This course is designed to help students to develop further their skills in reading, writing, speaking, and researching. Students will study and produce various forms of communication while strengthening their skills in argumentation. They will learn to recognize and use various rhetorical strategies in order to produce a program-specific major assignment.
After successful completion of a BXE course, students will be able to do the following:
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| 603-BXE-DW |
Adventure and Quest Narratives |
2 - 2 - 2 |
60 |
|
| Description for Course: |
The importance of Africa and the role it plays in global health cannot be overstated. A significant number of cultural and literary theorists (Olaniyan, Csicsery-Ronay, Armillas-Tiseyra) have argued that the future of our planet will be dependent on the future of Africa. Because of the vastness of Africa’s geographical space and its diverse array of cultures, languages, and ethnicities, it is impossible to classify it into a whole and so this course is a small sampling of sub-Saharan African Literature from Ghana and Nigeria that highlights Africa’s increasing influence in global conversations. Classwork will consist of short lectures, group discussions and writing workshops. |
|
| 603-BXE-DW |
Applied Themes |
2 - 2 - 2 |
60 |
|
| Description for Course: |
The description for this course is not available at this time.
Please check with the Program Coordinator. |
|
| 603-BXE-DW |
Border Trouble |
2 - 2 - 2 |
60 |
|
| Description for Course: |
Have you ever suspected that the categories we use to make sense of our realities are a little rickety? This is a feeling we call Border Trouble. Borders are real or imagined dividing lines between shifting conceptions of what constitutes one category or another, what’s in or what’s out. We know about geographical borders — lines which separate places or peoples — but, more generally, borders are arbitrary markers to impose separation and order upon an inherently messy and interconnected world in flux. In this class we will explore the limits and liminal spaces between Life and Death, Being and Becoming, Human and Animal, Self and Other, Real and Illusory, Here and Beyond. Texts from the English portion of the class may include selections from Shakespeare’s King Lear and Othello; Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein; Octavia Butler’s “Bloodchild”; Michael Pollan’s How to Change Your Mind and horror films It Follows (Mitchell, 2105) and Midsommar (Aster, 2019). |
|
| 603-BXE-DW |
Careers and Callings |
2 - 2 - 2 |
60 |
|
| Description for Course: |
In this course we will read and write about what people do for a living, how they feel about it, and why they do it. Our exploration will include short stories, literary nonfiction, oral histories, and more. Analyzing these texts will provide you with ideas and give you an opportunity to frame your own experience, discover what inspires you, and explore your aspirations. Class activities include short lectures, discussion, group work and oral presentations in small groups. For the final project you will write about the challenges and work opportunities in a field related to your program of study. |
|
| 603-BXE-DW |
Creative Nonfiction |
2 - 2 - 2 |
60 |
|
| Description for Course: |
At its best, creative nonfiction is both perceptive and precise in its descriptions, seeking to capture a surprising truth about a particular person, experience, issue, or phenomenon. We will read a number of models, from genres that include memoir, feature articles, and profiles. Ultimately, you will write your own work of creative nonfiction. Over the term, you will do a series of exercises towards a revised piece of 1500 to 2000 words — from brainstorming to narrowing your focus, research, an exploratory draft, a full draft, and a revised work. The topic is up to you. The requirement is to produce a work that: 1) is related to your program of study, even if tangentially; 2) indicates significant research; 3) uses a range of creative formal strategies (sensory detail, dialogue, etc.) to engage a general reader; 4) (not least!) interests YOU. |
|
| 603-BXE-DW |
Creativity |
2 - 2 - 2 |
60 |
|
| Description for Course: |
This cross-disciplinary course will provide the opportunity to explore what creativity means to you, as well as in your chosen field of practice. You will begin waking up your imagination via exercises designed by the visionary artist Alex Grey. You will record your explorations in a journal along with drawings, doodles, etc., as your creative process unfolds. At the heart of this hands-on, experiential course lies your own project; it can range from making a piece of art, to writing an academic essay, to drafting a work-place, problem-solving report. You will take your project through these stages—wishing, choosing, starting, working, completing, and showing.You will learn strategies from psychotherapist Eric Maisel for overcoming such blocks as hungry mind, confused mind, chaotic mind, or shy mind anxiety. By semester’s end, you will do an oral presentation and a written report on your “work-in-progress,” describing what you have learned about sustaining your own creative practice. |
|
| 603-BXE-DW |
Critical Reading of Digital Culture |
2 - 2 - 2 |
60 |
|
| Description for Course: |
