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.
XBC 199Y1Y: Cross Breadth Categories, Count as Two Breadth Categories
Categories: CCR (1) & TBB (2)
XBC 199Y1Y
Section L0211
Timetable
Visual Culture in the Ancient World (1 & 2)
Much of what we know about life in the ancient world comes not from texts but from tangible historical documents in the realm of art and architecture. This seminar course will examine the ways that people in Ancient Greece and Rome expressed their ideas through art objects and buildings, and the degree to which such material will help us reconstruct life in the ancient world. Of particular interest is the way that many of the artistic and intellectual solutions devised by ancient artists and architects have become the models for modern thought and practice, a topic also to be addressed in this seminar.
Instructor: C. Katsougiannopoulou, Art
Breadth categories: 1 Creative and Cultural Representations & 2 Thought, Belief, and Behaviour
XBC 199Y1Y
Section L0221
Timetable
Fiction and Women of Colour (1 & 2)
Half of humanity is women, and most women are black, brown, yellow, and red. But we do not know their stories — their novels — though we should, for they are brilliant authors : Maryse Condé (Grand Prix Littéraire de la Femme), Jhumpa Lahiri (Pulitzer Prize winner), Toni Morrison (Nobel Laureate and Pulitzer Prize winner), Arundhati Roy (Booker Prize winner), etc. Then again, no people can be free unless women are free, for the consequences of oppression hurt them most, and most usually 'women of colour'. In this course — the only one at the U of Toronto exclusively devoted to 'visible minority' women's writing — we will try to answer some questions together: What makes a woman of colour's writing distinctive? Does a woman from the developing world have anything in common with a minority woman in an 'over-developed' country? Are women's experiences so 'universal' that 'race' or 'colour' do not matter? Are women of colour oppressed by men only? How does the woman of colour represent masculinity in her writing? We will read great books; we will have fierce discussions. We will talk about everything — male-female relations, female-female relations, racism, sexism, slavery, exclusion and economic discrimination. We will also watch films. We will learn together — and we will have fun.
Instructor: G. Paray-Clark, French
Breadth categories: 1 Creative and Cultural Representations & 2 Thought, Belief, and Behaviour
Categories: CCR (1) & SII (3)
XBC 199Y1Y
Section L0031
Victoria College Course
Timetable
Renaissance and Baroque Rome (1 & 3)
The city of Rome during the Renaissance and baroque was a city in transformation. The return of a united papacy under Martin V in 1420 had created the conditions for the rebuilding of the ruined former capital of the western world. Subsequent popes rebuilt aqueducts, roads, bridges and walls; and many began the reconstruction of important monuments to associate their rule with the authority of ancient emperors. New churches, such as the new basilica of St Peter, and great palaces reflected the important of splendour and magnificence. This course will investigate the building, the culture and the society of Rome from 1420 until 1680.
Instructor: K. Bartlett, Victoria College
Breadth categories: 1. Creative and Cultural Representations & 3. Society and Its Institutions
XBC 199Y1Y
Section L0032
Victoria College Course
Timetable
Section L0033
Victoria College Course
Timetable
How To Study Everyday Life (1 & 3)
This seminar investigates the academic study of popular culture from a social science perspective, with an emphasis on North America. What is the role of popular culture in maintaining and reproducing the kind of society we live in? What messages are intended by the producers of mass media and what messages are received by their consumers? What does advertising do to us? What is the function of youth subcultures today? Examples may include the news media, television, film, popular musical forms, and aspects of daily life such as dieting and sports. Students are encouraged to critique each other's presentations and assignments. Helping students to acquire university level research, essay writing, and discussion skills is an important goal of the course.
Instructor: I. Kalmar, Victoria College
Breadth categories: 1 Creative and Cultural Representations & 3 Society and Its Institutions
XBC 199Y1Y
Section L0261
Trinity College Course
Timetable
The Past Within The Present (1 & 3)
"History is bunk!" This famous put-down of history by Henry Ford - creator of the automobile assembly line - has an ironic twist, because Ford also designed a "living-history" museum close to his factories. Far from hating history, he produced an historical interpretive experience to influence future generations. Whatever our perspectives may be, we, like Ford, seem to need the past immediately around us. What about Toronto? This cosmopolitan city has its own long history that provides us with a sense of place, but which now usually represents the actual history of a small number of the city's current residents. Why should Toronto's monuments and public buildings, its streetscapes and neighbourhoods be valued? What is being preserved? What does the specific heritage of a unique district such as this university campus, or the larger region, contribute to Toronto as a cosmopolitan city? These issues are evident in other aspects of Canadian debates as well. What is history when written records and oral traditions differ, and First Nations' land claims or treaty rights are adjudicated by our courts? How do we develop interpretive historical exhibits that include our recent citizens? Are public apologies for the wrongs imposed by previous generations appropriate? Are they necessary? What if differing "histories" clash? This course explores such aspects of history's public face: how we use it, and why we need physical reminders of the past in our daily lives.
