Note: This is an archive. View current courses.
Please check this page regularly for updates. Course draft timetable is available for download; stay tuned for updated descriptions. Non-RLG Students: For permission to enroll in an RLG course, please bring a completed course add/drop form to the Graduate Administrator.
Grad-Undergrad DSR Timetable-2018-2019-Jan 11.xlsx
DSR Courses
RLG1000Y – PhD Method and Theory
J. Harris (fall) A. Mittermaier (winter) Tuesday 10-12 JHB317 The seminar is the core course of the Department’s doctoral program. It is required of, and limited to, all first year Ph.D. students of the Department. The purpose of the course is to provide doctoral students with a general understanding of the study of religion through constructive engagement with a number of fundamental challenges--theoretical and methodological--that commonly confront researchers in the field. Among the foundational themes to be explored: the ontological specificity of religious phenomena; the peculiarities of religious language, discourse, and worldviews; the varieties of religious institutionalization; the historical transformation and social “embeddedness” of religions; the embodiment of religion; and the constitution of religious selves or actors. To facilitate our seminar engagements with problems of theory, concept-formation, methods, data, and explanation, a number of major interpretive controversies in the study of religion will also be featured.
RLG3401H – Readings in Buddhist Texts I
Goodman Monday 1-3 JHB214 With the aim of familiarizing students with texts that have been critical for the development of Buddhist literature across regions, historical periods, and languages, this course offers a close reading of one or more primary texts in translation or in the source language(s). Texts read may include, but are not limited to, sūtras, tantras, jātakas/avadānas, verse, commentarial and scientific literature, historiography, and epigraphy. The course focuses on texts from East and Central Asia.
RLG2017H – Religion, Secularism, and Public Sphere
Scott Monday 3-5 JHB214 In a secular age, public religion is—to recall Mary Douglas’ definition of dirt—matter out of place. Since the early modern consolidation of the category, “religion” has been understood as fundamentally private, cordoned off from politics, economics, and other social domains both conceptually and (in some cases) legally. But despite the emergence of regulatory structures meant to circumscribe or privatize it, religion has remained a vital component of public life worldwide, thus posing significant problems for secularist modes of thought. To make sense of this predicament, recent work in the emergent field sometimes described as critical secular studies has undertaken a critical reappraisal of secularism and related categories. This seminar introduces students to this ongoing scholarly conversation by asking how a critical genealogy of “the public” can contribute to it. What is a public? What is the genealogy of this term as a category of modern thought, and what is its relationship to political liberalism (or “government by discussion”)? Assigned readings will survey critical approaches to these questions emerging from media studies, postcolonial studies, critical legal studies, queer theory, and affect theory, as well as various fields within religious studies.
RLG3610H – Wisdom in Second Temple Judaism
Newman Monday 1-3 JHB317 In different years, this seminar treats either books (Job, Ben Sira/Sirach, Ecclesiastes, Wisdom of Solomon) or thematic aspects (creation, prayer, eschatology) of the wisdom tradition as it evolved in the period 333 BCE - 70 CE with an eye to the relationship of these books to the broader swath of sapiential traditions of the era, including the instruction literature from Qumran. Seminar participation, seminar presentations, major paper. Requires working knowledge of Hebrew, Aramaic. Knowledge of Greek is also helplful.
RLG2064H – Constructing Religion
Coleman Tuesday 10-12 JHB214 How have different researchers constructed ‘religion’ as their object of study, and are some frameworks simply incompatible with each other? We discuss — but also provide critical assessments of — different theoretical and methodological frameworks. A running theme of the course relates to the politics as well as the epistemology of defining religion.
RLG3516H – Islamic Law and Society: Islam, Law, Anthropology
Moumtaz Tuesday 2-4 JHB214 In his book “The Impossible State,” Islamic legal historian Wael Hallaq called a modern Islamic nation-state an impossibility given the ethical underpinnings and goals of the sharia. This observation notwithstanding, various Muslim majority countries have attempted to create such a state and Muslims worldwide have been living according to the sharia under secular nation-states. This seminar introduces students to some fundamentals about Islamic law, the debate opened by Hallaq, and anthropological approaches to Islamic law, which have examined the way Muslims, lay and scholarly, talk about and follow Islamic law under modern states to both theorize modern transformations of the sharia and provincialize the modern state and its legal regime.
RLG3704H – Readings in Sanskrit Literature
Obrock and A. Rao Tuesday and Thursday 12-2 JHB317 In this course, we explore the major genres of Sanskrit literature, including epic, courtly poetry, inscriptional poetry, drama, and devotional praise poetry. Students will become familiar with philological methods for interpreting Sanskrit literature and learn about Sanskrit literary criticism and Sanskrit literary theory, in conversation with relevant theoretical debates in modern literary studies. The objective is to use the reading of Sanskrit to enhance our understanding of the religious and cultural history of South Asia. While class sessions will be devoted to primary source readings, this is a content course culminating in a final research paper.
JPR2051H – Fanaticism
Marshall Wednesday 10-12 JHB317
RLG3718H – Sikhs in Early Modern India
Vig Wednesday 2-4 JHB226 This course focuses on Sikhs in the early modern period (1550-1850), their cultural production, and their encounters with members of other religious traditions (Hindus, Sufis, Muslims, Jains). In addition to learning about shared historical, religious, and cultural contexts in which Sikhs and other groups interacted, students will be using theories and methods in Religious Studies to think critically and to develop skills in close reading of texts. Notions such as encounter, language choice, and religious identity will constitute a central thread and shape class discussions.
