Arts First course descriptions
Although oriented toward different modes of inquiry, both ARTS 130 and 140 will support instruction in the communication competencies outlined by the Steering Committee for the English Language Competency Initiative (SCELCI) and both support instruction in analytical thinking.
ARTS 130 – Inquiry and Communication
This course provides an introduction to diverse intellectual modes of inquiry in the social sciences and humanities with an emphasis on the development of communication skills. In a small seminar setting, students will explore a variety of topics based on instructor expertise in order to build social awareness, ethical engagement, and communication competencies in comprehension, contextualization, and conceptualization. Students will be expected to engage with the work of others, articulate positions, situate writing and speaking within contexts, practice writing and speaking for situations beyond the classroom, engage in basic forms of research, and workshop, revise, and edit writing.
ARTS 140 – Information and Analysis
This course introduces students to diverse ways of finding, examining, and using data and information in the social sciences and humanities. In a small seminar setting, students will explore a variety of topics based on instructor expertise in order to understand quantitative and qualitative methods of data gathering and build competencies in conceptualizing, contextualizing, and comprehending methods of information analysis. Students will be expected to investigate, use, and assess the presentation of information in their own work and the work of others so that they can better understand the range of social, ethical, and political challenges of our world.
Please also review the ARTS 130 and ARTS 140 learning outcomes.
Arts First course topics
Arts First course topics are listed in alphabetical order in the drop-down menu below, however they are not listed in alphabetical order in Quest.
Spring 2023 - ARTS 130
ARTS 130 – Plagues and the Pandemic
Can stories about plagues, whether historical or fictional, speak to the issues and experiences of the COVID-19 pandemic? This course investigates plague texts by Defoe, Poe, Camus, Soderbergh and others to better understand our age. Although the topic can be grim, we will uncover resources of resilience and hope.
Delivery mode: Online
ARTS 130 – Social Justice and Social Development
Note: This section is partially reserved for Social Development Studies students.
In this course students will be asked to critically reflect on social justice issues from diverse and multiple perspectives.
Delivery mode: Online
Spring 2023 - ARTS 140
ARTS 140 – How to Win a Trade War
Globally, regionally, locally, and individually, people have been engaging in exchange for a very long time. Sharing a small interrelated planet makes cooperation a compelling and enduring practice. Yet globalization is portrayed so dramatically in the media, and power imbalances are rife in economic relationships. This class looks at the irresistible incentives that people and countries have to engage in mutually advantageous trade and how the rules of trade matter to global good outcomes.
Delivery mode: Online
ARTS 140 – The Science of Happiness
What is happiness, and why do we strive for it? Can we become happier? Should we? Is happiness a good thing? Together we will explore these questions and others.
Delivery mode: Online
ARTS 140 – Social Change and Social Development
Note: This section is partially reserved for Social Development Studies students.
Drawing on the work of social theorists, activists, artists, film-makers, writers, poets, and pop icons, this course asks: How can everyday people work together to effect social change? Through experiential learning and a case study approach, students will explore the possibility of turning social justice goals into action.
Delivery mode: Online
Winter 2023 - ARTS 130
ARTS 130 – Are We Erasing History?
The recent move to tear down monuments of problematic historical figures has some folks worried that we're erasing our history. This course will tackle that question by looking at monuments, memorials, historical plaques, and museums to assess whether questioning the figures of the past is destroying history.
ARTS 130 – Art & Activism
Women artivists—artists who make activism a central component of their artistic production—have played a key role in various social movements
across the Americas since the turn of the 20th century. By portraying their lived experiences as members of marginalized communities, and infusing their artworks with critiques of society, these artivists are at the forefront of revolutions both large and small.
ARTS 130 – Consent and Commitment
We'll explore some aspects of (sexual) consent and (romantic) relationships through lenses of language and communication. We'll investigate ways that issues of consent affect--and are affected by--individual and social power, and ways in which they manifest in contemporary society, such as through social media, international movements like #MeToo, and campus-driven initiatives. In the second half of the course, we'll explore relationship formation and maintenance, as well as what may lead to break-ups.
