade of C- in 9 credits of 200- or 300-level PHIL, with at least 3 of those credits at the 300-level

Permission Required: No

Course: PHIL 403: Topics in Moral Philosophy | Josef Pieper
Term: Fall 2024
Session: AS01
Instructor: Dr. E. Lorkovic

This seminar examines the work of the twentieth century German Catholic philosopher Josef Pieper. Pieper is at once an original and a derivative thinker. He draws his main ideas and arguments from the classical philosophical tradition, mainly ancient Greek and high medieval Christian, but orients that tradition to issues, both philosophical and existential, that are timely. Instead of presuming to give new answers to old questions, Pieper gives old answers to new questions. We will approach his writings through the lens of some of the classical texts he appreciated, works by Plato, Aristotle, and St. Thomas Aquinas. Because Pieper wrote many short books and longer essays, we cover a lot of varied ground, but our focus is leisure, the freedom from the exigencies of the workaday world by which humans cultivate their humanity through, among other practices, moral self-development and philosophy.

Prerequisites: A minimum grade of C- in 9 credits of 200- or 300-level PHIL, with at least 3 of those credits at the 300-level

Permission Required: No

Course: FREN 370: Topics in Francophone Culture | La chanson en français (Songs in French)
Term: Winter 2025
Session: AS01
Instructor: Dr. S. Hayman

Songs are part of daily life and reflect the societies, cultures, and eras in which they are rooted. In this course, students explore songs in French from around the French-speaking world (Europe, Canada, Louisiana, the Caribbean, Africa). Focussing primarily on the early twentieth century to the present day, students study the cultural and historical background behind the works of some of la francophie’s most prestigious artists and songwriters while analyzing the literary value of the lyrics. Many different musical genres will be examined such as pop, folk, rock, reggae, raï, hip-hop, rap, indie, etc. This course is conducted in French.

Prerequisites: A minimum grade of C- in FREN 298 or any 300-level FREN course

Permission Required: No

Course: HIST 410: Topics in European History | Global Paris
Term: Winter 2025
Session: AS01
Instructor: Dr. K. Summers

Since the eighteenth century, Paris has functioned as a cosmopolitan site of Enlightenment and existentialism; revolution and counter-revolution; occupation and resistance; free speech and censorship; empire and decolonization; and Jacobin, anarchist, and Islamist terror. Using the tools of transnational urban history, this course situates the rich political, social, and cultural history of modern France and its empire in the cafés, grand boulevards, criminal underworld, universities, and immigrant suburbs of its capital city.

Prerequisites: Minimum grades of C- in 9 credits of 200- or 300-level HIST, including one of HIST 205, HIST 209, or HIST 210

Permission Required: No

Course: HIST 411: Topics in Med & EM Brit. Hist. | Household Material Cultures in Early Modern Britain
Term: Winter 2025
Session: AS01
Instructor: Dr. R. Falconer

Coffee and chocolate, silks and cotton, shoes and spices, furnishings and food, the demand for such items from nearly every level of society reflected changing attitudes towards consumption and changing household priorities from the sixteenth through to the eighteenth century. In particular, the period 1600 - 1800 saw a marked increase in the consumption of luxury items across the British Isles. According to the historian Jan de Vries, a new range of consumer goods available in England and Scotland from the 17th century led to an increase in ‘family labour’ in order to achieve the new ‘consumption possibilities.’ Using what de Vries has called an ‘Industrious Revolution’ as a theoretical model, in this course we will examine conspicuous consumption, trade networks, shopping, labour and leisure, household spending priorities, material cultures, trade expansion, and a host of other subjects related to early modern social and cultural history. In the words of Craig Muldrew: “before the widespread harnessing of machine energy based on carbon fuel, almost all labour had to be done by men and animals. Bread and beer were the petrol of this world.”

Prerequisites: Minimum grades of C- in 9 credits of 200- or 300-level HIST, including at least 3 credits from HIST 206, HIST 211, or HIST 311.

Permission Required: No

Course: HIST 490: Topics in Social History | The Early Modern Household
Term: Winter 2025
Session: AS01
Instructor: Dr. R. Falconer

Contemporaries in Early Modern Europe argued that marriage and the ‘family’ were essential for forging social relations. As such, the ‘family’, or more accurately, a well–maintained household, was idealised as the cornerstone of a well–governed, well–ordered society. And while the function or rationale behind early modern households can be questioned – location of economic development, place of residence and authority – there is no disputing that local magistrates regarded the ‘family’ as key to establishing stability within the community. By examining the role of patriarchy, the construction of hierarchy and discipline, the nature of structure and place, and the influence of gender and sexuality within the household this course will encourage students to think more broadly about the important place of the household within early modern European societies.

Prerequisites: Minimum grades of C- in 9 credits of 200- or 300-level HIST courses.

Permission Required: No

Course: PHIL 303: Studies in Philosophy and Religion | Kierkegaard, Johannes Climacus, and Socrates
Term: Winter 2025
Session: AS01
Instructor: Dr. Cyrus Panjvani

In this course offering, students read and examine the following works written by Kierkegaard under the pseudonym ‘Johannes Climacus’: Philosophical Crumbs, also known as Philosophical Fragments, and Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Crumbs/Fragments. These are both important yet ironically titled works by Kierkegaard that explore themes of subjectivity, truth, faith, and the relation to the divine. In addition, the course will consider the bearing of Socrates in these works. In particular, we will examine the relation between Socrates and Johannes Climacus in the Philosophical Crumbs/Fragments. Students will also read the Apology and at least one other selection from Plato.

Prerequisites: A minimum grade of C- in 3 credits of 200-level PHIL.

Permission Required: No

Course: PHIL 341: Studies in Early Modern Philosophy | Descartes, Malebranche, and Liebniz
Term: Winter 2025
Session: AS01
Instructor: Dr. S. Mills

The goal of this course is to gain a critical understanding and appreciation of the rigorously systematic and awesomely ambitious philosophies of three early modern continental European philosophers: Descartes (1596-1650), Malebranche (1638-1715), and Leibniz (1646-1716). As we will discover through close study of various primary texts by these philosophers as well as secondary source articles by contemporary scholars, there are ties among these three philosophers that go much deeper than time and place. Our study will highlight the complexity of their respective—yet related—philosophical systems of thought as we focus particularly on the theme of relationships, including God’s relationship to the natural world, the metaphysical and moral relationship between God and humans, the cause-and-effect relationships among corporeal objects, and the psychophysical relations of minds and bodies.

Prerequisites: A minimum grade of C- in 3 credits of 200-level PHIL.

Permission Required: No

Course: PHIL 403: Topics in Moral Philosophy | Justice as a Virtue
Term: Winter 2025
Session: AS01
Instructor: Dr. C. Hatherly

This course is concerned with the question, posed in Plato’s Republic, of whether it is rational to perform an unjust but advantageous action when no punishment is possible. We will consider the tradition of denying the rationality of such actions given that justice is a virtue and human happiness consists in acting in accordance with virtue. We will consider this theory (that only the just are happy) as it is presented in the works of Plato, Aristotle, and St. Thomas Aquinas.

Prerequisites: A minimum grade of C- in 9 credits of 200- or 300-level PHIL, with at least 3 of those credits at the 300-level.

Permission Required: No