RLG2062H – Hermeneutics and Religion
DiCenso Wednesday 3-5 JHB317 This is a study of the way textual interpretation and theories of language have been central to the development of modern philosophy of religion. We begin with the foundational work of Schleiermacher and then move to a detailed inquiry into the hermeneutical contribution of Heidegger's Being and Time and Gadamer's Truth and Method. In particular, we explore the way in which twentieth century hermeneutical theory advances from the study of textual meaning per se to wider questions of the role of language in modes of consciousness and in the presentation of reality.
RLG3243H – The Synoptic Problem
Kloppenborg Wednesday 9-12 Location TBA This course investigates the literary relationships among the Synoptic gospels, the Gospel of Thomas, and other early gospels. Special attention is paid to the major solutions to the Synoptic Problem current today, the revival of the Griesbach hypothesis and the Farrer hypothesis, and recent advances in the Two-Document hypothesis. A range of issues will be presented, from the assessment of minor agreements to theories of synopsis construction. The currently competing hypotheses will be tested carefully by an examination of Synoptic texts.
RLG3200H – Politics of Bible Translation
Seidman Thursday 10-12 JHB214 This course will explore the history of Bible translation from antiquity to our own day, focusing on translation as political and cultural as well as linguistic negotiation. We will ground ourselves in the history of translation theory (and in particular in postcolonial translation theory), recognizing that theoretical approaches to the problem of translation themselves emerge from theologically and politically charged historical conditions. With our philological, cultural, and historical tools in hand, we will explore the history of translations and revisions of the Bible, immerse ourselves in unsual examples of translation (children’s Bibles, the Emoji Bible, R. Crumb’s Genesis, etc.), and try our hand at the craft of Bible translation.
RLG3701H – Vaishnavism
Raman Thursday 10-12 JHB319 This course will deal with the emergence of Vaishnavism as a dominant strand of religion from around the 6th century of the Common Era in the Indian subcontinent and its eventual efflorescence over several centuries culminating in the devotionalism of Eastern India in the 16th century. The survey over several decades of epigraphic, art historical, poetic, theological and ritual materials will enable one to get a historical perspective on why Vaishnavism has one of the dominant forms of Hinduism existent today.
RLG3280H – Christianities of South Asia
Locklin Thursday 10-1 TF 2 This seminar explores the claim of diverse Christian traditions in South Asia to be religious traditions of South Asia, with special attention to these traditions' indigenisation and social interactions with majority Hindu traditions. Our study will begin with an overview of the historical development of Christianity in India from the first century CE to the present and then move to close readings of selected primary sources, comprehending both significant theological writings and contemporary ethnographic approaches to distinctive social and ritual practices. Representative topics of discussion include the legacy of Thomas Christianity, Hindu-Christian dialogues, the Christian ashram movement, Dalit theology, conversion controversies, liturgical inculturation and religious hybridity.
RLG3647H – Jewish Exegetical Traditions Fox Thursday 12-2 BF 313 There is a division of scholarly opinion on whether Jewish Traditions in Antiquity and conflicts surrounding them are mainly a product of legalistic arguments (Yaakov Sussmann) or the by-product of ideological warfare (Josephus). Hence this course will look at a variety of parallel literatures along its horizontal axis from the Dead Sea Scrolls, Midrashic Halakha, Apocrypha and Pseudoepigrapha, Philo and Josephus. Along its vertical access, the ability to use later sources for earlier time frames will be critiqued using scholars such as Neusner and Urbach. This course will acquaint the graduate student with both these possibilities. Themes explored will vary from year to year and student to student. Ability in source languages is a prerequisite.
RLG2021H – Poetics of Mysticism
Hampton Friday 2-4 JHB214 The capacity to achieve mystical union with God requires the forgetting of one’s self, an infatuation with the divine, and, to communicate this experience to us, the capacity of the poet. Initially, Christian mystics reflected upon scriptural poetics. In confronting its figurative and lyrical language they developed an understanding of the poetic capacity of words to embody and express the mystical experience. The development of vernacular mysticism also brought about the flourishing of mystical poetry, which applied the poetic capacity demonstrated in scripture to the description of personal mystical experience. This course will consider some of the consummate poet-mystics of the Latin West. It will examine how the recording of mystical experience in poetic form allows the mystical writer to achieve a result not otherwise possible in discursive terms of communication. In our reading we will see how, through the practice of poetry, language becomes approximate and playful, capable of giving presence to absence, materiality to the immaterial, and lexicon to the non-lexical.
RLG1200H – MA Method and Theory
J. Harris Friday 10-12 JHB317 The M.A. Workshop Group is required of all first year M.A students of the Department. M.A. students will meet every week during the first term in a seminar course designed to provide rigorous training in method and theory in the study of religion. Topics considered include: historical development of religious studies, significance and application of interdisciplinary methodologies, key theorists and theoretical controversies.
RLG3212H – Martyrdom and Christian Identity
Smith Monday 10-12 JHB213 In late antiquity, narrative accounts of Christians who chose to suffer and die rather than renounce their beliefs emerged as a distinct (and hugely popular) literary genre. The “acts” of the martyrs did more than preserve the memory of those who had died—they helped to shape the very identity of the remembering community. In this course, we will examine the persecution of Christians in the Roman and Persian Empires historically, literarily, theoretically, and culturally. Why were Christians persecuted, and what can we know about the periods of persecution? Furthermore, how did Christians narratively represent and celebrate pain and death, and how did the literary “making” of martyrs forge a religious identity premised upon the collective memory of suffering? In asking these questions, we will consider how literary concepts about the body, death, and holiness ultimately drove the development of the cult of the saints.