Instructor: B.W. Bowden, History and Trinity College
Breadth categories: 1 Creative and Cultural Representations & 3 Society and Its Institutions
XBC 199Y1Y
Section L0262
Timetable
True North: Circumpolar Histories
The North, as both a direction and a place, figures prominently in constructions of Canadian identity. But other countries also claim the North as their own. This course, co-taught by a professor of Canadian history and a professor of Russian history, compares and examines connections in the contested polar region through several themes: cultures in contact, trade and exploration, environment, crime and punishment, and defense and sovereignty.
Instructors: A. Smith and H. Bohaker
Breadth categories: 1 Creative and Cultural Representations & 3 Society and Its Institutions
XBC 199Y1Y
Section L0321
Timetable
Multiculturalism, Philosophy, and Film (1 & 3)
This course will critically examine the role of cinema in the construction and exploration of the figure of the racial, ethnic, cultural and social "other". Our topics will include (1) racial, ethnic and cultural identity and its reciprocal relationship with cinema, (2) the notion of realism in relation to the representation of race and ethnicity in film, (3) the cinematic representation of inter-ethnic and intra-ethnic conflict, (4) the position of cinema in the debate between assimilation and multiculturalism, and (5) the ways in which cinema can help illuminate a cluster of relevant notions in political philosophy including citizenship, communitarianism, cosmopolitanism, and the relation between individual rights and group rights. Films will be screened in class and discussed against the background of focused critical readings.
Instructor: TBA, Philosophy
Breadth Categories: 1 "Creative and Cultural Representations" and 3 "Society and its Institutions
XBC 199Y1Y
Section L0331
Woodsworth College Course
Timetable
Roll Over, Beethoven: Music, Media and the Marketplace (1 & 3)
The invention of recording in the late 19th century caused profound changes in the world of music, changes so fundamental that we can easily overlook them today. Before recording, listening to music was social, requiring the presence of other people playing and singing; now, in Robert Philips' words, "most of the music we hear comes out of black boxes." How has technology affected the experience and meaning of music? What other economic, social and ideological forces influence the modern musical marketplace and shape our tastes as listeners? Readings in media and cultural theory, music criticism, and studies of the music industry will help us explore these questions from an interdisciplinary perspective; assignments will encourage students to reflect on their own experience of music as a cultural and social phenomenon. Developing strong research, writing, and presentation skills is an important goal of the course. No technical knowledge of music is required.
Instructor: W.B. MacDonald, Woodsworth College
Breadth categories: 1 Creative and Cultural Representations & 3 Society and Its Institutions
XBC 199Y1Y
Section L0371
Timetable
Society, Religion and Architecture in the Ancient Mediterranean (1 & 3)
How did society function 2000 years ago in the Eastern Mediterranean? What did its architecture express? How did religion influence urban forms? We will examine countries from Italy eastwards around the great inland sea, emphasizing the intersection of various cultural features (architecture, art, urban design, religion, literature, beliefs, burial practices, daily life, for example). We will concentrate on Greek and Roman religion and culture, how they influenced cities and towns, and how eastern religious movements such as Judaism, Mithraism and Christianity reshaped them. We pay attention to the juxtaposition of physical evidence (surveying archaeological excavations, primarily) and literary evidence, using authors such as Strabo, Pliny the Younger and Pausanias.
Instructor: P. Richardson, Study of Religion
Breadth categories: 1 Creative and Cultural Representations & 3 Society and Its Institutions
Categories: TTB (2) & SII (3)
XBC 199Y1Y
Section L0034
Victoria College Course
Timetable
Interpretation of History in Society, War, Family and Religion (2 & 3)
The course examines the role of the interpretation of history in contemporary society, war, family, and religion in a global setting. The steering effect of historical interpretation is usually quite unseen in daily life. But it takes only the barest scratch of the surface of any sustained human action to reveal the historical infrastructure underneath. The interpretation of history emerges as the bonding of past, present, and future, as people reconfigure alternative pasts in order to construct competing futures. To accomplish the analysis the course looks at various societies, from Canada and France to Russia and China, several religions, from Islam to Christianity to Hinduism, wars big and small, and the ordinary life of families in Toronto. The course proceeds as a seminar, and mingles theorizing about the interpretation of history with the exploration of specific cases. The aim is to understand how the interpretation of history operates in contemporary life. The readings are selected from among pivotal traditional texts (the Bible, the Qur'an, Vishnu Purana), books by historians and theorists (Adam Smith, Marx, and Mao), and materials of contemporary culture.
