VIC110Y1
Literary Studies I: The Classical and the Biblical Tradition 52L, 26T

The European literary tradition from the Bible and classical antiquity through the Middle Ages. Readings in English translation from the classical epic, Greek tragedy and philosophy, the Biblical tradition and Dante's Divine Comedy. By introducing students to practical criticism and to the interpretation of texts and their intertexts, the course seeks to develop a theoretical and comparative language for literary analysis.

VIC120Y1
Introduction to Semiotics and Communication 52L, 26T

Systems and processes of verbal and non-verbal communication. Processes of constituting texts out of sign systems in a variety of contemporary modes and genres: language, literature, cinema, advertising, the media, art, gestures.

VIC210Y1
Literary Studies II: The Rise of Modern Literatures 52L, 26T

Central traditions of Western Literature from the Renaissance to the end of the nineteenth century: Chr tien de Troyes, Yvain; Cervantes, Don Quixote; plays by Shakespeare and Calderon; Montaigne, Essays; Pascal, Pensees; Milton, Paradise Lost; Mozart, Don Juan; Rousseau, Reveries of a Solitary Walker; Goethe, Faust; Kierkegaard, Diary of a Seducer; Nietsche, Zarathustra (Part 4); Whitman, Song of Myself; Dostoevsky, Brothers Karamazov.

VIC211Y1
Filmic Adaptations of Literature 52L

Issues of adaptation from various literary genres; novel, short story, novella, poetry, drama, folk tale, comics, and discourse prose.
Exclusion: INI328Y

VIC220Y1
Post-Structuralism/Post-Modernism 52L, 26T

Studies the international culture emerging in media and literature and examines recent communication theory as it applies to literary, social and cultural issues.
Prerequisite: VIC120Y

VIC221Y1
Semiotics in the Professions 52L

Using semiotic analysis to understand impact of postmodernism on professional fields, including education, medicine, law, and the church.
Recommended preparation: VIC120Y

VIC240Y1
The Civilization of Renaissance Europe 52L

An interdisciplinary introduction to the civilization of the Renaissance illustrated by a study of the institutions, thought, politics, society and culture of both Italy and Northern Europe. Italian city states such as Florence, Urbino and Venice, Papal Rome and despotic Milan are compared with the northern dynastic monarchies of France and England.
Exclusion: VIC140Y

VIC270Y1
Thinking about the U.S.A. 52L, 26T

Interdisciplinary introduction to the study of the United States with attention both to some of the enduring themes of American life and to various ways of studying them. Emphasis on how different disciplines approach some such important topics as race, nation and region, technology, gender, urbanism and democracy.

VIC299Y1
Research Opportunity Program

Credit course for supervised participation in faculty research project. See page 42 for details.

VIC300Y1
Special Topic in Literary Studies 78S

Interdisciplinary approach to a specific historical period or movement (such as Romanticism, Late-Antiquity, Post-modernism, etc.) within the development of European arts and letters: emphasis on the literature, fine arts, music and philosophy of the period.

VIC310Y1
Literary Studies III: Readings in 20th Century Literature 52L, 26T

The avant-garde and its querying of language, representation, and interpretation. In the first term, intensive study of Joyce's Ulysses. In the second term, works by writers such as Robbe-Grillet, Borges, Brecht, Beckett, Rilke, Neruda, Levi, Wolf, Shalamov, Marquez.

VIC312Y1
Surrealism (See "Victoria College")

VIC320Y1
Semiotics of Visual Art 52L, 26T

Theories and models of applied semiotics: structural analysis of sign systems as articulated in various forms of artistic and cultural production. (Offered in alternate years)
Prerequisite: VIC120Y

VIC321Y1
Semiotics and the Representation of Social Spaces 52L, 26T

Studies of social space, art works, and their interaction with social subjects. Semiotic investigations into the visual cultures of story space in mythic narrative, ritual and liturgical enactment, and modern texts; studies of architecture, iconography perspective, cinema, digitialised media, post-colonial art.
Recommended preparation: VIC120Y

VIC341H1
The Self and Society: Women, Men and Children 26S

A study of the changing conception of the human self in the Renaissance, and of its representation by major authors: Erasmus, Rabelais, Marguerite de Navarre, Castiglione, Machiavelli and others.

VIC342H1
War and Peace in the Renaissance 26L

Examination of central issues in Renaissance thought on the conduct and justification of war, and discussion of representations of war and the life of soldiers in historical writing, literature, and the visual arts. Core readings from Erasmus, Machiavelli, Vitoria, Montaigne, Shakespeare, and Cervantes.
Exclusion: VIC340Y

VIC343Y1
Sex and Gender (formerly VIC343H) 52S

An interdisciplinary approach to questions of gender and sexuality in early modern Europe, with special focus on the representations of the sexual drive, the gender roles of men and women, and varieties of sexual experience in the literature and art of the period.
Exclusion: VIC343H

VIC344H1
Renaissance Narrative (formerly VIC242H) 26S

Focuses on analysis of short stories and longer prose works including, in English translation: Boccaccio's stories of love, fortune and human intelligence in the Decameron; Rabelais' humorous parody of high culture in Gargantua; the tragic tale of Romeo and Juliet; and the adventures of picaresque rogues in Lazarillo de Tormes and Nashe's Unfortunate Traveler.
Exclusion: VIC242H

VIC350Y1
Creative Writing: A Multicultural Approach 52S

Practice and instruction in writing poetry and fiction, paired with study of literature and theory introducing the multicultural richness of contemporary English writing. Approximately three-quarters of class periods are writing workshops, one-quarter lecture discussions. Work by many writers from contemporary and traditional literatures are read in English translation.
Prerequisite: four credits
This is a Humanities course

VIC390Y1/391H1
Victoria College Independent Studies TBA

VIC410Y1
Seminar in Literary Studies 78S

For students enrolled in the Literary Studies program, although other students are welcome. Intensive study of general issues of poetics and critical theory, including representative literary and philosophical texts from the Western tradition.
Prerequisite: VIC110Y/210Y/310Y/a course in the study of literature

VIC411H1
Postmodernist Approaches to Film and Literature 36S

Study of current filmic and literary theories, with emphasis on the rhetoric of film: the concept of the trope, metaphor, metonymy, allegory, irony, repetition, and specific thematic tropes like the eye, the face, the death mask, the mirror, the dream, etc.
Prerequisite: VIC110Y/210Y/310Y/a course in the study of literature

VIC420Y1
Theories of the Sign 52L, 26T

The major theories of semiosis and signification. Definition of the sign from the ancient world to the 20th Century (Saussure, Peirce, Morris, Greimas, Eco, Hjelmslev, Jakobson). Historical genealogy of analytical models and methodological practices that characterize contemporary semiotics. Main theories on the origins of sign and communication systems in humans.
Prerequisite: VIC120Y, 220Y, 320Y or permission of instructor

VIC440Y1
Florence and the Renaissance 52L

An interdisciplinary seminar on Florence in the 15th and 16th centuries: humanism, culture and society in the republican period, the rise of the Medici, Florentine neoplatonism, the establishment of the Medici principate, culture, society and religion.
Prerequisite: VIC140Y, 240Y or permission of instructor

VIC490Y1/491H1
Victoria College Independent Studies TBA

These courses provide an opportunity to design an interdisciplinary course of study not otherwise available within the Faculty. Written application (detailed proposal, reading list and a letter of support from a Victoria College faculty member who is prepared to supervise) should be made through the Program Director for approval by Victoria College Council's Academic Advisory Committee by April 30 for a Fall course or by November 30 for a Spring course.
Prerequisite: Permission of College Program Director