ARTS 130 – Conspiracy and Fake News
Conspiracy theories are an expression of the social anxieties, fears, and in some instances desires of individuals in their relationship with the modern state and the public sphere. Through an interdisciplinary examination of the role of hoaxes, conspiracy theories, and fake news, both historical and contemporary, we will examine the social and historical reasons that allow these ideas to take hold and seem believable.
ARTS 130 – Convince Anyone of Anything
Bertrand Russell once remarked that: “What is distinctively human at the most fundamental level is the capacity to persuade and be persuaded.” This is a lofty claim. I’d add to it by suggesting that the capacity to persuade is a key to effective leadership and the foremost demonstration of effective communication skills. Persuasion lies at the heart of our personal and professional lives, whether the goal is to convince one person in a face-to-face encounter, influence a small group in a meeting, sway an entire organization, or win over the public. This course investigates persuasion—how we can convince others to voluntarily change their attitudes or behavior in order to accomplish our cherished goals—by extracting from our knowledge of human behavior proven principles of effective influence.
ARTS 130 – Ethics for Today's World
We will study applied ethics including topics like racism, physician assisted suicide, and climate change.
ARTS 130 – Extreme Texts: Extreme Writing Approaches of Contemporary Writers
This course introduces students to contemporary writers who have adopted formal, thematic, and material extremes – via digression, excess, maximalism, minimalism, bathos, affective extremity, and other high-risk writing methods. It is fundamentally concerned with the intersection between literature’s rhetoric of intimacy and confession and public/political discourse. In the course, I hope to lead students through an exploration of how contemporary literature operates within the “extreme” as a thematic and formal abstraction as well as a political reality with quotidian impacts for both writing and survival, thereby helping students to appreciate the possibilities open to literature as a kind of survival.
ARTS 130 – Scary Teachings: Indigenous Horror *Updated topic title from 'First Nations Horror & the Work of Reconciliation'
Note: This section is partially reserved for students co-registered at St. Jerome's.
In this course we will examine if an engagement with horror genre short stories, novels, and films created by First Nations authors and film makers can provide a path for settle/colonials to meaningfully engage with the work of Reconciliation. In addition to the creative works we will explore, we will be reading from the 2015 Truth and Reconciliation reports.
ARTS 130 – Humans & the Non-Human World
Humans are the animals that have forgotten they are animals. We live in a complex community of diverse species (humans, mammals, birds, insects, plants, and trees), yet have come to think only of our human selves. This course explores the narratives and perceptions that inform our understandings of interspecies relationships.
ARTS 130 – Hungry I's
Note: This section is partially reserved for students co-registered at St. Jerome's.
Who are we when we eat? What histories and systems do we consume? What relationships do we form? Who do we become?
ARTS 130 – Intersecting Identity & Image
Note: This section is fully reserved for online students.
Students are asked to consider the relationship between images and the way that we think about ourselves and each other. How might popular culture and other image-based sources help “mediate” our identities, and what impact might it have on our everyday lives?
Delivery mode: Online
ARTS 130 – Let's Meet IRL, Publics and Their Space
We come together in public in so many ways. This class will explore what it means to be part of a public by exploring the spaces, both virtual and physical, that allow us to come together to communicate our collective concerns. How do these spaces alter us, our culture, and our politics? How can we shape our public spaces to have more effective publics?
ARTS 130 – Nonbinary Digital Storytelling
Binaries–either-or concepts, comparisons and conditions–are a regular fixture in our lives, inform our sense of meaning-making, and influence how we navigate the world. In this course, with a focus on digital texts and games by queer and marginalized artists, we will learn to identify critical binaries in media and in our own lives, critique them, and use a variety of game-creation tools to explore those binaries and tell our own stories.
ARTS 130 – Public Apologies for the Past
We will examine public apologies made by nations, corporations, churches, universities, and individuals, which have been made for residential schools, slavery, racist policies, corporate malfeasance, personal misconduct, and other histories. What does an apology do, and not do? How do we assess their meaning, sincerity, and role in addressing wrongs? How do they advance, or undermine, reconciliation? What is their place in public life?
ARTS 130 – Reading Race
This course will explore the representation of race in Canadian newspapers to determine the ways that the mainstream media perpetuate racist stereotypes while positioning Canada as a multicultural and racially harmonious society. We will also examine counter-narratives that resist these representations and challenge perceptions of Canada as an inclusive nation.
