Program
Application Period is now open for the 2024-2025 academic year.
Third Year
Year Three course prerequisites: ARTHUM 2220E, ARTHUM 2220F/G or ARTHUM 2240F/G, and ARTHUM 2230F/G
HOW YEAR THREE COURSE OFFERINGS WORK IN SASAH:
The courses offered in Year Three are always cross-listed with the Research Fellow’s home department. However, this does not mean you need to fulfill that department’s prerequisite to take this course. In all cases we ask the department to waive this restriction. These courses are designed to reach an interdisciplinary audience – i.e. you.
Finally, we’ve structured the Year Three courses this way so as to get students out and integrated into learning experiences across campus, in other departments, etc. Also, as some students choose to head abroad in Year Three, the SASAH cohort is smaller for that year.
Courses for 2023-2024
ARTHUM 3380Y: Introduction to Professional and Community Practices
Required course for all year three students
This online course introduces students to the critical and research skills and practical tools required to 1) engage in experiential learning, 2) comport oneself in a professional manner in preparation for the job market and related contexts, and 3) plan an individual fourth-year capstone project, and 4) plan a community-based, fourth-year group capstone project and the presentation of its outcomes.
As part of our support for students as they prepare to enter the working world, the SASAH program emphasizes Experiential Learning (EL) through both integrated projects and required courses. In its first half, this course introduces students to the skills and tools required to engage successfully in EL in those dual contexts and helps them develop the skills and tools they need to present themselves professionally.In its second half, this course facilitates the students research and advanced planning for the individual and group projects they will undertake in their fourth-year capstone seminar. ARTHUM 3380Y Syllabus
ARTHUM 3390F: Toronto: Culture and Performance [cross-listed with English 3581F, Theatre Studies 3581F]
In Toronto: Culture and Performance we explore the GTA’s contemporary theatre ecology as a city-making enterprise. We ask: how does performance help to build a city, to enable its communities to tell their stories, and to work towards the decolonization of our shared, lived spaces? We will see live performance, watch cool stuff on the internet, meet artists and creators, and explore the many provocative and empowering ways cities and their theatre and performance landscapes intertwine
ARTHUM 3390G: Performing Antigones [cross-listed with Classical Studies 3904G]
In this course we explore the story of Antigone from Sophocles’ production at the City Dionysia in fifth-century BCE Athens to re-performances on the contemporary world stage. This course has two equally important goals. The first goal is to explore Sophocles’ Antigone in the historical context of 5th century Athens. The second goal is to investigate why and how the story of Antigone has been re-told and performed and how we might envision it continuing to be re-told and performed in our contemporary world. We begin the course with an intensive study of the text of Sophocles’ Antigone. In the first eight weeks, we focus on critically reading and discussing the play, act by act considering topics including the historical context, the performance context, stagging, embodiment, and character development, as well as addressing the overarching themes of the play. In the final four weeks of the course, we explore the many Antigones that have been performed on the contemporary world stage including performances in Canada, Japan, Turkey, Taiwan, Ireland, and many more.
ARTHUM 3391F: Alice Munro Chair in Creativity: Topic TBA [cross-listed with English 2099F]
This course, led by the Alice Munro Chair in Creativity, will allow students to explore creativity and its role in the production and study of literature in English and the Arts and Humanities more broadly.
ARTHUM 3391G: Research Ethics [cross-listed with Philosophy 3730G]
The course will provide students in science, health science, and the humanities with an introduction to ethical issues in human experimentation. The course will review relevant history, an ethical framework for research ethics, and cover core topics, including informed consent, confidentiality, benefit-harm analysis, participant selection, vulnerable participants, and communities. Special topics, such as randomized controlled trials, Covid-19 human challenge studies, gene therapy trials, cluster randomized trials, social science research, and health policy and systems research may also be covered.
ARTHUM 3392G: Poetry and Well Being [cross-listed with English 3349G]
This course will explore a narrow topic within Restoration or eighteenth-century literature. It may concentrate on a shorter historical span, a particular genre, or use some other principle of selection.
ARTHUM 3393F: Reacting to the Past: Athenian Democracy at a Crossroads [cross-listed with Classical Studies 3905F]
This course uses the student-centered, experiential Reacting to the Past pedagogy to place students amidst
the Athenians’ fervent debates about the future of their democracy after the ousting of the Thirty Tyrants in 403 BC. After a brief introduction to the history and culture of 5th-century Athens, the Reacting to the Past principles, and the art of public speaking, students will be given role sheets of known historical figures, research the personal, political, and social background of their characters, and then bring those characters to life (usually as members of a political faction) in a series of public debates about the burning issues of the day, such as the potential amnesty for the tyrants’ supporters, Athens’ new constitution, the punishment of the public intellectual Socrates, and the possible reestablishment of Athens’ naval empire.
