A few First-Year Seminars give preference during the first round of enrolment to students with membership in the college offering the course - if this is the case, the college name will be listed beside the course title. During the second round of enrolment, first-year students at any college may enroll if space is available.
TBB 199H1F: Thought, Belief, and Behaviour (2): Fall Offerings
Section |
Title | College | Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| L0031 | Roots of Western Ideas | Victoria | Timetable |
| L0101 | The Indigenous World | - | Cancelled |
| L0131 | Innovative Teaching Methods in Chemistry | - | Timetable |
| L0281 | Language and Mind | - | Timetable |
| L0282 | Exploring Heritage Languages | - | Timetable |
| L0381 | From Gibraltar to the Ganges (In Search of Linguistic Origins) | - | Timetable |
TBB 199H1S: Thought, Belief, and Behaviour (2): Spring Offerings
| Section | Title | College | Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| L0031 | Roots of Western Ideas | Victoria | Timetable |
| L0281 | Language Diversity | Timetable | |
| L0282 | Language in Canadian Society | - | Timetable |
| L5321 | The Other Socrates: The Socratic Works of Xenophon | Trinity | Timetable |
| L0331 | Cultural Literacy in the Information Age | Woodsworth | Timetable |
Section L0031
Victoria College Course
Section L0031
Victoria College Course
Roots of Western Ideas
We are fond of regarding ourselves as heirs of Greece and Rome. And yet, several other ancient civilizations contributed to the development of Western ideas. In this course we examine the political, social, literary, and religious concepts of Mesopotamia, Egypt, Israel, and Persia, that made a lasting impact on Western ideas.
Instructor: S. Nigosian, Victoria College
Breadth category: 2 Thought, Belief, and Behaviour
TBB 199H1F
Section L0101
Cancelled
The Indigenous World
This course examines the how indigenous peoples relate to each other, the environment and the "afterlife". Popular representations are first examined such as in the film Avatar and then discussed in class. Comparisons are then drawn with aspects of our own society.
Instructor: D. Turner, Anthropology
Breadth category: 2 Thought, Belief, and Behaviour
TBB 199H1F
Section L0131
Timetable
Innovative Teaching Methods in Chemistry
Good teaching is effective communication that engages the audience. Innovative methods, by definition, are engaging. To ensure that they also communicate effectively, we'll investigate the nature of science, how scientific knowledge is built, and what makes certain concepts in science problematic to the learner. We will then synthesize our understanding to develop communication tools for engaging our learners and communicating scientific ideas effectively. Students will read and discuss relevant articles in newsmagazines, popular science sources, and the educational literature. They will design and deliver mini lessons to communicate specified scientific concepts. As a major course project, students will eventually develop a communication tool that integrates pedagogical know-how with leading edge chemical discoveries to produce an accessible teaching unit that can be used by Ontario teachers.
Instructor: C. Kutas, Chemistry
Breadth categories: 2 Thought, Belief, and Behaviour
TBB 199H1F
Section L0281
Timetable
Language and Mind
This seminar course will present a critical overview of the revolution in linguistics and cognitive science initiated by Noam Chomsky. We will look at how Chomsky rethought the foundations of linguistics as a science and its relation to cognitive science, philosophy of language, and psychology. In particular we will discuss the following related questions: (i) What is the human linguistic ability and how do we acquire it? (ii) To what extent is language innate and what is the relation between language and learning? (iii) Non-human communication: can we speak of `language'? (iv) What's the place of the "language faculty" in the architecture of the mind? (v) Can evolution tell us anything about the language faculty? The aim of this class is to provide students with a perspective on the goals and questions that the scientific study of language raises.
Instructor: M. Ippolito, Linguistics
Breadth categories: 2 Thought, Belief, and Behaviour
TBB 199H1F
Section L0282
Exploring Heritage Languages
We will explore how speakers use Heritage Languages in Toronto. We will examine newly collected data from Cantonese, Korean, Russian, Italian, Ukrainian and Faetar speakers in the GTA. We will look for speech patterns that differentiate first, second and third generation speakers in Toronto from corresponding speakers in their countries of origin, and look at the effects of language attitudes and usage (who do you talk to? What do you use the language for?).
Instructor: N. Nagy, Linguistics
Breadth category: 2 Thought, Belief, and Behaviour
TBB 199H1F
Section L0381
Timetable
From Gibraltar to the Ganges (In Search of Linguistic Origins)
English, Hindi, Spanish, Russian and many other languages of Europe and Near Asia descend from a hypothetical reconstructed common ancestor known to historical linguists as Indo-European. In this course we look at the kinds of connections (some obvious, others hidden) that can be shown to exist between "close" and "distant" linguistic neighbours in this highly varied language family. In the course of our investigation, we will consider the Indo-European languages as a mirror of, and vehicle for, the cultural and historical development of the peoples who speak them.