In this course, students will examine a number of the forces shaping society in the post-millennial cultural landscape, particularly the Internet and how it is affecting our notions of literacy, identity, knowledge, and our common cultural experience. The approach will be to examine how new forms of digital media are changing the way that we deliver, receive, create and experience text. Emphasis will be on social networking, blogging, and other forms of user-generated content, as well as journalism, advertising, privacy and copyright issues. Each student will do a research project that will ultimately be developed into an oral presentation and final paper and which will allow the student to explore how her or his specific discipline intersects with some of the main themes of the course. |
|
| 603-BXE-DW |
Critical Reading of Popular Culture |
2 - 2 - 2 |
60 |
|
| Description for Course: |
This course is designed to help students improve their academic reading and writing skills in English. Students will read both academic and general-audience articles and texts that critically examine the relation between society and popular culture, with particular attention given to advertising, music, television, technology, and film. Students will learn how to perform a close reading and analysis of the rhetoric strategies used in those texts, and will form their own opinions and interpretations of the topics and issues discussed in class. By the completion of the course, students will research, write, document, edit, and present a research paper that links their program of study to the course material. |
|
| 603-BXE-DW |
Culture and Rhetoric |
2 - 2 - 2 |
60 |
|
| Description for Course: |
This course examines rhetorical strategies in contemporary culture over three units: 1. Reading images and consumer culture. What rhetorical strategies can we identify in ads and public service announcements? How should we conceptualize the position of the individual within consumer culture? Students will write a rhetorical analysis of an ad/brand or PSA. 2. Conspiracy theories and moral panics. What are conspiracy theories and moral panics and how do they spread? How can we promote media literacy and limit their impact? Students will write an essay refuting a text/news story/podcast/viral video promoting a false idea. 3. Personality and the individual. What insights can be gained from personality testing and psychoanalysis? How can we read films as rhetoric about the development of the individual? Students will write an essay about their personality, their experience in their program, a goal and a film. |
|
| 603-BXE-DW |
Dystopian Fictions |
2 - 2 - 2 |
60 |
|
| Descriptions for Course: |
This course examines the principle themes, concepts, and forms of dystopian fiction in literature and film. A “dystopia” is an imaginary place or state in which things are unpleasant or bad, as from some form of deprivation, oppression, or terror. Representations of dystopias and utopias often share much in common, with perhaps as little as a single element that differs between an “ideal” society and a nightmarish one. Our focus will be on the critical element of Keith Booker’s definition—in novels like 1984 and The Hunger Games, short stories like “Harrison Bergeron” and “Caught in the Organ Draft,” films like V for Vendetta and Gattaca—and thus on extracting and analyzing the principal themes and sub-themes of these dystopian fictions: justice, freedom, individuality, morality, ethical behaviour, cognitive estrangement, power, surveillance, time, betrayal, the integrity of mind and body, children, the public and private, sexuality, religion, language, and history. (Robin E. Feenstra)
A “dystopia” is an imaginary place or state in which things are unpleasant or bad, as from some form of deprivation, oppression, or terror. Keith Booker defines dystopian fiction as “any imaginative view of a society that is oriented toward highlighting in a critical way negative or problematic features of that society’s vision of the ideal.” Our focus will be on the critical element of Booker’s definition—in novels like 1984 and The Hunger Games, short stories like “Harrison Bergeron” and “Caught in the Organ Draft,” films like V for Vendetta and Gattaca—and thus on extracting and analyzing the principal themes and sub-themes of these dystopian fictions: justice, freedom, individuality, morality, ethical behaviour, cognitive estrangement, power, surveillance, time, betrayal, the integrity of mind and body, children, the public and private, sexuality, religion, language, and history." (Robin E. Feenstra) |
|
| 603-BXE-DW |
Ecological Literacy |
2 - 2 - 2 |
60 |
|
| Description for Course: |
Arguments touching on nature, environment, and ecology are prominent every day in the news. Climate change, extreme weather events, species extinction, toxic air and water contamination, sustainable development, and broadly speaking, the human relationship to the biosphere, are often characterized as “wicked” problems: complex, difficult to analyze, and resistant to simple solutions. Voices motivated by conflicting purposes speak to a range of audiences on these issues, using traditional and social media. In this course, we aim to understand and enter these conversations. We learn about rhetorical strategies and systems thinking tools, and use these to understand and address environmental controversies. Students read and write on a course blog and work collaboratively in an active learning classroom. Students also attend the Environment Seminar speaker series, which takes place every other Thursday at the time of our regularly scheduled Thursday classes. |