RLG3702H – Debates in Classical South Asian Religion and History
Obrock Monday 11-1 JHB317 This course focuses on Classical India, from around 0 to 1000 CE. Beginning with the rise of theism and extending through the Gupta Empire and later dynasties, we will explore topics as diverse as the development of tantrism and temple cults, feudalism in India, and courtly culture. We will focus on transitions in the political, social, economic, and religious world of the Subcontinent and introduce major trends of interpretation in the secondary literature and the sources upon which these scholarly interventions have been based.
RLG3528H – Research Fluency in Islamic Studies
Virani Monday 9-11 JHB317 From working with fragile manuscripts to ensuring that Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) standards are met when preparing critical editions, from understanding how citations are used in research papers, to taking advantage of the latest software advances to automate research, the digital revolution has unleashed a sea-change in how scholarship is conducted in the humanities. At the same time, it has also revealed that many age-old tools and skills are still indispensible. Through experiential learning in the field of Islamic Studies, this course will give students hands-on exposure to both primary and secondary scholarship – from working with manuscripts to learning how digital advances can facilitate and improve the papers and books we write. Prerequisites: Advanced reading knowledge of Arabic, Persian, Urdu, Hindi or Gujarati (generally 3 years of study is sufficient, or native proficiency).
RLG2022H – Religion and Trauma
Hewitt Monday 11-1 LA212 An examination of religious myths, beliefs and experiences that express and at times contribute to transgenerational traumatic responses in communities and individuals. Exploration of ways cultural myths and religious narratives reveal multiple levels of psychodynamic processes that organize and give symbolic form to inchoate experiences of anxiety, grief, loss deriving from both personal (i.e. abuse, neglect) and social realities (I.e. Holocaust; war; violent social strife). Trauma stories from different religious traditions (i.e. Christianity: Crucifixion; Judaism: emergence of monotheism; Abraham and Isaac; Job) and popular spiritualities (i.e. varieties of ‘extraordinary’ experience) will be explored, focussing on the ways they can induce and symbolize trauma as well as they ways they attempt to provide resources for transforming healing processes (i.e, transpersonal psychology; selected examples of ‘New Age’ spiritualities).
RLG3763H – Readings in Sanskrit Philosophy
Rao Tuesday and Thursday 12-2 JHB317 Advanced reading of classical Sanskrit philosophical texts. Students will learn techniques and strategies for analyzing Sanskrit primary sources in hermeneutics, logic, metaphysics, aesthetics, or language philosophy. While the course will include a review of Sanskrit grammar, our focus will be on specific philosophical problems encountered in the readings.
RLG2020H – Early Christianity, Ancient Judaism, Ancient “Magic”
Marshall Tuesday 1-4 Location TBA Primary readings in curse tablets, grimoires, objects of ritual power, and literary accounts of socially marginal acts of ritual power, as well as of culturally approved acts of miracle. These will be coupled with readings in secondary literature on the methodological problem of “magic” as a category that often spans folk and academic domains as well as historical and critical scholarly literature on “magical” materials and related primary sources.
RLG3622H – Maimonides
Green Tuesday 2-4 Location UC F204 An introduction to The Guide of the Perplexed by Moses Maimonides, and to some of the basic themes in Jewish philosophical theology and religion. Among topics to be considered through close textual study of the Guide: divine attributes; biblical interpretation; creation versus eternity; prophecy; providence, theodicy, and evil; wisdom and human perfection. Also to be examined are leading modern interpreters of Maimonides.
RLG3402H – Readings in Buddhist Texts II
Emmrich Wednesday 10-12 JHB213 With the aim of familiarizing students with texts that have been critical for the development of Buddhist literature across regions, historical periods, and languages, this course offers a close reading of one or more primary texts in translation or in the source language(s). Texts read may include, but are not limited to, sūtras, tantras, jātakas/avadānas, verse, commentarial and scientific literature, historiography, and epigraphy. The focus will be on texts from South or Southeast Asia.
RLG3931H – North American Religions
Klassen Wednesday 4-6 JHB213 The course considers the varieties of religious practices in North America from anthropological and historical perspectives. Of particular interest are the ways religions have mutually influenced each other in the context of North America from the nineteenth to the twenty-first century. Each year it is offered, the course will focus on a specific theme, for example, millenialism, religion and consumerism or gender and the body, as found across a range of religious traditions including Christianity, Judaism, Afro-Caribbean religions, and new religious movements. In addition to analysis of primary and secondary texts, students will be required to submit a research paper (20-25pp.) concerning the theme under study.
RLG3517H – Shiʿi Studies: State of the Field
Ruffle Wednesday 10-12 JHB319 This course focuses on critical scholarship and traces the development of the field of Shiʿi studies in the 20th and 21st centuries. Notably, in the past 25 years there has been a significant increase in publications focusing on Shiʿism in such fields as religious studies, visual studies, anthropology, and history, which have contributed to our understanding of this second largest branch of Islam. This course will establish an intellectual foundation in the field and prepare students for more advanced research using primary sources and ethnographic fieldwork in Shiʿi studies.
RLG3621H – Modern Jewish Thought
Novak Wednesday 10-12 TF2 The course will consist of a close study of major themes, texts, and thinkers in modern Jewish thought. Attention will be focused on the historical development of modern Judaism, with special emphasis on the Jewish religious and philosophical responses to the challenges of modernity. Among the modern Jewish thinkers to be considered will be: Spinoza, Mendelssohn, Krochmal, Steinheim, Cohen, Rosenzweig, Buber, Scholem, Strauss, and Fackenheim.