Instructor: J. Schallert, Slavic Languages and Literatures
Breadth Requirement: 2 Thought, Belief, and Behaviour
TBB 199H1S
Section L0101
Timetable
Love and Globalization
What is romantic love and is it universal? This course will examine how people in various parts of the world express, pursue, and sometimes reject the practices, sentiments, and ideologies of romantic love. Topics will also include the globalization of love, its commoditization, and its connection to notions of modernity.
Instructor: H. Wardlow, Anthropology
Breadth Requirement: 2 Thought, Belief, and Behaviour
TBB 199H1S
Section L0281
Timetable
Language Diversity
There are estimated to be about 5000 languages currently spoken in the world. What do they have in common? In what ways are they different? This course will explore these questions, covering such topics as meaning, sound systems, the structure of words, the order of words in sentences, question formation, concepts such as subject and object, tense systems, pronoun systems among others. We will also address issues such as language loss and revival, and attitudes to language variation. Examples will be drawn from a wide range of languages, but there will be a focus on Austronesian, Canadian, and European languages.
Instructor: D. Massam, Linguistics
Breadth category: 2 Thought, Belief, and Behaviour
TBB199H1S
Section L0282
Timetable
Language in Canadian Society
Immigration is one of the modern social forces that affect the way we use our language. We examine Canadian multilingualism and its influence on the way we interact with one another. Is the distinctiveness of Canadian English getting lost among the variety of accents? Can constitutional bilingualism of French and English be sustained when multilingualism is the reality? What about other modern social forces such as feminism, urbanization, prolonged adolescence, global communications and mass media? Does television expand or contract our vocabularies? Does it affect our accents? Does it matter if our national anthem exults "our sons" but ignores our daughters? We look at questions like these critically to discover the influence they exert on the way we speak.
Instructor: J. Chambers, Linguistics
Breadth category: 2 Thought, Belief, and Behaviour
TBB 199H1S
Section L5321
Trinity College Course
Timetable
The Other Socrates: The Socratic Works of Xenophon
Among the many classical authors whose dialogues portrayed Socrates of Athens, the main surviving ones are just two: Plato and Xenophon. Whereas Plato had a highly creative mind which crafted ingenious philosophical dramas to illustrate Plato's own philosophy being worked out in a setting drawn from his fantastical Socrates-world, Xenophon was a serious historian and an experienced politician and military leader, whose Socratic works are intended to inform us from reliable sources about Socrates himself, both his theoretical stances and his advice on practical matters. The course starts with Xenophon's Apology and finishes with his Symposium, both of which were written to correct the misleading impressions created by Plato's works of the same names. The main reading is Xenophon's Memorabilia, or Memoirs of Socrates, in which Xenophon adapts a range of non-Platonic texts to assemble a composite portrait of the man he wished to portray as a hero of integrity and insight, a modern Heracles of the soul. This course intends to serve students as a foundation for future study in: philosophy, history, political science, classics, and the humanities in general, as well as for the most general study, how to develop a Socratic 'art of living'. The teaching and learning activities of the course are varied, including short written responses, oral presentations of issues for discussion, directed research projects, premeditated mid-term questions, and 'scribe' assignments to develop class 'protocols' of the Instructor's introductory lectures, in the final part of each class. Conventional 'essays' are neither required nor permitted.
Instructor: D. Hutchinson, Philosophy
Breadth category: 2 Thought, Belief, and Behaviour
TBB 199H1S
Section L0331
Woodsworth College Course
Cultural Literacy in the Information Age
Today's university students increasingly rely on the Internet for online databases of full-text academic articles, free downloads from Google Books, digitized reproductions of works of art, etc., even though instructors routinely warn about using online sources. This course will examine the role of the Internet in university study. First, we will use critical thinking and critical writing to improve access to and evaluation of Internet content. Second, we will compare the Internet's impact with the earlier "cultural literacy" revolution. In the 1980s, E.D. Hirsch, Jr., argued that educational institutions must provide a broad learning base to equip students to participate in their culture. His 1987 Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know introduced a new type of research tool. What type of cultural literacy is needed in today's Information Age?
Instructor: T. Moritz, Woodsworth College
Breadth category: 2 Thought, Belief, and Behaviour