ARTS 130 – Refuse: Canadian Literature in Ruins
In this course we explore how contemporary Canadian literature mirrors radical changes in Canadian culture, establishing new boundaries that reflect current conversations about sexism, racism, and colonialism.
ARTS 130 – Representing Change
This course will examine written and visual representations of social and cultural change during contemporary moments of crisis. Topics will be developed in collaboration with student interest.
ARTS 130 – Shapes of Environmentalism
We will explore and try to reconcile the evolving shapes of environmentalism. Its evolution has not been linear but followed intersecting and intertwined streams. Can there be free market environmentalism? Can environmentalism be a religion? What about government and non-government environmentalism? How did it look before the 21st century?
ARTS 130 – Social Justice and Social Development
Note: This section is fully reserved for Social Development Studies students.
In this course students will be asked to critically reflect on social justice issues from diverse and multiple perspectives.
Delivery mode: Online
ARTS 130 – The Danger of a Single Story
It is natural and common human behavior to put the people and things we encounter in the world into groups. But often these groups are based on our incomplete and simplistic knowledge of others, that is a single story of them. What makes us who we are? How do our “single stories” influence our identities, or how we view others and the choices we make? In this course, we analyze the processes of categorizing others based on incomplete stories or debunked concepts and explore strategies of communication between different groups in our society. We will primarily focus on only a few groups and on strategies, that promote conflict-free interaction.
ARTS 130 – The Simple Life
This course will examine the notion of Voluntary Simplicity (VS) as a real and potentially transformative alternative to the prevailing system of globalization and its associated challenges of climate change, economic insecurity and social conflict.
ARTS 130 – Why Do We Tell Stories?
An introduction to the art of storytelling. We will discuss the craft of short fiction, read short stories and will then write our own short, and sometimes, flash, fiction. The aim is to give you the necessary skills for appreciation of this art form while encouraging you to create (through) fiction.
ARTS 130 – Writing About Poems and Songs
A course about what is most familiar (favourite songs) and what is strange (old poems), about writing and talking beyond taste (I like, I don’t like) in a variety of modes drawing on the energies of fandom, curiosity, and aesthetic understanding.
Winter 2023 - ARTS 140
ARTS 140 – Blueprints for Progress
Note: This section is partially reserved for students co-registered at St. Jerome's.
Ideologies provide a picture of what society should be like and outline the means for moving from where we are to where we need to go. Topics include capitalism, Marxism, Nazism, conservatism, radical Islam, feminism, colonialism, and environmentalism and how they have shaped our societies and our personaliti
ARTS 140 – Brains and Cities
As the world’s cities get larger and denser, we are more concerned than ever before about how urban living affects our mental state. Living in close quarters with vast numbers of strangers can be exciting but also stressful and alienating. Why is it important to have green spaces in cities? How can we address urban loneliness? How do psychological factors in urban design relate to important issues in equity and social justice? How do we balance the physical requirements of urban design (mobility, food, power, sanitation) with the psychological needs of urban citizens? In this course, we will explore the connections between urban design and psychology by learning to watch urban life, record and describe our observations, and look at case studies of research done in real cities and develop ideas for experiments.
ARTS 140 – Can We Measure Originality?
Can we quantify Shakespeare's literary talent? How innovative are the films of Christopher Nolan? Is originality a fact or a value? This course explores the dynamic between cultural innovation and tradition and the data behind it.
ARTS 140 – Creepypasta: Mode and Medium
This course will examine various kinds of text production online with emphasis in online storytelling, urban legends, and legend-tripping to explore the uncanny corners of online social spheres. It will draw upon the likes of Sigmund Freud’s uncanny and dreams, Benedict Anderson’s imagined communities, and more to give students the means to navigate the perilous world of online engagement, social media, anonymous trolling, and meme culture, in particular through the vector of creepypasta: scary stories shared online.
ARTS 140 – Cults in the Ancient World
This course focuses on the cults of the ancient Mediterranean world. How did they function, who joined them, and what role did they play in the ancient world? A key focus will be on an element shared by virtually all ancient cults: animal sacrifice.