RLG2060H – Religion and Philosophy in European Enlightenment
DiCenso Wednesday 3-5 JHB317 This is an advanced study of selected Enlightenment thinkers with a focus on their analyses of religion. The course is mainly devoted to the work of Spinoza, Hume, and Kant, although this may vary from year to year. Issues addressed include the rational critique of traditional religious sources and concepts, the relations among religion, ethics and politics, and the modern re-interpretation of religious ideas.
NMC2056H – Readings in Quran and Tafsir
Saleh Wednesday 1-3 Location TBA
RLG3217H – Social Networks and Elective Cults
Kloppenborg Thursday 9-12 JHB213 Social networks are critical keys to the transmission and exchange of various non-material and material commodities, including rumours, information, employment opportunities, influence, infections and religious cults. Social Network Theory provides useful models to account for the diffusion of elective cults within the deregulated religious environment of the ancient Mediterranean World (300 BCE--300 CE). The course will examine selected elective cults, reconstruct the social networks in which they are embedded, and develop theoretical models by which to account for the successes or failures in propagation.
RLG3645H – Jewish Legal Traditions
Fox Thursday 10-12 BF 313 This graduate course is designed to deepen the student’s abilities to deal with Jewish legal texts, most particularly the Babylonian Talmud. The significance of philology and relocation criticism in outlining the history of halakha as well as historicist division between Tannaim and Amoraim, Amoraim and Stammaim will be explored. Regnant positions of Rosenthal, HaLivni, Friedman, and others serve as a background to a critique of contemporary scholarship. Judicious use will be made of codes such as Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah and the Rabbi Joseph Caro’s Shulhan Arukh and their super commentaries. The topics explored vary from year to year and student to student and are subject to negotiations dependent on mutual interest. Ability in source languages is a prerequisite.
RLG3647H – Jewish Exegetical Traditions
H. Fox Thursday 5-7 BF 313 There is a division of scholarly opinion on whether Jewish Traditions in Antiquity and conflicts surrounding them are mainly a product of legalistic arguments (Yaakov Sussmann) or the by-product of ideological warfare (Josephus). Hence this course will look at a variety of parallel literatures along its horizontal axis from the Dead Sea Scrolls, Midrashic Halakha, Apocrypha and Pseudoepigrapha, Philo and Josephus. Along its vertical access, the ability to use later sources for earlier time frames will be critiqued using scholars such as Neusner and Urbach. This course will acquaint the graduate student with both these possibilities. Themes explored will vary from year to year and student to student. Ability in source languages is a prerequisite.
ANTHROPOLOGY
For further information on graduate courses offered by the Department of Anthropology, please visit their website. The following courses are accurate as of August 2018.
ANT6027HF Anthropology of Violence
Krupa Tue 1p-3p This course examines anthropological approaches to the study of violence. Violence has long been a central focus for anthropological research. One of the overarching ambitions in much of this research has been to make violence meaningful in some respect. Violence can be given meaning in any number of ways. For example, it can be analyzed as being part of a system of exchange, a system of sacrifice, a system of debt, a system of law-making, or a system of signs. More recently, however, studies of violence have started to emphasize the importance of failures in meaning. In this regard, it could be argued that violence describes the limits of the human capacity to give meaning to events. This course provides an overview of anthropological and related theories of violence. Some of the central theorists considered in the course are Benjamin, Arendt, Derrida, Foucault, and Agamben. The course then situates these theories within the context of ethnographic cases. The varieties of violence considered in these ethnographies range from forms of violence normally associated with small-scale societies (circumcision, tribal warfare, headhunting, witchcraft killings, etc.) to the forms of violence perpetrated by modern states and their citizens (modern warfare, torture, incarceration, rape, police violence, vigilantism, etc.)
ANT6059HF Anthropology and History
Kalmar Tue 5p-7p
ANT6003HF Critical Issues in Ethnography
Boddy Wed 10a-1p ‘Ethnography’ is at once a (relatively disciplined) practice of interpersonal engagement, and the results of this practice conveyed and transformed through writing. In this course we examine books variously positioned within the realm of ‘ethnography’ in an effort to become more familiar with what the genre entails. The selected texts are thematically linked by concerns for place, time, subject/person, power and subjugation. Each provides a point of departure for exploring a range of ethnographic methods and theoretical models. We examine issues such as authorial positioning and voice, use of ‘plot’, narrative style, characterization, and representation, all the while attending to the means by which the ethnography was produced and its historical and intellectual context.
ANT6060HF Anthropology and Indigenous Studies in North America
Maxwell Wed 1p-4p This graduate seminar course brings anthropologists and indigenous studies scholars into dialogue, through reading ethnographies centred on Indigenous experience in North America alongside influential, recent theoretical interventions in indigenous studies. We will contextualise this contemporary scholarship by reading critical histories of the formation of indigenous studies and anthropology as academic disciplines in the United States and Canada. Our discussions will span Indigenous sovereignties and kinship; settler colonialism as historicized and contemporary cultural and political formation; contributions and limitations of ethnographic research and academic critique; and the relationship between scholarship and activism. The course aims to foster critical and creative thinking among anthropology graduate students and those from other disciplines regarding the potential contributions and pitfalls of anthropological engagement with Indigenous people/s in the present.