|
| 603-BXE-DW |
Food for Thought: From Farm to Table |
2 - 2 - 2 |
60 |
|
| Description for Course: |
In this course, we are going to look at many aspects of food ― the good, the bad, and the ugly ― and read some important contemporary texts about the implications of diet for humans and the planet. Readings will vary from short stories, essays, articles and to longer works; they will include selections from Lolis Eric Elie, Anthony Bourdain, Michael Pollan, T.C. Boyle, various chefs, Anna Lappe, Adam Gopnik, Sonia Faruqi, and Sarah Elton, the latter three being Canadian. Some of the issues covered will be food choices, fast food vs. slow food, factory farms vs. the organic alternative, animal welfare, the local food movement, and food waste, amongst others. We will be looking at rhetorical strategies used by these writers and at ways to improve reading, writing and presentation skills. Student responses will include a personal essay, restaurant and film reviews, letters, an analytical essay, a presentation, and culminating in a research essay of 1000 words related to your program. |
|
| 603-BXE-DW |
Humans, Animals and the Environment |
2 - 2 - 2 |
60 |
|
| Description for Course: |
In this course students examine different manifestations of the human relationship with the natural world, both animate and inanimate, from the more obvious stories about humans surviving in the face of harsh weather or predatory animals to more subtle interrogations of humanity’s place within or separate from the natural world. The geographical focus will be on works from North America, and the class will study a broad range of works produced since the landing of Europeans in the Americas. The goal of the course is to introduce students to a range of ideas concerning the place of human beings in the context of other animals and the environment. Final projects in this course will be related to students’ programs of study and will explore some environmental issue in that context. |
|
| 603-BXE-DW |
Indigenous Perspectives |
2 - 2 - 2 |
60 |
|
| Description for Course: |
The description for this course is not available at this time.
Please check with the Program Coordinator. |
|
| 603-BXE-DW |
Inquiry-Based Writing |
2 - 2 - 2 |
60 |
|
| Descriptions for Course: |
In this course, we will focus on the concept of inquiry-based writing, which is to say in order to be an informed speaker on a given issue or topic, you will need to inquire deeply into the issue. Only from a position of understanding can we stake a claim to a position and argue for that position. As a consequence, our focus will be on not only understanding a text from its rhetorical position, but also focus on asking questions of the text as well as ourselves. In addition, there are issues of information, credibility, and authority that must be considered and questioned. Ultimately, inquiry-based writing will ask you to ask questions of yourself and to seek information. A healthy dose of skepticism will also be needed — we cannot simply accept what has been said simply because it has been said. In the end, we want to be authoritative, informed individuals. From that position, we can write with confidence, confidence that will be evident to a reader. (Todd Starke-Meyerring)
In this course, students will focus on the concept of inquiry-based writing, which is to say in order to be an informed speaker on a given issue or topic, you will need to inquire deeply into the issue. Only from a position of understanding can we stake a claim to a position and argue for that position. As a consequence, our focus will be on not only understanding a text from its rhetorical position, but also focus on asking questions of the text as well as ourselves. In addition, there are issues of information, credibility, and authority that must be considered and questioned. Ultimately, inquiry-based writing will ask you to ask questions of yourself and to seek information. A healthy dose of skepticism will also be needed—we cannot simply accept what has been said simply because it has been said. In the end, we want to be authoritative, informed individuals. From that position, we can write with confidence, confidence that will be evident to a reader. (Todd Starke-Meyerring) |
|
| 603-BXE-DW |
Investigating Story Value(s) |
2 - 2 - 2 |
60 |
|
| Description for Course: |
Individuals and groups across cultures and throughout history have long recognized that storytelling is a form of power. But what gives stories their power? Who gets to tell them? Who is impacted by them? And how are new technologies, such as social media and Artificial Intelligence, affecting the flow of stories of all kinds in our society? This paired course will explore the territories of both personal and public discourse across the disciplines and will consider the moral implications of the stories we tell. Students will discover how these territories are marked by good-faith discussion, argument and research as well as by censorship, propaganda and “fake news”, and how so much of our discourse is organized by a common device as old as the human species itself: story. Completion of the Investigating Story Value(s) paired course fulfills the foundational knowledge component of the SPACE: Arts and Sciences Certificate. |