ARTS 140 – Diasporas and Food Cultures
Over the last two centuries, globalization and the migration of communities have made available a medley of new foods available to the public. This course looks at how diasporas and the movement of cuisines have transformed the global food market and the dietary patterns of people.
ARTS 140 – Disney: Nostalgia and Progress
From Frontierland to Tomorrowland, Disney Imagineers have mastered three-dimensional art, telling detailed stories without a word. In this course, students survey the constructs of nonverbal communication utilized by Disney Imagineers to silently explore American and global history and culture, while also debating the validity of postmodern critiques of the “Disneyfication” of history.
ARTS 140 – Do Images Tell the Truth?
Everywhere we are surrounded by persuasive images. Advertising, newsfeeds, political campaigns, influencers, pop stars. We are bombarded by images in all directions by image and “content” producers, demanding our attention and often swaying our opinions and points of view. In this sea of images, how do we practice critical looking? How do we tell meaningful content from “fake news”? Whose interests do these images serve and how do we tell truth from clickbait?
ARTS 140 – Games and Culture
Games are more than just time-killers or hobbies; they are complex social, cultural, and political products worth studying. You don’t have to be a gamer to do well in this class, just a person who wants to learn about games and how we study them. This class will explore the field of game studies through qualitative data collection and practice analyzing both qualitative and quantitative data about games and games culture. Be ready to never say "It's just a game" again!
ARTS 140 – How the Sausage is Made: An Exploration of What and How We Eat
We all gotta eat! And yet, we often have very different views on food. This course explores how and what we eat. Topics include: culture of food, food markets and marketing, nose-to-tail eating and farm-to-table movements, health and diet claims, food accessibility and insecurity, and the future of food.
ARTS 140 – Irrational Economics
This class explores the insights that behavioural economics holds for understanding personal and collective decision-making across a wide range of areas that impact our lives, using experiences of decision-making as a vehicle for understanding the influence of perceptions about facts and information.
ARTS 140 – Mobile Technology & Society
This course investigates modern mobile technologies, like smartphones, and the impact they have on the lives of individuals and the organization of society. Students taking this course will develop their information and analysis skills through the exploration of cross-disciplinary concepts like identity, behaviour, and relationships, in relation to our discussion of the technology.
ARTS 140 – Modern Protest Movements
An Arts First course that is dedicated to exploring the impact and meaning of selected current protest movements, and wider activism and resistance, along with the deep roots of movements like BLM, #MeToo, Land Defending, and Extinction Rebellion. Centered in the work of Coretta Scott and Dr. Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., and so many others--and foregrounding women's consciousness, Indigenous resistance, and Black leadership--we discover biography, examine the usage of types of sources, train on practical writing and verbal skills needed for a degree in the Arts, and trace the role of street protesting to larger historical arcs and various modern societal discourses
ARTS 140 – Pluralism: Agree to Disagree *Updated topic title from 'Pluralism and you!'
Does information always speak for itself or is something else required to reach a conclusion? In philosophy, the idea that there can be multiple, possibly even conflicting, true accounts of the world is called pluralism. This course will be an investigation into how pluralism plays a role in the arts and the sciences. Why is it that different disciplines can have such different ways of interpreting their subject matter? Do our interests and values influence the way we interpret the world? Should we just agree to disagree?
ARTS 140 – Say that again? (EMLS)
Note: This section is only open to learners of English as an additional language.
Most of us make errors when learning another language - that’s a natural part of learning. However, the impact of an error may depend on who you’re talking or writing to. Come explore possible sources of error and consider the thin line between error and creative choice.
Delivery mode: Blended (in-person and online)
ARTS 140 – Social Change and Social Development
Note: This section is fully reserved for Social Development Studies students.
Drawing on the work of social theorists, activists, artists, film-makers, writers, poets, and pop icons, this course asks: How can everyday people work together to effect social change? Through experiential learning and a case study approach, students will explore the possibility of turning social justice goals into action.
Delivery mode: Online
ARTS 140 – The Psychology of Self-Reports
Asking questions to get inside people's heads is trickier than it seems. We'll explore psychological tools for structuring interviews and designing surveys to get accurate insights into others' minds. Self-reports are one of the most convenient and widely used sources of information about psychological experience. The methodologies that we will explore are relevant to clinical diagnosis, personality assessment, user experience research, and many other practical applications.