ANT6014HF Media and Mediation
Cody/A. Paz Thu 12p-3p This reading-intensive seminar focuses on ethnographic approaches to the process of mass mediation, with specific reference to critical theories of semiotics. The course combines “classic” theoretical texts drawn from a range of disciplines with more empirical accounts of how communicative processes are integral to large-scale social formations, and how such processes influence our current understanding of mass politics, publicity, social movements, “big data,” racialization, warfare, digitalization, migrant diasporas, and the possibility of a global subject. Placing our understanding of media technologies within the more encompassing concept of mediation, this course asks what ethnographic accounts can offer to the interdisciplinary field of media studies.
ANT6055HS Anthropology of Subjectivity and Personhood
V. Napolitano Mon 12p-2p Personhood, subjectivity and human nature lies at the heart of anthropology inquiry: the meaning and relationship of self and other; how representations of human nature have developed and have shaped an imagination of a (Western) anthropos; the tensions between universality, particularity and singularity; the exchange between humans and non-humans. This course addresses the place of personhood and subjectivity from debates around themes such as the “Religious Subject”, the “Precarious Subject” and “Beyond-the-Subject”. The goal of the course is to introduce students to theoretical frameworks that have effectively been employed by anthropologists when studying personhood, subject and human nature, and also to think them through themes such as ‘will’, ‘blood’ and ‘cannibalism’. This course will be run as a seminar with evaluation based on participation, one oral presentation, weekly reports, and a final paper.
DEPARTMENT OF ART HISTORY
For further information on graduate courses offered by the Department of Art History, please visit their website.
FAH1175HF Early Islamic Architecture
H. Mostafa (Medieval) Wed 1p-4p A critical examination of seminal early Islamic sites, including the Mosque of the Prophet in Madina, the Great Mosque of Damascus, the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, select Umayyad desert palaces, Abbasid Baghdad and Samarra, and the palace of Madinat al-Zahra and Great Mosque in Cordoba. Themes discussed include cultural encounters with late antiquity, the ancient near east and Europe, the impact of nascent Islamic institutions, questions of patronage and the role of ceremonial.
BOOK HISTORY AND PRINT CULTURE
For information on graduate courses offered by Book History and Print Culture, please visit their website. The following courses are accurate as of June 2019.
CLASSICS
For further information on graduate courses offered by the Classics Department please visit their website.
COMPARATIVE LITERATURE
For further information on graduate courses offered by the Centre for Comparative Literature, please visit their website. The following courses are accurate as of June 2018.
JGC1855HF CRITICAL THEORY – THE FRENCH-GERMAN CONNECTION
Goetschel Wed 2p-4p This course examines central theoretical issues in Critical Theory with particular attention to the role that the “Frankfurt School” and its affiliates such as Benjamin, Kracauer, Horkheimer, Adorno, and others play in the context of modern German social and cultural thought. In France, thinkers like Foucault and Derrida respond to this tradition and enrich it. The course explores in which way the continuing dialogue between these thinkers informs current critical approaches to rethinking issues and concerns such as theorizing modernity, culture, secularization, multiculturalism, difference, and alterity.
COL5027HS MEMORY, TRAUMA, AND HISTORY
Lahusen Tue 12p-2p This research seminar will explore methods of analyzing narratives of survival which emerged out of experiences of repression in different historical contexts, such as the Holocaust, the Soviet Gulag, the Chinese system of ?reeducation through labor,? and trauma following personal abuse in America. During the course, various theoretical and methodological approaches will be engaged to examine how diaries, memoirs, literary works, and film confront past and present. Readings include Jacques Le Goff, History and Memory (1992), Shoshana Feldman and Dori Laub, Testimony: Crises of Witnessing in Literature, Psychoanalysis, and History (1992), Trauma: Explorations in Memory, ed. Cathy Caruth (1995), Dominick LaCapra, Representing the Holocaust: History, Theory, Trauma (1996), Bernhard Schlink, The Reader (1995), Art Spiegelman, Maus : A Survivor’s Tale (1986-1991), Thomas Lahusen, How Life Writes the Book (1997), Zhang Xianliang, Grass Soup (1995), and Dorothy Allison, Bastard out of Carolina (1993). During the course, students will also prepare and discuss their own topic of research, leading toward a final research paper.
COL5117HS FREUD AND PSYCHOANALYSIS
Zilcosky Tue 2p-4p In this seminar, we will examine the writings of Sigmund Freud in their historical context, starting with the intellectual and political milieu of fin de siècle Vienna that set the stage for the invention of psychoanalysis. From here we will investigate aspects of Freud’s entire career, grouped roughly in four stages: his early 1890s writings on hysteria and his experiments with hypnosis, which led to his discovery of the “talking cure” and, eventually, the “secret of dreams” (in Interpretation of Dreams [1900]); his 1900s creation of the major concepts of sexuality theory (his early case studies as well as “Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality”); his central writings before, during and after the First World War, from Totem and Taboo and “The Uncanny” through to his seminal work on shell shock, repetition compulsion, and the death drive, Beyond the Pleasure Principle; and his attempts to diagnose wide-ranging pathologies of society and culture in late 1920s and 1930s (e.g., The Future of an Illusion, Civilization and Its Discontents, and Moses and Monotheism). The goal of the course is to present a broad critical introduction to Freud’s work and to key concepts of psychoanalytic theory.
