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Courses to tickle the mind
Ever feel you missed out on all the world's great dinner parties? If so, you'd enjoy a course to be offered in January at the Liberal Arts College called Great Conversations. Students will eavesdrop as Plato discusses politics with Karl Marx and the prophet Isaiah tackles liberal theorist Isaiah Berlin.
Two lively courses listed in the Music Department are open to non-Music students. Because they are held in the Concert Hall, they have room for as many as 500 students. One is on Rock and Roll and the other is on Worldbeat Music.
Another course that can handle a crowd is The Visual and Performing Arts in Canada, which opens up a world of music, theatre, painting, photography and other modes of expression to students who need not be majoring in the fine arts.
Professor Tom Waugh is teaching a new course called Introduction to Queer Theory. A sign of the growth of this new field over the past decade, the course dips into history, the social sciences and feminist scholarship, and was soon fully enrolled.
It's "waiting-list only" for Lonergan College's hit course The Creative Self, given alternately by Principal Bill Byers (Mathematics) and Moira Carley (Education). Communication Studies Professor Marc Gervais is giving a full 6-credit course called The Works of Ingmar Bergman, based on his recent book, and Lonergan also offers courses in Science and Human Values.
Féminismes dans la francophonie, a Women's Studies course taught by Maria Nengeh Mensah, looks at how feminism is interpreted throughout the world, wherever French is spoken.
Students interested in the classics can choose to take a cluster of elective courses on the Greek language and culture, through Greek Studies.This latest interdisciplinary cluster is being offered by the Department of Classics, Modern Language and Linguistics.
Clusters were introduced in the Faculty of Arts and Science in 1996-97, and have proven popular. They consist of 15 or 18 credits grouped around a theme and straddling conventional academic disciplines.
Irish Studies evolved from that community's interest in preserving and promoting its heritage. As well as history and literature, it includes a popular film and speakers series. Concordia also offers a Native Studies cluster, with courses ranging from anthropology and history to feminism and communications.
The Planet Earth embraces the environment, the climate and landforms, with courses on the tropical rain forest and earthquakes. Introduction to Life Sciences is ideal for a student who wants to know more about science and medicine; students may choose from among more than 20 relevant courses. The Legal Studies cluster gives insight into that field
Understanding Western Myth addresses a growing interest in our spiritual and imaginative heritage. There are also clusters in Canadian Studies and Quebec Studies, which draw on history, literature, theatre, law, politics and the media, some of them in French.
Most Arts and Science students will eventually work in offices of some kind; they can prepare themselves for the "real world" with clusters in the Basics of Business, Marketing, and Survival in the Workplace. - BB