ARTS 140 – The Science of Happiness
Note: This section is fully reserved for online students.
What is happiness, and why do we strive for it? Can we become happier? Should we? Is happiness a good thing? Together we will explore these questions and others.
Delivery mode: Online
ARTS 140 – The Study of Comics
Note: This section is partially reserved for students co-registered at St. Jerome's.
Students will cultivate an understanding of broad research methods through the analysis and exploration of the specific history, context, and practice surrounding the comics artform and the parallel evolution of the field of comics studies.
ARTS 140 – Understanding Poverty and Addiction
This Arts First seminar will start with a critique of the biomedical model of addiction, and move us toward a more holistic and contextual understanding rooted firmly in the social determinants of health. Central to this Arts First seminar, then, will be an understanding of the role of the historical, political and economic influences of addiction and poverty—particularly structural violence and social suffering in creating and enabling the very possibilities for drug addiction, poverty and homelessness. The seminar will start out with an understanding of the relationship between social marginalization, drug addiction and homelessness by way of various readings, and then we’ll move on to consider a jarring, full-length ethnography of addiction and homelessness in San Francisco.
Fall 2022 - ARTS 130
ARTS 130 – Animals: From Laps to the Page
What do we know about non-human animals and how do we know it? This course will consider human interactions with other animals, such as our relationships with pets, and the ways in which we represent these interactions in various contexts, from works of theory to fiction, from comics to documentary films.
ARTS 130 – Conspiracy and Fake News
Conspiracy theories are an expression of the social anxieties, fears, and in some instances desires of individuals in their relationship with the modern state and the public sphere. Through an interdisciplinary examination of the role of hoaxes, conspiracy theories, and fake news, both historical and contemporary, we will examine the social and historical reasons that allow these ideas to take hold and seem believable.
ARTS 130 – Exploring Poetry *NEW TOPIC*
This is a course in poetic appreciation and expression. We will explore concepts of surprise, epiphany, the hidden, discovery, uncertainty and others in poetry. We will read issues of poetic craft and will write our own poems along the way.
ARTS 130 – Extreme Tests: Extreme Writing Approaches of Contemporary Writers
This course “Extreme Texts” introduces students to contemporary writers who have adopted formal, thematic, and material extremes – via digression, excess, maximalism, minimalism, bathos, affective extremity, and other high-risk writing methods. It is fundamentally concerned with the intersection between literature’s rhetoric of intimacy and confession and public/political discourse. In the course, I hope to lead students through an exploration of how contemporary literature operates within the “extreme” as a thematic and formal abstraction as well as a political reality with quotidian impacts for both writing and survival, thereby helping students to appreciate the possibilities open to literature as a kind of survival.
ARTS 130 – How Should We Be Working?
Work is something that we are going to be doing for most of our lives. Consequently, it is crucial to read, discuss, research, and write about how we might make our working lives as productive, fulfilling, and enjoyable as possible by asking how much control should we have over the work we do, how many types of “jobs” should we be doing, who should be the ones doing the work, what conditions should we work in, and how long should we be working?
ARTS 130 – Human Journeys
Note: This section is partially reserved for students co-registered at St. Jerome's.
"When we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our real journey" (Wendell Berry)
The human journey is a story as old as humanity itself. With an emphasis on the humanities and social sciences, students will consider our motivations (and limitations) for exploration, as well as various kinds of journeying, such as physical, psychological, moral, and spiritual. Students will engage in classroom dialogue and various formal and informal writing activities in order to examine such topics as home-seeking and homecoming, exploration and escape, identity and place, hospitality, heroic quest, migration, etc. This course emphasizes skills in written and oral communication, intellectual inquiry and argumentation.
ARTS 130 – Humans & the Non-Human World
Humans are the animals that have forgotten they are animals. We live in a complex community of diverse species (humans, mammals, birds, insects, plants, and trees), and yet have come to think only of our human selves. This course explores the stories and interconnections between species in a range of contexts.
ARTS 130 – Intersecting Identity & Image
Note: This section is fully reserved for online students.
Students are asked to consider the relationship between images and the way that we think about ourselves and each other. How might popular culture and other image-based sources help “mediate” our identities, and what impact might it have on our everyday lives?