|
| 603-BXE-DW |
Jordan Peterson's 12 Rules for Life |
2 - 2 - 2 |
60 |
|
| Description for Course: |
This course will centre around a critical reading of Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life, a recent bestseller that combines self-help, psychology, and cultural history. Peterson offers fascinating insights into life issues grounded in a bibliography referencing contemporary scholarship and great books of the past. As a public intellectual, Peterson has generated significant controversy for challenging what he sees as the left-wing bias within universities and the general culture. I hope that considering the book in the context of some of Peterson’s other public statements and the reaction that his thinking has generated — pro, con, and in between — will make for an exciting interdisciplinary course, in which students will complete a project linking some of Peterson’s themes to their program of study. |
|
| 603-BXE-DW |
Jordan Peterson's Rules for Life |
2 - 2 - 2 |
60 |
|
| Description for Course: |
This course will introduce students to the ideas of Jordan Peterson, a Canadian psychologist and internationally known author whose work combines self-help, psychology, and cultural history (currently, the one course text will be Peterson’s Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life). Peterson offers fascinating insights into life issues grounded in a bibliography referencing contemporary scholarship and great books of the past. As a public intellectual, Peterson has generated significant controversy for challenging what he sees as the left-wing bias within universities and the general culture. I hope that considering the book in the context of some of Peterson’s other public statements and the reaction that his thinking has generated — pro, con, and in between — will make for an exciting interdisciplinary course, in which students will complete a project linking some of Peterson’s themes to their program of study. |
|
| 603-BXE-DW |
Language and Power |
2 - 2 - 2 |
60 |
|
| Description for Course: |
This course explores the relationship between language and power. Words have the power to persuade and inspire, but they also have the power to oppress and hurt. The course will consider the relationship between language and power in several different areas: Register, Political Language, Political Correctness, and Global Language. We will also work on ways to make your own writing more powerful through explanations of grammar and style, and writing and editing activities. Please note that this course will involve the use of politically charged words and swear words. Our discussion of these words will always be concerned with the issues of power that they raise. |
|
| 603-BXE-DW |
Literary Nonfiction and Social Critique |
2 - 2 - 2 |
60 |
|
| Description for Course: |
In this course students read various literary nonfiction essays by contemporary writers who use their individual experiences to address broader social concerns. Using these essays as examples, along with instructional readings on the craft of personal essay writing, students then draw from their own experiences to engage in social critique by exploring forms of institutionalized violence—linguistic, economic, and gendered, for example. Students write essays intended for a non-specialized audience with the intent to enter real-world discourse. Final essays weave together personal experience and research to address a present-day problem related to students’ particular disciplines. Ultimately, the course encourages students to recognize that their decisions can foster social justice. |
|
| 603-BXE-DW |
Literature and Ethics |
2 - 2 - 2 |
60 |
|
| Description for Course: |
This course will aim to develop students' reading and writing skills through the investigation of works of literature, with a particular focus on ethical issues that are presented in these works. The two central texts of the course are Cormac McCarthy’s 2007 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Road, and Alan Moore and Dave Gibbon’s celebrated graphic novel Watchmen. |
|
| 603-BXE-DW |
Literature of Migration and Exile |
2 - 2 - 2 |
60 |
|
| Description for Course: |
“Mass migration,” according to Salmon Rushdie, is one of the “distinguishing feature[s] of our time.” Rushdie made this observation almost twenty years ago, but the large-scale movement of people (fleeing wars, seeking better economic opportunities, escaping the ravages of climate change, etc.) has in the years since become an even more prominent feature of human civilization. The aim of this course is to gain a better understanding of this important subject by examining how it is taken up in works of literature. Our discussions will focus on specific historical and political contexts, and we will read a wide range of literary texts, including a selection of essays and short fiction by pivotal figures such as Edward Said, Jamaica Kincaid, V.S. Naipaul, and Salmon Rushdie, as well as two contemporary novels that dramatize the related experiences of migration and exile. |
|
| 603-BXE-DW |
Literature of Montreal's Main |
2 - 2 - 2 |
60 |
|
| Description for Course: |
The description for this course is not available at this time.