As part of this immersive role-playing game, students will mine contemporaneous historical and
philosophical texts for useful arguments, craft persuasive speeches (as part of their writing assignments)
and try to sway indeterminate characters by delivering two speeches in the Athenian assembly or law
courts. By creating a version of history that develops organically from the actions and reactions of the
characters in the game, students will – to a certain extent – be able to (re-)experience history as an open-ended process and become sensitive for potential alternative outcomes. A reflective post mortem session will set the historical record straight and allow students to share their own opinions about some of these timeless questions.
Note: This game-based history learning technique requires the active participation of all students. To play
their roles effectively, students must cooperate and strategize with other students both inside and outside
the classroom, write their assigned speeches on time and deliver them with confidence at the respective
game session. If you feel you cannot commit to consistently participating and working with your team, this may not be the right class for you.
ARTHUM 3393G: Reading America Now [cross-listed with English 3480G]
Can literature help us confront the most urgent injustices and pressing crises of our time? Can aesthetic responses to racial, colonial, and ecological violence motivate interventionist action? Is there such a thing as “literary activism”? These are some of the questions that will guide our study of art and activist movements in the US. In this course we will examine aesthetic strategies employed by authors, artists, and critics who frame their creative work in activist terms. In particular, we will ask what applicable resources American literary history can offer when confronting structural inequality, systemic racism, and climate upheaval as interconnected humanist failures. Drawing on such resources, we will endeavor to test both the limits and possibilities of literary activism in the context of climate justice.
For their Year Three requirements SASAH students can also qualify to apply for a limited number of spaces in Special Topics courses offered outside of the School. Present and past courses include:
Classical Studies 4580F/G: Vindolanda Field School:
The Vindolanda Field School is an intense and very rewarding five-week study abroad experience for Western students in any discipline. A primary goal of the field school is for students to gain an appreciation for combining historical and archaeological material to further our understanding of past cultures, especially those effected by conquest and imperialism in the Roman provinces. The focus of the archaeological component is at the site of Vindolanda, an important Roman military fort along Hadrian’s Wall, and includes daily participation in all aspects of the project: excavation, survey of buildings and landscape, finds processing (ceramic and bone washing, environmental sampling), and data recording (stratigraphic context sheets, photography, section/plan drawing, etc.). An in-depth understanding of the archaeology at Vindolanda will be supplemented with trips to other sites and visits to active excavations around the north of Britain. The historical component focuses on the history of the Roman period in Britain with particular emphasis on the northern frontier and the role of soldiers and civilians within the province. The historical aspect of the course is achieved through evening lectures, field trips, on-site discussions and student presentations.
Vindolanda Program Information
Vindolanda Archaeological Site Information
French 3140B: Rwanda: Culture, Society and Reconstruction:
This is an interdisciplinary Experiential Learning Course on Rwanda, based in the Department of French Studies. It provides students with an opportunity to learn about Rwandan society, and aboutthemselves by engaging in an international social and cultural setting. The readings for the course will focus on issues related to Community Service Learning and the history and culture of Rwanda. The course will offer an in-depth look at a number of contemporary social issues that are common in the African Great Lakes region. Guest lecturers (Dr. Nanda Dimitrov, Prof. Alain Goldschlager, Prof. Amanda Grzyb, Prof. Jeff Tennant, Stephanie Hayne, Lise Laporte, and former participants, among others) will be invited to speak to the class. Five weeks of active and interactive community service in Rwanda will be required for the completion of the course. Our main community partner in Rwanda is The College of Medicine and Health Sciences (former KHI), located in the capital city of Kigali. We will mainly work with three community partners: Centre Marembo, Les Enfants de Dieu, and Caritas.
As we go so far to serve and learn in these community centres where we have developed extremely solid relationships and excellent work habits for the last six years, we also commit to the integrity and integrality of our team as ambassadors of Western University and Canada.
In celebration of ten years of Community Engaged Learning in Rwanda: The Land of A Thousand Hills, students who have taken part in this course reflect on their experiences working with these organizations in Rwanda.
A Season in Kigali - this video is a reflection of the experiential learning trip taken by Western students in May 2014. SASAH students Nicholas Pincombe and Rachel Goldstein were amongst the group of students that traveled with Prof. Henri Boyi and lived in Rwanda for five weeks. During their stay, the students were immersed in a number of community projects and initiatives while also learning about the culture and history of the country.
Learning trip 2019: Students' blog
International Study Experience in Rondine, Tuscany
UWO Study abroad at Rondine is a program promoted by the University of Western Ontario and the association Rondine Cittadella della. It is addressed to the larger Western Community through the partnership with the affiliated Colleges Huron and King’s. The program is aimed at any student enrolled at Western (Affiliates included) and interested in pursuing the study of Italian language and culture at the beginning and intermediate level; students with interest in international relations, peace building, conflict resolution, intercultural competence.
Study abroad at Rondine information
Theatre Studies 3900G: Destination Theatre
Students will have the opportunity to develop their drama education more deeply through the experience of theatre abroad, in London, England. Attendance at live performances will be complemented with daily lectures, workshops and seminars hosted by artists and scholars from the University of London, the Royal Shakespeare Company, and the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. In addition, students will experience tours of theatres, archives, and do a theatre-themed walking tour of central London.
Destination Theatre Program Information