Delivery mode: Online
ARTS 130 – Language Matters
Note: This section is partially reserved for students co-registered at St. Jerome's.
This course engages students in the exploration of the power of language. It highlights the dual (cognitive and social) nature of language and enhances students' social awareness, ethical judgment, and communication competencies. Students are motivated to reflect upon their discursive practices and helps them identify the ways to advance their academic skills.
ARTS 130 – Life Stories
Every human being has a story. In this ARTS 130 course we engage the narratives of a diverse range of people such that we expand our own horizons. We also explore our own stories and the contexts in which we live. What sorts of possibilities open up before us when we learn about other peoples’ lives, and how do we describe our own?
ARTS 130 – Maximizing Your Memory
Understand the most important skill in today’s world: learning how to learn. This course is a condensed guide to memory techniques that provide an optimal state of performance and productivity. The goal is to have students learn about, and apply, cognitive techniques that are based in years of psychological research.
ARTS 130 – Nonbinary Digital Storytelling
Binaries are everywhere in our lives--not just in computers, but in how people understand topics and conversations on gender, race, identity, society, and more. New technologies make it easier than ever to join these conversations. In this course we’ll read and play works which interrogate these binaries while learning to make and argue for our own digital stories.
ARTS 130 – Plagues and the Pandemic *NEW TOPIC*
Can stories about plagues, whether historical or fictional, speak to the issues and experiences of the COVID-19 pandemic? This course investigates plague texts by Defoe, Poe, Camus, Soderbergh and others to better understand our age. Although the topic can be grim, we will uncover resources of resilience and hope.
ARTS 130 – Public Apologies for the Past
We will examine public apologies made by nations, corporations, churches, universities, and individuals, which have been made for residential schools, slavery, racist policies, corporate malfeasance, personal misconduct, and other histories. What does an apology do, and not do? How do we assess their meaning, sincerity, and role in addressing wrongs? How do they advance, or undermine, reconciliation? What is their place in public life?
ARTS 130 – Reading Race
This course will explore the representation of race in Canadian newspapers to determine the ways that the mainstream media perpetuate racist stereotypes while positioning Canada as a multicultural and racially harmonious society. We will also examine counter-narratives that resist these representations and challenge perceptions of Canada as an inclusive nation.
ARTS 130 – Refuse: Canadian Literature in Ruins
In this course we explore how contemporary Canadian literature mirrors radical changes in Canadian culture, establishing new boundaries that reflect current conversations about sexism, racism, and colonialism.
ARTS 130 – Representing Change
This course will examine written and visual representations of social and cultural change during contemporary moments of crisis. Topics will be developed in collaboration with student interest.
ARTS 130 – Social Justice and Social Development
Note: This section is fully reserved for Social Development Studies students and online students.
In this course students will be asked to critically reflect on social justice issues from diverse and multiple perspectives.
Delivery mode: Online
ARTS 130 – Sport, Communication & Culture
In Sport, Communication & Culture, students will explore what it means to be sports fans, athletes, or other participants and how sport influences broader communities. The course will blend consideration of scholarship on sport and exploration of students’ experiences as they study contemporary cases and respond to course content in writing and speech.
ARTS 130 – Suffering and Speech
Why do bad things happen to good people (and good things happen to bad ones)? What is an appropriate response in such a circumstance? This course will explore speech that emerges from contexts of suffering attending to issues of voice, perspective, audience, and rhetorical function.
ARTS 130 – The Danger of a Single Story
It is natural and common human behavior to put the people and things we encounter in the world into groups. But often these groups are based on our incomplete and simplistic knowledge of others, that is a single story of them. What makes us who we are? How do our “single stories” influence our identities, or how we view others and the choices we make? In this course, we analyze the processes of categorizing others based on incomplete stories or debunked concepts and explore strategies of communication between different groups in our society. We will primarily focus on only a few groups and on strategies, that promote conflict-free interaction.
ARTS 130 – What Are You Saying? (EMLS)
Note: This section is only open to learners of English as an additional language.
What you say and how you say it is determined by more than just your own ideas. Come explore how social, global, and local influences affect your communication.