JFC1813HS LITERATURE OF CONTACT AND ANTHROPOLOGICAL THOUGHT 16TH-18TH CENTURY
A. Motsch Wed 10a-12p This course analyzes the link between contact literature (travel literature, discovery literature, colonial literature) and the establishment of modernity and its discourses of knowledge. Taking into account the philosophical and political debates between the 16th and 18th century, the course seeks to account for the European expansion, in particular the colonization of the Americas, and the emergence of discourses of knowledge about other cultures. Two aspects ought to be singled out here: the knowledge produced about «others» and the new consciousness of Europe’s own identity which was profoundly transformed in this very contact. The course follows the hypothesis that the philosophical and modern definition of modern Man is itself a result of the contact between Europe and its others. The discussions of the texts privilege epistemological aspects and anthropological and political thought. More precisely, the goal is to trace the various ways the emergence of the modern subject is tied to its construction of alterity. Literary texts for example will therefore be questioned about their social and political dimensions within the episteme of the time. A prominent issue will be the intercultural dynamic between the 16th and 18th centuries between Europe and the rest of the globe, but also within Europe itself. The development of new discourses of knowledge will involve texts of very different nature : literary, ethnographic, political, philosophical, historical, etc. Other aspects to be discussed are the issue of literary genres and canon formation, the conditions which make anthropological writing possible and the conceptualization of the «other» (ethnicity, race, religion, gender, etc.)
DEPARTMENT OF EAST ASIAN STUDIES
For further information on graduate courses offered by Department of East Asian Studies please visit their website. The following courses are accurate as of June 2019.
ENGLISH
For further information on graduate courses offered by the Department of English please visit their website.
ENG5253HS Simply Divine! The Novels of Evelyn Waugh and Graham Greene
Greene Thu 6p-8p Graham Greene (1904-1991) and Evelyn Waugh (1903-1966) are generally regarded as the outstanding British novelists of the mid-twentieth century. They were contemporaries at Oxford, and both became Catholics. As the years passed, however, Waugh’s outlook could best be described as conservative and orthodox, while Greene inclined to the political left and spoke of himself as believing in God intermittently. Both authors are deeply concerned with the problems of belief, but they are also social satirists who share stylistic ideals and fundamental convictions about the uses of the novel form. Both achieve a marriage of theological concern and political or social commentary through the complex use of allegorical figures, such as the pilgrim and the questing knight. Both refuse to sever ethical concerns from the task of entertaining and amusing and are, in this sense, resistant to the influence of high Modernists. Moreover, by refusing to examine sensibility in isolation from external action, they explicitly repudiate the influences of Joyce, Woolf and Forster.
ENG6010HS Bad Feelings: Between Affect Theory and Psychoanalysis
Ruti Tue 1p-3p During the last decade, in part because of the rapid rise of affect theory, bad feelings - such as mourning, depression, anxiety, disenchantment, loneliness, remorse, and anger - have become one of the central themes of contemporary theory. This course cuts a path through this complex critical terrain in three steps. First, we read three groundbreaking texts in affect theory: Sianne Ngai's Ugly Feelings, Kathleen Steward's Ordinary Feelings, and Sara Ahmed's Willful Subjects. Second, we explore recent psychoanalytic accounts of nonsovereignty, cruel optimism, trauma, and the general malaise generated by neoliberal capitalism: Lauren Berlant and Lee Edelman's Sex, or the Unbearable, Margaret Crastnopol's Micro-Trauma, and Todd McGowan's Capitalism and Desire. The course concludes with three works of "autotheory" that explore negative affects: Roland Barthes's The Neutral, Chris Kraus's I Love Dick, and Maggie Nelson's Argonauts. Our focus throughout will be on bad feelings as an everyday experience, the aesthetic potential of negative affects, and the relationship between the personal and the theoretical.
ENG3251HF Varieties of (18th-Century) Religious Experience
A. Hernandez Wed 3p-6p It used to be that the story we told about religion in the eighteenth century was one in which it faded into the background—but no more. The past decade or so has complicated the old view, with scholars working across disciplines—literature, anthropology, social theory, religious studies, history, and more—challenging the causes and extent of secularization, rethinking the role of religion in the era’s politics, and revisiting the wild variety of religious experience among eighteenth-century people. This course intends to explore this emerging body of theoretical literature, and will read a series of eighteenth-century texts (ranging from novels, to confessional poetry, to satires and hymns) alongside it. How can we reinvigorate a category that often comes off as the “third rail” of materialist cultural studies? What sorts of accounts of the period emerge once we do? Are there reparative readings available to the alien theological and devotional texts of the period? What, for that matter, do we mean when we talk about “religious experience” in a period whose “imaginary” is often unrecognizable? We’ll venture answers to these questions and more, gaining facility with a series of concepts and literary works in which these are core concerns.
SCHOOL OF THE ENVIRONMENT
For further information on graduate courses offered by the School of the Environment please visit their website.
HISTORY
For further information on graduate courses offered by the Department of History please visit their website. HIS1204HS Topics in Medieval Church History G. Silano Thu 2p-4p Our medieval history students and those in the Centre, whatever their topics of interest, can all profit from some familiarity with the history of ecclesiastical institutions in the high Middle Ages (papacy, episcopate, parish structures, clerical education etc.). The proposed course would provide the opportunity to acquire such familiarity while varying the topics covered in accordance with the research interests of the students.
HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
For further information on graduate courses offered by the Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology please visit their website. HPS3008HS Philosophy of Science and Religion Yiftach Fehige Mon 12p-2p “Science and Religion” is a relatively young field of research. Philosophy matters crucially both for relating science and religion, and in tackling issues that are central to their relationship. This course explores different models for relating science and religion. Topics include: creation vs. multiverse in Big-Bang cosmologies, the reliability of human cognitive faculties vs. naturalism, and deductive vs. inductive proofs for the existence of god.