Instructor: T. McIntire, Victoria College
Breadth categories: 2 Thought, Belief, and Behaviour & 3 Society and Its Institutions
XBC 199Y1Y
Section L0051
Timetable
Schools, Culture & Society (2 & 3)
This seminar offers student an introduction to the development of education and schooling in Canada at the elementary, secondary and post secondary level. The course will cover such themes as: the establishment of mass publicly funded education systems in Canada, the development of curriculum from the "3 Rs" to the age of the Internet, the intersection of language and schooling, home schooling, the development of teacher education programs, and the ongoing debate about educational quality in private and public schools. Of particular interest in the seminar will be the notion of faith-based education in Canada, both in private schools and in state-funded denominational schools. At its conclusion, students will examine the establishment and development of the Canadian university, both in its public and private forms.
Instructor: P. Reale St. Michael's College
Breadth categories: 2 Thought, Belief, and Behaviour & 3 Society and Its Institutions
XBC 199Y1Y
Section L0351
Timetable
Section L0352
Timetable
Ideologies and Social Movements in China's Modern Transformation (2 & 3)
This seminar course will examine the competing ideologies that have shaped post-Imperial China's transformation over the past century. It will be concerned with how ideas determine change in modernizing and transitional societies. The competing appeals of Confucianism, Liberalism, Marxism and other schools of thought will be explored as well as the political dynamics that shape the social and political movements these philosophies generate.
Instructor: V. Falkenheim, Political Science
Breadth categories: 2 Thought, Belief, and Behaviour & 3 Society and Its Institutions
XBC 199Y1Y
Section L0353
Timetable
Governing in the New Europe
In this course, contemporary Europe and its problems of governance will be used to introduce students to classic issues such as representation, participation, accountability and public policy formation in a setting which raises these enduring issues in new ways. The course will also serve to acquaint students with the issues and problems of modern Europe. As a first year seminar, the course will require students to be deeply engaged in understanding the contemporary European experience and its relevance for Canadians
Instructor: L. LeDuc, Political Science
Breadth categories: 2 Thought, Belief, and Behaviour & 3 Society and Its Institutions
Categories: TTB (2) & LTE (4)
XBC 199Y1Y
L0035
Victoria College Course
Cancelled
Theories of Human Nature
This course comprises a broad survey of theories of human nature and an in-depth discussion of the impact on current evolutionary thinking on the issue. The first half of the course (Fall Term) ranges widely over various attempts to articulate the nature of human nature. These are drawn from Ancient Philosophy (Plato and Aristotle), Religion (Confucianism and the Judaeo-Christian tradition), modern Moral and Political Philosophy (Hobbes, Rousseau, Kant, Marx, Sartre). The second half of the course delves more deeply into the relation between evolutionary biology and the concept of human nature. Two opposing views have been argued vigorously: (i) that evolutionary biology is incompatible with the notion of a human nature and (ii) that evolutionary biology gives us a rigorous, scientifically acceptable conception of human nature. We enter this debate. Topics to be discussed include: the putative distinction between innate and learned capacities; the evolution of language and cognition; cultural transmission and evolution; evolutionary psychology; the biology of race and gender.
Instructor: D. Walsh, Victoria College
Breadth categories: 2 Thought, Belief, and Behaviour & 4 Living Things and Their Environment
Categories: LTE (4) & PMU (5)
XBC 199Y1Y
Section L0241
Timetable
Life and Death in the Solar System (4 & 5)
Earth is the only planet in the solar system known to support life. Through directed readings, seminars, videos and lab visits, participants in this course will work with instructors whose own research tackles important questions concerning the origin of life on earth; the limits to life on this planet; implications for life under extreme conditions elsewhere in the solar system; and the life cycles of the planets themselves. What was the earliest life on earth like and how do we know? How deep does life exist in the earth's oceans, and beneath the continents? Could life ever have arisen on Mars? How did the planets begin their own life cycles, and how have they evolved since? Why is Earth so different from Mars and Venus, and what can the other planets tell us about Earth's ultimate fate?
Instructors: W. Wortman and G. Henderson, Geology
Breadth categories: 4 Living Things and Their Environment & 5 The Physical and Mathematical Universes
XBC 199Y1Y
Section L0242
Timetable
Thinking About Planet Earth (4 & 5)
The Earth is an amazing blue planet because it has had large amounts of liquid water at its surface for at least the past 3,800 million years. Our planetary system is now known to be just one of many others related to some of the 200,000 million stars in the Milky Way Galaxy. Discs of dust and volatiles around other stars, from which planetary systems have formed, have been imaged and analysed. Through provided readings of recent scientific articles, student research projects, seminars, and student-chaired discussion groups, participants in this course will explore selected topics such as observations of circumstellar disks, extra-solar planets, the Solar System, prospects for the discovery of life on other planets, the Universal Phylogenetic Tree (Tree of Life), human origins and where humans may be headed in the future.
Instructors: R. Bailey, J. Brenan, R. Pysklywec, Geology
Breadth categories: 4 Living Things and Their Environment & 5 The Physical and Mathematical Universes