Delivery mode: Online synchronous
Fall 2022 - ARTS 140
ARTS 140 – Agreeing to Disagree, or Not *NEW TOPIC*
This course will be an investigation into how pluralism plays a role in the arts. Why can there be conflicting accounts of the same thing? Should we agree to disagree? Do our interests/values determine what we call true? If so, what is the relationship between qualitative and quantitative information?
ARTS 140 – Cults in the Ancient World *ADDITIONAL SECTION ADDED*
This course focuses on the cults of the ancient Mediterranean world. How did they function, who joined them, and what role did they play in the ancient world? A key focus will be the element shared by virtually all ancient cults: animal sacrifice.
ARTS 140 – Creepypasta: Mode and Media *NEW TOPIC*
Scary stories, alternate realities, the Slender Man and more erupt from faceless and timeless corners of the internet forum, live chat, and multiplayer gaming. Have they changed our psycho-social boundaries, or our sense of reality? These this course addresses through analysis of creepypasta, ARGs, and the language of conspiracy.
ARTS 140 – Diasporas and Food Cultures
Over the last two centuries, globalization and the migration of communities have made available a medley of new foods available to the public. This course looks at how diasporas and the movement of cuisines have transformed the global food market and the dietary patterns of people.
ARTS 140 – Disney: Nostalgia + Progress
From Frontierland to Tomorrowland, Disney Imagineers have mastered three-dimensional art, telling detailed stories without a word. In this course, students survey the constructs of nonverbal communication utilized by Disney Imagineers to silently explore American and global history and culture, while also debating the validity of postmodern critiques of the “Disneyfication” of history.
ARTS 140 – Do Images Tell the Truth?
Everywhere we are surrounded by persuasive images. Advertising, newsfeeds, political campaigns, influencers, pop stars. We are bombarded by images in all directions by image and “content” producers, demanding our attention and often swaying our opinions and points of view. In this sea of images, how do we practice critical looking? How do we tell meaningful content from “fake news”? Whose interests do these images serve and how do we tell truth from clickbait?
ARTS 140 – Economic Impacts of COVID-19
This course provides first-year students an opportunity to explore important issues of economics, health, and international relations arising from the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada and a few selected countries such as the United States, England, France, China, India.
Basic economic concepts such as demand and supply, production and cost, health and welfare, tax and subsidy, health care and trade will be covered as needed. In addition, library research skills, statistical analysis, and report writing will also be covered as the class is moving along. The key to success in this course is consistent hard work, regular attendance and active class participation.
The learning outcomes of the course is a rare opportunity for first-year students to actively participate in a university teaching and learning environment with their peers and the course instructor at a closed distance in a small classroom. This is in contrast with their introductory economic courses with class sizes of a hundred students or more.
ARTS 140 – How the Sausage is Made: An Exploration of What and How We Eat
Note: One of this topic's two sections is partially reserved for students co-registered at St. Jerome's.
We all gotta eat! And yet, we often have very different opinions and views on food. Explore the culture of food markets and marketing, a variety of food movements, and the future of food.
ARTS 140 – Irrational Economics
This class explores the insights that behavioural economics holds for understanding personal and collective decision-making across a wide range of areas that impact our lives, using experiences of decision-making as a vehicle for understanding the influence of perceptions about facts and information.
ARTS 130 – Laughter and "Truthiness"
Parody and satire have long been used as political weapons, and the proliferation of mass media encourages these forms as a growing industry and art form. Comedians and other artists often use laughter try to undermine and challenge false or incomplete information, controversial or questionable ideas, and partially or wholly untrue facts put out by their opponents. In this course we will investigate the power of laughter to help us separate fact from fiction and justice from inequity.
ARTS 140 – Mobile Technology & Society
This course investigates modern mobile technologies, like smartphones, and the impact they have on the lives of individuals and the organization of society. Students taking this course will develop their information and analysis skills through the exploration of cross-disciplinary concepts like identity, behaviour, and relationships, in relation to our discussion of the technology.
ARTS 140 – Modern Protest Movements
Here in Modern Protest Movements, we take a comparative analytical approach to selected modern and past protest movements that included an aspect of street protesting. We drive to answer questions like: What are the functions, impacts, and limits of street protesting? What purpose does protesting serve and how has it shaped the past and our modern world?
