Note: This is an archive. View our current courses.
Course Descriptions Summer 2016
Additional details about courses can be found on the Arts & Science timetable. Sessional dates are available on the Faculty of Arts & Science calendar. Course descriptions from prior years can be found in our archive.
MHB155H1F
Elementary Modern Hebrew I
Yigal Nizri
Monday & Tuesday 4-7p
Wednesday 4-6p
First
Introduction to the fundamentals of Hebrew grammar and syntax. Emphasis on the development of oral and writing skills.
Exclusion: Grade 4 Hebrew (or Grade 2 in Israel)/NML155H1
Distribution Requirement Status: Humanities
Breadth Requirement: Creative and Cultural Representations (1)
MHB156H1S
Elementary Modern Hebrew II
Yigal Nizri
Monday & Tuesday 4-7p
Wednesday 4-6p
Second
Continued introduction to the fundamentals of Hebrew grammar and syntax. Emphasis on the development of oral and writing skills.
Prerequisite: MHB155H1/NML155H1 or permission of instructor
Exclusion: Grade 4 Hebrew (or Grade 2 in Israel)/NML156H1
Distribution Requirement Status: Humanities
Breadth Requirement: Creative and Cultural Representations (1)
RLG100Y1Y
World Religions
David Perley
Tuesday & Thursday 6-8p
Year
An introduction to the history, philosophy, and practice of the major religions of the world, including Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism.
Exclusion: RLG280Y1,RLGA01H3,RLGA02H3. Note: RLGA01H3 and RLGA02H3 taken together are equivalent to RLG100Y1. Note: RLG101H5 is not equivalent to RLG100Y1Y
Distribution Requirement Status: Humanities
Breadth Requirement: Thought, Belief and Behaviour (2) + Society and its Institutions (3)
RLG200H1F
Study of Religion
Justin Stein
Monday & Wednesday 6-8
First
An introduction to the discipline of the study of religion. This course surveys methods in the study of religion and the history of the discipline in order to prepare students to be majors or specialists in the study of religion.
Prerequisite: Open to Religion Specialists and Majors
Exclusion: RLG200Y1, RLGB10H3, RLG105H5
Distribution Requirement Status: Humanities
Breadth Requirement: Thought, Belief and Behaviour (2)
RLG230H1F
Religion and Public Life
Christina Reimer
Monday & Wednesday 6-8
First
Course examines various issues: the role of religions in public, political contexts, such as religion and secularism in democratic societies; religion, human rights, and law; religion and state power; the political nature of religious social structures, religion and the politics of gender and sexuality; interreligious conflict and alliances
Distribution Requirement Status: Humanities
Breadth Requirement: Society and its Institutions (3)
RLG231H1S
Religion and Public Life
Christina Reimer
Monday & Wednesday 6-8
Second
Course explores issues at the intersection of religion and science which may include such topics as evolution and the assessment of its religious significance by different traditions, conceptions of God held by scientists (theism, pantheism, panentheism), ethical issues raised by scientific or technological developments ( cloning or embryonic stem cell research), philosophical analysis of religious and scientific discourses.
Exclusion: RLG231Y1, SMC230Y1
Distribution Requirement Status: Humanities
Breadth Requirement: Thought, Belief and Behaviour (2)
RLG280Y1Y
World Religions: A Comparative Study
David Perley
Tuesday & Thursday 6-8p
Year
An alternative version of the content covered by RLG100Y1, for students in second year or higher who cannot or do not wish to take a further 100-level course. Students attend the
RLG100Y1 lectures and tutorials but are expected to produce more substantial and more sophisticated written work, and are required to submit an extra written assignment.
Prerequisite: Completion of 5.5 full course equivalents
Exclusion: RLG100Y1/RLGA01H3/RLGA02H3
Distribution Requirement Status: Humanities
Breadth Requirement: Thought, Belief and Behaviour (2) + Society and its Institutions (3)
RLG313H1F
Gender, Sexuality and Religion in the West
Felipe Ribeiro
Monday & Wednesday 3-5p
First
The course investigates the origin(s) of Western heterosexuality and the heterosexual man. Gender dimorphism is not a trans-historical phenomenon, but a historically conditioned construct. RLG 313H1 explores the processes wherein Judaism and Christianity are primary players in the naturalization of gender dimorphism and in the sexing of bodies/anatomies. Nature/natural is also culture/cultural; we want to know which cultural-religious processes transform the heterosexual in heteronormative, excluding queer female and alternative masculine identities: a) the Greco-Roman inverted, b) queer saints and rabbis, c) transvestite monks/nuns, d) the non-chivalrous man, the feminine Jew, etc.
Textbooks
- Thomas Laqueur, Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud (Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 1990)
- Daniel Boyarin, Unheroic Conduct: The rise of heterosexuality and the invention of the Jewish Man (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997)
- Virginia Burrus, The Sex Lives of Saints : an erotics of ancient hagiography (Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, c2004)
Prerequisite: All 300-series courses normally presuppose at least three prior RLG half-courses (or equivalent). Only specific Prerequisites or recommended preparations are listed below. Students who do not meet the Prerequisites but believe they have adequate academic preparation should consult the Undergraduate Administrator regarding entry to the course.
Exclusion: RLG237H1/RLG314
Recommended Preparation: RLG235H1
Distribution Requirement Status: Humanities
Breadth Requirement: Society and its Institutions (3)
RLG404H1S
Departmental Capstone-Research
Arun Brhmbhatt
Tuesday & Thursday 6-8
Second
An integrative capstone seminar that emphasizes iterative development of a research project, locating a research specialization within its broader disciplinary audience, and communicating the process and results of a research project to non-specialists within the study of religion. Open to Relgion Specialists and Majors only.
Prerequisite: open to 4th year Religion Specialists and Majors
Distribution Requirement Status: Humanities
Breadth Requirement: None