Capstone Courses 2014 – 2015
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ACS 900
Symmetry and Asymmetry from Nature to Culture
Jamin Pelkey
Fall 2014
Drawing on discoveries from astrophysics to anthropology, this course
explores the history and manifestations of symmetry – geometric, physical,
organic, musical, linguistic, rhetorical, textual, neurological, psychological,
social and political. Students apply evolutionary insights from cybernetics and
cognitive semiotics to their own embodied experiences and cultural
observations to discover potential ways in which the tensions between
symmetry and asymmetry provide analogical, or aesthetic, grounding for
human inquiry. Visual and textual symmetries become focal, with special
attention being given to chiasmus: the X figure.
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FRE 900
TBA
Dr. Kathleen Kellett
Fall 2014/ TBA
This course is intended to prepare students to undertake advanced studies in
French and/or Francophone cultures and literatures. While analyzing the
works of specific authors and/or literary and cultural movements (e.g.
surrealism, postcolonialism, écriture féminine, etc.) in the Francophone
world, students will learn to conduct bibliographical research effectively, to
use secondary sources critically, and to give seminar presentations as well as
to write a senior research paper on a topic of their choice. Although the
organization of this course and its readings will be largely determined by the
students' research interests, all students will be expected to do general
readings on discourse analysis as well as on literary and/or linguistic theory
and to discuss these readings as a group. Class preparation and participation
are essential.
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PHL 900
Art and Human Experience
David Ciavetta
Fall 2014
What is it like to experience an artwork as compared to the other, more
mundane objects we encounter in the world? Why are we drawn to artworks,
and what sort of thing do they put us into touch with? Is it merely a matter of
a certain kind of pleasure, one that we can ultimately do without? Or is art
somehow necessary to human living? Are artworks able to give us access to
meanings or truths that we are incapable of accessing in other ways? Is there
a clear distinction between art and everyday life, or is there an element of
artistic creativity at play in all our experience? Is personal identity itself
something that ought to be thought of on the model of an artistic
creation? Addressing these and similar questions will be the focus of this
class. We will be engaging in a close reading of a small selection of some of
the most influential philosophical texts ever written on the nature of art and
beauty. Authors to be considered may include Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche,
Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Arendt and Derrida.
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ACS 900
Aboriginal Rights
Bob Murray
Fall 2014
As Dale Turner put it, “[a]s Canadians begin this millennium, understanding the
meaning of Aboriginal rights, in both so-called theory and practice, will be one
of our most immediate serious moral and political challenges.”
This course considers the meaning of Aboriginal rights as an inter-group moral
issue viewed from different perspectives. By their very nature inter-group
moral issues are charged, complex, and multi-faceted.
First of all, the
differences across Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal perspectives are
characterized in terms of fundamental philosophical and spiritual differences.
Furthermore, the social circumstances concerning Aboriginal rights have been
morally problematic in group-differentiated ways, and this gave rise to quite
different perspectives on the basic workings and fairness of society. In that
case, inter-group discussions are prone to further misunderstandings, which
would only make our inter-group issues even more charged, complex, and
multi-faceted from what they already are. In this light, the basic question of
our course is the following: How is inter-group deliberative dialogue on the
meaning of Aboriginal rights possible, and what would be the meaning of
Aboriginal rights determined in that way?
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ACS 800
Corporate Responsibility
Prof. Alex Gill
Winter 2015
A growing number of Canadian corporations are playing a more active role in
addressing community issues, taking them beyond their normal focus on
profitability. This increasing trend towards “corporate citizenship” has
attracted both criticism and praise. Students in this version of ACS 800 will
explore this debate and conduct practical case studies of Canadian
corporations, their nonprofit partners and the social issues they address. The
results of these research projects will be presented at an end-of-term
community event organized by the students and open to the university,
media and broader public.
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ENG 900
The Sacred and Secular in Contemporary Fiction and Culture
Dr. Randy Boyagoda
Winter 2015
This course will study a series of contemporary novels -- by Salman Rushdie,
Orhan Pamuk, Marilynn Robison, and others — and approach them as at once
explorations and cultural documentations of traditional religion’s enduring and
complicated position in late secular culture. Drawing on work by philosopher
Charles Taylor, the seminar will assess how these writers represent the
consequences of fragmented and contested religious propositions on human
relations, self-understandings in individual and communal terms, and even
geopolitics, just as the writers themselves sometimes feel these consequences
personally, as a result of their writings. As we shall see, in their negotiations of
the sacred and secular in contemporary contexts, these works reveal
contemporary human experience as both pressured and invigorated by the clash
of traditional belief systems with the promises and perils of modernity.
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HST 990 (formerly HST 900)
The Battle for History: The World Wars in Canadian and American Film
and Literature
Dr. Robert Teighrob
Winter 2015
Both Canada and the United States participated in the world wars, and
were shaped profoundly by the experience. By examining the
representation of the wars in films, memoirs, novels, and history writing,
this course examines the myriad ways in which the memory and meaning
of the wars have been shaped, challenged, and altered in both nations.
We will analyse the war’s impact on the construction of national
identities, and the ways in which narratives of the war have been utilised
to inform present-day politics. Along the way we will discover that the
process of forgetting can be just as important to the establishment of
national war narratives as remembering, that tensions often exist
between the individual and collective (or “official”) memories of these
conflicts, and that some profound and unexpected differences are
apparent in the ways Canadians and Americans recall their war
experiences.
HIS 903 (Formerly HIS 900)
Gaming the City: Urban History through Play
Dr. Art Blake
Fall 2014
This seminar class offers you the chance to take ideas fundamental to
historical studies – analyzing evidence, forming arguments, writing clearly,
understanding political and cultural contexts – and apply them to the
meaning of "play" in and about cities. The games/play we will examine
address urban issues of justice, diversity, equality, and citizenship (local
and global). We will get out into Toronto as a lab for our class. No
technical knowledge or experience playing games is required. Two texts
we will read together are Mary Flanagan's Critical Play
(http://www.maryflanagan.com/writing) and Ian Bogost's Persuasive
Games (http://www.bogost.com/).
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HIS 957 (new)
Everyday Life in the Middle Eastern and North African City, c.1700-1950
Dr. F. Vejdani
Fall 2014
This course explores the material, social, and cultural history of the
Middle Eastern and North African city. It begins by considering the
environmental and geographical features impacting daily life in such cities,
such as access to water and food, street layouts, and building materials. It
then considers the city’s religious landscape, the spatial politics of
cooperation and contestation between various urban groups, and the
modes of municipal governance and law. Finally, the course examines how
colonial and state planning policies and reforms began to fundamentally
reshape city life over the course of nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In
addition to secondary readings, students will be introduced to visual
sources, travelogues, diaries, and works of fiction germane to the study of
the Middle Eastern and North African city.