FACULTY OF LAW
For further information on graduate courses offered by the Faculty of Law please visit their website. LAW5058HF Law, Religion, and Democracy A.Su Thu 2p-4p This course focuses on the relationship between law, religion and democracy in a comparative and international context. It is intended to provide the necessary historical and theoretical foundations for the study of contemporary controversies involving the law and politics of religious freedom. Themes explored in class will include: philosophical and religious bases of the idea of religious toleration and freedom, the historical origins of religious freedom, the question of how secularism both protects and limits religion; judicial and political responses to conflicts between freedom of religion and other human rights at both national and international levels, with a particular focus on the multiculturalism model of Canada. LAW5025HS Kant’s Philosophy of Law E. Weinrib Mon 8:30a-10:20a Our legal discourse is the discourse of rights, and Immanuel Kant is perhaps the greatest modern expositor of what it is to have a system of rights. For Kant, the possibility that law can be systematically rightful encompasses private law, public law, and international law. It also gives law its normative character as a condition of freedom under which public compulsion is justified. This course will examine the notions of right and legality that Kant sets out in his short but dense work The Doctrine of Right. We will discuss Kant’s conception of property, contract, the family, the judiciary, the organization of the state, the relation between the state and its citizens, and relations among states. Throughout the course, participants in the class will be invited to consider the extent to which Kant’s account of law is helpful in understanding contemporary legal issues.
MEDIEVAL STUDIES
For further information on graduate courses offered by the Centre for Medieval Studies please visit their website.
MST1422HS Intro to the Study of Magic in the Middle Ages
Haines Thu 2p-4p
MST3244HF Patron Saints of Early Medieval Italy
Everett Time TBA
MST3346HS Medieval Islamic Philosophy
Black Wed 10a-12p This course is an introduction to the major figures and themes in classical Islamic philosophy (falsafah) from the 9th to the 12th centuries, with a focus on the works of Al-Farabi, Avicenna (Ibn Sina), and Averroes (Ibn Rushd), as well as other less well-known figures from the classical period. We will consider a range of philosophical problems in the areas of metaphysics, philosophy of mind, and epistemology, as well as topics in ethics and political philosophy. Some consideration will also be given to the views of the Muʿtazilite and Ashʿarite schools of theology (kalām), the rival intellectual traditions to philosophy within the medieval Islamic world.
MST3501HF Intro to Medieval Christian Liturgy
J. Haines Thu 2p-4p
NEAR AND MIDDLE EASTERN CIVILIZATIONS
For further information on graduate courses offered by the Department of Near and Middle Eastern Studies please visit their website.
PHILOSOPHY
For further information on graduate courses offered by the Department of Philosophy please visit their website. MST3301F Themes in Medieval Philosophy King, Peter Mon 2p-4p This course is a graduate-level introduction to some themes in medieval philosophy, with particular attention given to High Scholasticism. We’ll look at a few areas: metaphysics (universals and individuation); philosophy of psychology (representationalism and affective psychology); and selected issues in value theory.
SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH AND JOINT CENTRE FOR BIOETHICS
For further information on graduate courses offered by Joint Centre for Bioethics please visit their website.
SOCIOLOGY
For further information on graduate courses offered by the Department of Sociology please visit their website.
SOC6401F Theory and Method in Historical Sociology
Bryant, Joseph Thu 4p-6p Syllabus
Toronto School of Theology Courses
For further information on graduate courses offered by the Toronto School of Theology please visit their website.
Language Courses
Arabic
NMC2100Y Introductory Standard Arabic
This course is designed for students with no prior knowledge of Arabic. It places equal emphasis on the development of all language skills: reading, writing, listening, and speaking. The learning philosophy underlying this approach is that proficiency in a foreign language is best achieved through consistent, deliberate, and systematic practice. From the outset, students are strongly encouraged to develop the habit of consistently practicing learned material.
A-K. Ali Monday and Wednesday 10-12, Friday 10-11 Ragheb, F Tuesday and Thursday 10-12, Friday 11-12 Ragheb, F Monday and Wednesday 5-7, Thursday 5-6
NMC2101Y Intermediate Standard Arabic I
A-K. Ali Monday and Wednesday 1-3, Friday 12-1 This course assumes active knowledge of the content covered in NMC2100. It places equal emphasis on the development of all language skills. As the course progresses, students are introduced to the fundamentals of Arabic morphology and syntax. This is achieved through analysis of texts covering a wide range of topics. By the end of the course, students are expected to achieve upper intermediate level of proficiency.
NMC2102Y Intermediate Standard Arabic II Ragheb, F Monday and Wednesday 1-3, Friday 11-12 This course assumes active knowledge of the content covered in NML210Y. As the course progresses, students are introduced to increasingly complex morphological and syntactic patterns of Arabic. This is achieved through analysis of texts covering a wide range of genres. By the end of the course, students are expected to achieve advanced level of proficiency.
NMC2103Y Advanced Standard Arabic A-K. Ali Tuesday and Thursday 10-12 Students enrolled in this course are assumed to have active knowledge of the grammar and vocabulary covered in previous levels. After a brief review, the course continues from where NMC 2102 leaves off. Its goal is to enable the students to reach a superior level of proficiency in Arabic. To this end, the materials covered are designed to strengthen the students’ reading and writing skills, refine and expand their knowledge of sentence structure, morphological patterns, verb system, and enrich their cultural background. The primary method is analysis of sophisticated authentic texts covering a wide range of genres and drawn from different parts of the Arabic speaking world. Although the main focus remains to be on Modern Standard Arabic, texts from the Classical Arabic literary tradition will be introduced incrementally throughout the course.
