Courses

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