Third Year

Year Three course prerequisites: SASAH 2200E or the former ARTHUM 2220E, SASAH 2220F/G or the former ARTHUM 2220F/G or SASAH 2230F/G or the former ARTHUM 2230F/G, and SASAH 2240F/G or the former ARTHUM 2240F/G 


HOW YEAR THREE COURSE OFFERINGS WORK IN SASAH:

In Year Three you are required to take 2.0 courses (3380Y, 3390F/G-3393F/G) for your Arts and Humanities major. Each student is required to take SASAH 3380Y regardless if they are away on exchange or attending classes at Western. The remaining 1.5 courses (3390F/G – 3393F/G) will be cross listed with other departments in the faculty of Arts and Humanities. We’ve done this on purpose as we don’t want to restrict your course choices in Year Three, at a time when we want to encourage you to develop your own research interests. You are welcome to take an upper-level (Year Three or Four) course in your field of choice to fulfill the remaining credits, instead of enrolling in the courses offered by SASAH. Western also allows students to double count up to 1.0 courses between their modules, provided students receive permission from both units.

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 2024-2025

SASAH 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 tools and skills required to engage successfully in EL and develop professionalism. In its second half, this course facilitates the student's research and advanced planning for the individual and group projects they will undertake in their fourth-year capstone seminar. 

SASAH 3390G: Feminist Embodied Thinking [cross-listed with GSWS 3326G]

In this course we will ask how we come to know the world? Calculative thinking that sees the world as a storehouse of resources has brought the earth to a point of climate catastrophe. It also separates us from the particular worlds we experience, from the relational worlds, the ones our bodies connect. Thinking that does not assume mind/body dualism and instead comes out of lived experience clearly differentiates from calculative thinking which prioritizes efficiency. Drawing from theories and methodologies such as critical phenomenology, authoethnography, critical race and critical disability feminisms, we follow the insight that thinking follows experience. We will focus on concrete, experiential and relational approaches to thinking, such as autoethnographical writing, recording environmental sounds, creating images, and perceiving alongside artworks.We will bring our embodied contact with the world in dialogue with feminist, Indigenous, and decolonial texts.


SASAH 3391F: Alternative Approaches to Creative Methods [cross-listed with Studio Art 3674A]

A studio course that encourages students to delve deeply into the conceptual potential of materials and methods in contemporary artmaking. Complimentary to discipline specific courses, this course is designed to advance students’ methodological approaches and hone their sense of voice and positionality as artists. Self-reflective engagement is emphasized.
 

SASAH 3393F: Reading (North) America Now [cross-listed with English 3480F]

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 Canada and 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 North 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


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