This course provides an introduction to the cultural and language traditions within the Spanish-speaking world from an interdisciplinary perspective. The course focuses on the interaction between language and the cultures that underlie it, paying equal attention to the Spanish language (studied both experientially and theoretically) and the distinct societies that speak it. Consequently, to study the Spanish language as a cultural product provides the student a more meaningful way to gain cultural and linguistic proficiency.

Focusing primarily on Western European art, this course is an introduction to art history. Moving chronologically from the pre-modern era to post-modernity, students will engage with the ways in which works of art act as windows into the historical contexts that inform them. This course will examine how artworks at once build on and transform classical definitions of visual culture, including also the artistic styles and forces that animate them. Students will be encouraged to consider what constitutes "Art" and how art deeply affects human lives, experiences and ways of being in the world.

The average person in Canada spends about 230 minutes per day watching TV and 200 minutes per day on the Internet. That's about 325 eight-hour days, a full-time job! We spend another 70 minutes per day with other media, including newspapers, magazines, and traditional radio. That's more than 3,000 hours per year of media use, more time than we spend on anything else, including working or sleeping. This consumption of information sustains our economy, and most of the economic activity in North America now involves producing, processing or distributing information including the output of the mass media, Internet, telecommunications and computer industries. The goal of this course is to prepare students to thrive in today's increasingly integrated communications and information environment.

Any art form is a product of the society and/or culture in which it is created, and as such, reflects and/or challenges the prevailing values and beliefs. "Film Wars" takes a cinematic look at the social and cultural history of North America from the silent film era to today. By examining the films of two major rival Hollywood studios, Warner Brothers and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, we will discover that the stories they chose to bring to the screen and the stylistic and cinematic techniques and devices that they used, were dramatically different. By looking at several of the classic films from each of these studios, we will develop a deeper understanding and appreciation of both film style and cultural history.