Aramaic
NMC1101Y Intermediate Aramaic
Meacham, T Thursday, 9-12 An intensive study of various Targumim to the Pentateuch: Onkelos, Pseudo-Jonathan, Neophyti, Samaritan and Fragment Targumim. Differences among them in vocabulary, syntax and verb usage are discussed, as well as their relationship to the Palestinian midrashim. (Offered in alternate years)
French
FSL 6000HF Reading French Course for Graduate Students
Instructor TBA Tuesday 4-6, Teefy Hall 101 This course is designed to develop students’ reading skills particularly as they pertain to research interests. Some remedial grammar, but the primary emphasis is on comprehension of a wide variety of texts in French. Open to Masters and PhD graduate students who need to fulfill their graduate language requirement. On a case by case basis, students with prior language qualifications can access the exam-only option (still with course registration) after prior screening by the home department in support of the exam-only option. A grade of Credit/NonCredit (70% is the minimum grade for CR) will be entered on their transcripts. Students are not permitted to audit this course.
FSL 6000HS Reading French Course for Graduate Students
Tuesday 4-6, Teefy Hall 101 This course is designed to develop students’ reading skills particularly as they pertain to research interests. Some remedial grammar, but the primary emphasis is on comprehension of a wide variety of texts in French. Open to Masters and PhD graduate students who need to fulfill their graduate language requirement. On a case by case basis, students with prior language qualifications can access the exam-only option (still with course registration) after prior screening by the home department in support of the exam-only option. A grade of Credit/NonCredit (70% is the minimum grade for CR) will be entered on their transcripts. Students are not permitted to audit this course.
German
GER6000HF Reading German for Graduate Students
Erol Boran Wednesday 2-4, TF403 In this course German reading knowledge is taught following the grammar-translation method designed for graduate students from the Humanities. It is an intensive course that covers German grammar with focus on acquiring essential structures of the German language to develop translation skills. The course is conducted in English, and consequently participants do not learn how to speak or write in German, but rather the course focuses exclusively on reading and translating German. Prior knowledge of German not mandatory. By the end of the course, students should be able to handle a broad variety of texts in single modern Standard German. This course is not intended for MA or PhD students in German.
GER6000HS Reading German for Graduate Students
Instructor TBA Wednesday 2-4, TF2 In this course German reading knowledge is taught following the grammar-translation method designed for graduate students from the Humanities. It is an intensive course that covers German grammar with focus on acquiring essential structures of the German language to develop translation skills. The course is conducted in English, and consequently participants do not learn how to speak or write in German, but rather the course focuses exclusively on reading and translating German. Prior knowledge of German not mandatory. By the end of the course, students should be able to handle a broad variety of texts in single modern Standard German. This course is not intended for MA or PhD students in German.
Greek
GRK101H1F Introductory Ancient Greek I (formerly GRK100Y1)
An intensive introduction to Ancient Greek for students who have no knowledge of the language; preparation for the reading of Ancient Greek literature.
Instructor TBA Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, 9-10, NF 007
Lytle, T Tuesday and Thursday 2-4, LI 220
GRK102H1S Introductory Ancient Greek II
A continuation of the intensive introduction to Ancient Greek in GRK 101H1. Also appropriate for students who have some training in Ancient Greek, but have not completed a whole credit course at University or a final-year (Grade 12) course in secondary school.
Burgess, J Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday 9-10, LI 220
Murray, S Tuesday and Thursday 2-4, NF 119
GRK201H1F Intermediate Ancient Greek I
Bing, P Monday, Wednesday and Friday 9-10, LI 220
Reading of selections of Ancient Greek prose works with systematic language study.
GRK202H1S Intermediate Ancient Greek II
Wilkinson, K Tuesday and Thursday 2-4, NF 231
Continued language training with readings in Ancient Greek prose and verse.
GRK430H1F Advanced Greek Language
Akrigg, B Monday and Wednesday 12-2, L1205
A course designed to enhance language skills. Prose composition, sight translation, stylistic analysis of classical Greek prose.
Latin
LAT101H1F Introductory Latin I (formerly LAT 100Y1)
An intensive introduction to Latin for students who have no knowledge of the language; preparation for the reading of Latin literature.
Davis Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday 9-10
Welsh, J Tuesday and Thursday 10-12
Instructor TBA Monday and Wednesday 2-4
Instructor TBA Tuesday and Thursday 2-4
Bennardo Monday and Wednesday 12-2
Easton Monday and Wednesday 5-7
LAT102H1S Introductory Latin II
A continuation of the intensive introduction to Latin in LAT 101H1. Also appropriate for students who have some training in Latin, but have not completed a whole credit course at University or a final-year (Grade 12) course in secondary school.
Instructor TBA Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday 9-10
Welsh Tuesday and Thursday 10-12
Instructor TBA Monday and Wednesday 2-4
Instructor TBA Tuesday and Thursday 2-4
Persian
NMC2200Y Introductory Persian
A. Taleghani Tuesday and Thursday 10-12, Friday 10-12
The fundamentals of modern standard Persian grammar, with emphasis on attaining fluency in reading and writing simple texts. Also serves as a basis for classical Persian. (Offered in alternate years)
Updated January 14, 2019
View our archive of past graduate courses.