Please check with the Program Coordinator. |
|
| 603-BXE-DW |
Literature of Shell Shock |
2 - 2 - 2 |
60 |
|
| Description for Course: |
The description for this course is not available at this time.
Please check with the Program Coordinator. |
|
| 603-BXE-DW |
Non-Fiction Storytelling |
2 - 2 - 2 |
60 |
|
| Description for Course: |
At the core of human interaction and evolution is the ability to communicate. Over time, we have developed not only more complex forms of communication but have also become highly dependent on this ability to exchange information and ideas – in short, to tell stories that can entertain and educate. Thus, within the scope of non-fiction storytelling, the goal is to transmit factual information but do so in a creative way. Through a focus on creative non-fiction forms of storytelling – both about ourselves and the world around us - this course is intended to help students further hone both their creative and critical thinking skills. The purpose of the assignments will be to 1) help students see the difference between fiction and non-fiction; 2) investigate the art of telling a story creatively; 3) practice research skills, and 4) tell a story based on facts. |
|
| 603-BXE-DW |
Non-Fiction Workshop |
2 - 2 - 2 |
60 |
|
| Description for Course: |
Using Zinsser’s text as our guide, we will explore several areas of non-fiction: letters, writing about the arts, and travel writing. We will read some preeminent examples from each category, after which you will create your own. We will also use Zinsser’s book to improve your writing and reading skills to the point where you develop a fluency with the specialized vocabulary and conventions of non-fiction writing. Towards the end of the course, you will complete an oral presentation, and on the last day of classes, you will submit a major research paper that relates to your program of study. |
|
| 603-BXE-DW |
Novel History |
2 - 2 - 2 |
60 |
|
| Description for Course: |
In this course, we will examine novels, short stories, and films that represent historical events and experiences. Specifically, through our analysis of our course material, we will consider the ways in which fiction may represent and, in some cases, reimagine history and what implications these reimaginings deliver. |
|
| 603-BXE-DW |
Reading the Classic Horror Film |
2 - 2 - 2 |
60 |
|
| Description for Course: |
This course will pursue the idea of “classic” horror as a way to designate films that articulate an important set of historical, psychological, philosophical, and political concerns. Divided up into a range of subgenres and special issues, this course will introduce students to the special versatility of horror as we explore the genre’s ongoing relevance and adaptability. |
|
| 603-BXE-DW |
Rhetoric |
2 - 2 - 2 |
60 |
|
| Description for Course: |
This course is designed to develop students' proficiency in producing well-structured texts and oral reports that will prepare them for the writing challenges they will encounter in their chosen careers. An important aim of the course is to show that academic writing, literary criticism, business writing, scientific reporting and journalism are not wholly distinct disciplines, but depend on the same criteria of clearly formulated purpose, awareness of audience, exactness and economy of expression, and internal cohesion that characterize all good writing. Consequently, the course will be divided between understanding argument through analysis and practising argument through composition. |
|
| 603-BXE-DW |
Rhetorical Strategies |
2 - 2 - 2 |
60 |
|
| Descriptions for Course: |
This course is designed to teach students how to employ various rhetorical strategies used in written communication. Through the analysis of various essays and formal rhetoric, students will learn how to write a variety of professional and academically orientated texts with presentation, audience and purpose in mind. This course will also focus on strategies for generating ideas, conducting research, planning, organizing, revising and editing texts. (Tracie Gemmel)
This course is designed to help students further strengthen their reading and writing skills. Through careful rhetorical analysis and regular writing practice, students will come to assess and appreciate different techniques, styles, and purposes of prose. Readings will be mostly — but not exclusively — recent non-fiction works addressing a variety of subjects relevant to contemporary concerns. (Topics to be covered could include the media, sports, internet, art, food, culture, environment, writing, gender, ethics, jobs, cities, advertising, etc.). Classroom discussion and activities will be linked through a major project to issues central to students’ programmes of study. (Sabine Leger) |