To facilitate our discussion-based learning, we explore key historical and modern movements, like the U.S. Civil Rights Movement and the Black Lives Matter Movement, the Oka Resistance of 1990 in Canada, women’s rights since the 1800s, sexual liberation since Stonewall, environmentalism since the first Earth Day, plus, comparative antiwar movements, modern anti-state movements from the Tea Party to COVID-19 protests, protests against economic inequality like Occupy Wall Street and The Poor Peoples’ Campaign, and some international protests like Arab Springs.
Through these events and exploring themes like leadership, individuals, motivation, effectiveness, and limitations, students receive an understanding of the fundamental content. Methodologically, students engage in reflection, biography, primary and secondary research, peer collaboration, work-shopping on producing a research essay, and applying the skills of informal and formal writing and speaking for succeeding in our course and in future Arts courses.
See you in the fall! Dr. Cyr
ARTS 140 – Myths of Sex and Love
Are men really more sexual than women? Is it possible to fall in love at first sight? Do opposites attract? We will explore and analyze these and other myths of sex and love.
ARTS 140 – Research in Game Studies
Games are more than just time-killers or hobbies; they are complex social, cultural, and political products worth studying! You don’t have to be a gamer to do well in this class, just a person who wants to learn about games and how we study them. This class will explore the field of game studies through qualitative data collection and practice analyzing both qualitative and quantitative data about games and games culture. Be ready to never say "It's just a game" again!
ARTS 140 – Social Change and Social Development
Note: This section is fully reserved for Social Development Studies students and online students.
Drawing on the work of social theorists, activists, artists, film-makers, writers, poets, and pop icons, this course asks: How can everyday people work together to effect social change? Through experiential learning and a case study approach, students will explore the possibility of turning social justice goals into action.
Delivery mode: Online
ARTS 140 – The Art & Science of Communication
This course will explore how social scientists from the fields of anthropology, communication, psychology, and behavioural economics research human communication including situational and psychological factors that influence how we send and interpret messages. We will explore our own lived experiences as well as communication in popular print and internet media and learn how to engage with quantitative and qualitative data to answer our questions.
ARTS 140 – The Science of Happiness
Note: This section is fully reserved for online students.
What is happiness, and why do we strive for it? Can we become happier? Should we? Is happiness a good thing? Together we will explore these questions and others.
Delivery mode: Online
ARTS 140 – The Study of Comics
Note: This section is partially reserved for students co-registered at St. Jerome's.
Students will cultivate an understanding of broad research methods through the analysis and exploration of the specific history, context, and practice surrounding the comics art form and the parallel evolution of the field of comics studies.
ARTS 140 – What Do Games Mean?
The objective of this course will be to discuss how games are designed, played, and marketed, with an emphasis on the cultural discourse surrounding games. It will prompt students to think about who makes games, who plays games, and in what contexts these playful engagements occur. We will look at a wide variety of types of games, including board games, digital games, sports, and tabletop games. Students will not be required to have previous experiences with games, but will be expected to play games as part of the course.
ARTS 140 – Witches Through Time - CANCELLED
From Witches in the Bible and other ancient texts, to the Witchcraft hysteria that swept through medieval Europe, and even modern Witches who have re-claimed the term, this course uses the many manifestations of Witches to explore such issues as gender, sexuality, power, and the mysterious.
ARTS 140 – Youth in Global Politics
From ISIS’s ‘Cubs of the Caliphate’ to climate activist Greta Thunberg, children and youth are making a mark in global politics. In this course, we’ll start by looking at how actors like the UN have tried to shape childhood and youth in global politics, through initiatives like the UN Declaration on the Rights of the Child, and efforts to eradicate the use of child soldiers. We’ll think about how and why famous images of children – like the one of Phan Thị Kim Phúc running from napalm during the Vietnam War, or Syrian refugee Alan Kurdi’s dead body on a beach, have the power to influence politics. Then, we’ll look at children and youth as actors in global politics. We’ll start by studying how political preferences are acquired, and how politics might change when there are more young people in a society. We’ll try to understand why some young people join ISIS while others become climate activists, and we’ll think about when and how they have been successful at changing the world.