|
| 603-BXE-DW |
Robot Visions |
2 - 2 - 2 |
60 |
|
| Description for Course: |
This course will explore the concept of robots/automatons both in terms of the line between human/non-human categories, as well as a promise of future and present technological possibilities. A combination of fiction and non-fiction readings, this course aspires to have a broader, interdisciplinary appeal to students studying in different programs, and will offer the possibility to write a research paper (summative assessment) on AI technology, as it relates to their programs of study. Some essays & assignments will have a more literary scope & purpose. In our attempt to read both fiction & non-fiction related to robots, some of which spans over a hundred years of time, we will try to establish a broader historical context for thinking about a topic that is so provoking to our imagination today! |
|
| 603-BXE-DW |
Robot Visions in Fiction and Beyond |
2 - 2 - 2 |
60 |
|
| Description for Course: |
This course will explore the concept of robots/automatons both in terms of the line between human/non-human categories, as well as a promise of future and present technological possibilities. A combination of fiction and non-fiction readings, this course aspires to have a broader, interdisciplinary appeal to students studying in different programs, and will offer the possibility to write a research paper (summative assessment) on AI technology, as it relates to their programs of study. Some essays & assignments will have a more literary scope & purpose. In our attempt to read both fiction & non-fiction related to robots, some of which spans over a hundred years of time, we will try to establish a broader historical context for thinking about a topic that is so provoking to our imagination today! |
|
| 603-BXE-DW |
Storytelling |
2 - 2 - 2 |
60 |
|
| Description for Course: |
The act of storytelling is not only just about as old as humanity itself, it’s also one of the core components of the human experience. We tell stories to share wisdom, give warning, or simply to provide entertainment. This course will take a look at several forms of storytelling – including film, stories, biographies, and photography, among others - in an effort to discover exactly what it is that makes it such an integral part of our lives. We will perform both analytical and creative work. Interspersed throughout the study of these various forms of storytelling will be a study of approaches that are essential to the act of telling stories, and that can also be useful in researching and preparing a formal research paper. |
|
| 603-BXE-DW |
Stranger Than Fiction: Memoir and Autobiography |
2 - 2 - 2 |
60 |
|
| Description for Course: |
Students will read the memoirs of David Sedaris, Haven Kimmel, Amber Ruffin, and Catherine Gildiner, to name a few. The class will consist of lectures, class discussions, oral presentations, and the revision and editing of students’ work. Students will analyze and respond to recurring themes found within memoir and autobiography. They will investigate what these authors’ lives reveal about love, loss, relationships, childhood, identity, and why their stories need to be told. Students will engage in close readings and will respond in class discussions and in their written work. |
|
| 603-BXE-DW |
Studies in Dualities |
2 - 2 - 2 |
60 |
|
| Description for Course: |
One of the most basic, and yet most useful means for analyzing art, is to think in terms of dualities — how everything has an opposite, and can only be fully understood through a comparison to that opposite. Examples include life vs. death, humans vs. nature, male vs. female, good vs. evil, and private vs. public. This course will focus on dualities as they show up in literature, specifically on the ways we think about race, gender, and our relationship to the natural world. Students will be asked to consider some of the dualities that form our world views, and to read works of literature with an understanding of how these dualities are often unstable, limiting, and artificial. Through readings, lectures, group and individual assignments, and written essays, students will explore these concepts as they show up in literature, film, and on the internet. |
|
| 603-BXE-DW |
Telling Stories |
2 - 2 - 2 |
60 |
|
| Description for Course: |
Storytelling is a powerful form of social communication that shapes how we see the world. Students will learn how contemporary indigenous storytellers challenge, reshape, and correct the dominant narratives about Canada’s past and present. In the process, students will learn how to communicate challenging and complex issues to a general audience. Accordingly, students will learn how to develop a field-relevant research essay in multiple steps. There are options for alternative creative writing or research assignments. The class will use audio recordings, films, and texts by indigenous authors like Thomas King (Truth about Stories), Richard Wagamese (Indian Horse), and Tanya Tagaq (Split Tooth) and directors like Alanis Obomsawin, Alethea Arnaquq-Baril, Neil Diamond, and Zacharias Kunuk. Note that the texts and movies deal with residential school, generational trauma, colonialism, and sexual & physical abuse. |
|
| 603-BXE-DW |
Text and the City: Writing Montreal |
2 - 2 - 2 |
60 |
|
| Description for Course: |
This course focuses on the complex artistic, literary and cultural representations of life in Montreal. Among the aims of the proposed course is to demonstrate how a city as space informs culture and vice versa, and to investigate how literary representations of Montreal’s rich urban culture both construct and challenge how we imagine our city. In addition to studying musical texts, films, plays, and novels from a literary point of view as a map of urban space and life, we will also visit institutes and spaces that define our city and write about them. Students will be encouraged to write long research papers informed by their disciplinary specializations (regardless of whether nursing, literature, arts, social science, applied technologies, etc.). They will also experiment with different styles of rhetorical presentation of their arguments. |
|
| 603-BXE-DW |
The Bigger Picture |
2 - 2 - 2 |
60 |
|
| Description for Course: |
In The Bigger Picture, you will put on your journalist hat and work on one long feature story (like a magazine article) over the course of the semester. A feature story involves a deep dive into a recent event, trend, or phenomenon. You’ll discover the bigger picture of your story through research and interviews and puzzle the pieces together through several brainstorming and planning stages. The focus will be on finding the story behind the story — the greater social, cultural, political, and economic factors at play. This class will teach you how to write — to really write — to create the kind of prose that can move people and change the world. Of particular importance are a burning sense of curiosity and a dedicated work ethic. You will choose the topic of your feature story, allowing you to produce a moving and well-told story through your own unique voice and style. |
|
| 603-BXE-DW |
The Idea of Progress |
2 - 2 - 2 |
60 |
|
| Description for Course: |
This course will encourage students to think about the idea of progress — the idea that technological and social advances have improved the human condition and will inevitably continue to do so — by examining a disparate selection of fictional and non-fictional works that respond to the momentous changes that have occurred since the rise of industrial capitalism in the last half of the 18th century. Students will participate in class discussions and debates as they consider the impact of progress on not only the texts but their own lives, fields of study, and future careers. |
|
| 603-BXE-DW |
The Storytelling Animal |
2 - 2 - 2 |
60 |
|
| Description for Course: |
Anthropologists tell us that storytelling is central to human existence and common to every known culture. Storytelling involves a symbiotic exchange between teller and listener — an exchange we learn to negotiate in infancy. This course studies the rich variety of stories we tell, and the ways we tell them. We will study some of the major genres of storytelling: epic, myth, tragedy, allegory, and romance in the realms of fiction, and non fiction and consider questions such as: What are the formal elements that make for a great story? How do character, theme, plot, perspective, and style contribute to our understanding of a story? What hopes and desires, needs and anxieties, does it answer to? How do the representations of gender, sexuality, race, and class inform the art and practice of story-telling? As well, we will practice our own creative storytelling skills in order to gain a deeper understanding of how writers tell stories, and to help us define our own narrative voice. |
|
| 603-BXE-DW |
Track Changes |
2 - 2 - 2 |
60 |
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| Description for Course: |
The description for this course is not available at this time.
Please check with the Program Coordinator. |
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| 603-BXE-DW |
Welcome to the Machine: An Introduction to Ethics and Sci-Fi |
2 - 2 - 2 |
60 |
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| Description for Course: |
Are humans just wind-up toys? Do we control machines or live in the belly of one? Is so-called “reality” merely a simulation? Are our fates determined by our programming? If so, do choices matter? Welcome to the machine! Strap in as we travel through space and time and ponder questions foundational to Sci-Fi and Ethics. Our journey begins with myth and metaphysics in Ancient Greece. From there we’ll jump to the ethical implications of early mechanistic philosophers and of modern thinkers including Bentham, Nietzsche, and Freud. We’ll then turn to recent scholarship on the uncanny valley; cosmic dread; robot rights; alternate techno-histories; and black, queer, and Indigenous futures. Authors include: Philip K. Dick, H.P. Lovecraft, Octavia Butler, Sherman Alexie, and Seo-Young J. Chu. Directors include: Stanley Kubrick (2001), Alex Garland (Ex Machina) and the genre-bending David Lynch…We’ll also discuss the Pink Floyd song after which this course was named! |
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| 603-BXE-DW |
Women and Anger |
2 - 2 - 2 |
60 |
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| Description for Course: |
While women's anger is not a new phenomenon, fiction and non-fiction books chronicling and channelling women's anger have been coming fast and furious in recent years. In Rage Becomes Her (2018), Soraya Chemaly notes that “It is easier to criticize angry women than to ask the questions ‘What is making you so angry?’ and ‘What can we do about it?’” This course will explore these questions through selected recent fiction and non-fiction. The non-fiction texts provide data and report many women's lived experiences; the fictional texts offer sometimes satiric social commentary and/or revenge fantasy, but also serious consideration of Chemaly's second question: what to do in the face of these conditions? Heads up: some course material includes violence against women and girls, including rape, and violence against men, including dismemberment. |
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| 603-BXE-DW |
World War II's Long Shadow |
2 - 2 - 2 |
60 |
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| Description for Course: |
World War II changed not just the arts, but the very ways in which people think about the world. The focus of this course is charting out how this alteration in individual human perspectives and broad historical perspectives ran in tandem after the enormity of the war’s trauma. We will read a sampling of short first-hand accounts from the war along with short historical accounts of key events. Elie Wiesel's Holocaust memoir Night (1960) and Robert Harris’s alternate-history detective novel, Fatherland (1992), will serve as the basis of the course’s major work, including an individual discipline-specific project using various episodes and events from the war as a backdrop. |
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| 603-BXE-DW |
Writing about Film |
2 - 2 - 2 |
60 |
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| Description for Course: |
For this course, film will be considered as a broad category that includes the movies of classic and contemporary Hollywood cinema, scripted television comedies, documentary films, independent/art cinema, and world cinema. By screening various examples from these different areas, we will consider the general concerns of storytelling and argument in audiovisual media. Studying writing about film will also allow us to address the basics of argument in print and other verbal media. We will read and analyze various examples of nonfiction writing including film reviews, cultural journalism, scholarly film criticism, and scholarly writing in other academic fields. Readings will prepare each student for the major writing assignments for the course which will include critical essays on short and feature-length films as well as a rhetorical analysis of a scholarly article relevant to the student’s program of study. |
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| 603-BXE-DW |
Writing about the Novel |
2 - 2 - 2 |
60 |
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| Descriptions for Course: |
This course is a survey of the novel. After discussing the rise of the genre in the eighteenth century and considering representative excerpts from authors such as Defoe, Richardson, and Fielding, we will study two nineteenth-century novels, two modernist works, and a novel by a contemporary author. Particular attention will be paid to the historical contexts of the books and the connections between the development of the novel form and social, historical, philosophical, and technological developments in Western society. (Simon Michael Fanning)
This course is a survey of the novel. After discussing the rise of the genre in the eighteenth century and considering representative excerpts from authors such as Defoe, Richardson, and Fielding, we will study two nineteenth-century novels, two modernist works, and a novel by a contemporary author. Particular attention will be paid to the historical contexts of the books and the connections between the development of the novel form and social, historical, philosophical, and technological developments in Western society. (Simon Michael Fanning) |
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| 603-BXE-DW |
Writing Work |
2 - 2 - 2 |
60 |
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| Description for Course: |
This course focuses on writing about work and the work of writing. What is “the work of writing”? It deals with the complex issues of purpose, audience, genre, and voice that all writers face” (Elizabeth Rankin, The Work of Writing). And writing about work? We will read and listen to stories and essays about various kinds of work and, by responding to these texts, further develop skills in reading, writing, speaking, and researching. Because the BXE course includes a program-specific major assignment, you will employ in this writing terminology and rhetorical strategies pertinent to your field of study. Your writing about work will comprise various forms of communication, including some creative writing, which engages a reader’s imagination and emotions. Revising and editing are key to constructing writing that works. You will learn to harness the power of precision and persuasion to close the gap between what you want to communicate and what your reader or listener apprehends. |
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