Need an elective? Try one of these hidden gems 💎

LING_V 101: Languages of the World
Trace how the world's thousands of languages are classified, evolve, and sometimes disappear, from writing systems to endangered languages.
Multiple sections. Offered both WT1 and WT2.

MUSC 165B/466B/565B: World Music Ensembles
Play Balinese gamelan instruments in a performance ensemble, no music reading or prior experience required, building toward an end-of-year concert.
Wed/Fri, 1:00 PM–2:50 PM. Full-year course, both terms required.

SWAH_V 101: Beginners Swahili I
Start speaking Swahili, one of the world's most widely spoken languages, through everyday vocabulary and real cultural context.
Mon/Wed/Fri, 11:00 AM–12:00 PM

ASIA_V 212: Writing about Japan
Read everything from ancient myths to travel narratives to the "Cool Japan" phenomenon, and see how Japan has been imagined and re-imagined across centuries through literature and pop culture.
Tue/Thu, 12:30 PM–2:00 PM

RMST_V 201: Intro to Literatures and Cultures of the Romance World I
Read Don Quixote, Dante's Inferno, and Madame Bovary in translation, and trace 500 years of literary history across France, Spain, Portugal, and Italy.
Tue/Thu, 12:30 PM–2:00 PM

AMNE_V 392: Introduction to Akkadian
Learn Akkadian, the language of the world's oldest surviving written story, and explore everything from royal epics and divine myths to treaties, oaths, and adoption contracts.
Mon/Wed/Fri, 2:00 PM–3:00 PM

ASIA_V 357: Modern Korean Literature in Translation
Discover Korea's modern history through fiction on gender, division, trauma, and LGBTQ experiences, no Korean language required.
Mon/Wed, 3:30 PM–5:00 PM

GMST_V 341: Nineteenth-Century German Literature and Social Media
Dig into 19th-century scandals, fake news, and periodical press in German-speaking Europe, and see how familiar the media chaos feels today.
Mon/Wed, 12:30 PM–2:00 PM

NORD_V 334: Resilient Narratives: Anxiety and Grief in Contemporary Nordic Fiction
Explore grief, anxiety, and the occasional scary troll through contemporary Nordic fiction and children's literature.
Mon/Wed/Fri, 11:00 AM–12:00 PM

THTR 340B: Studies in Asian Theatre
Explore how modern theatre took shape across Asia, from colonial influence and nationalism to reforming existing theatrical traditions, through plays from China, Japan, India, Indonesia, Korea, and Vietnam.
Mon/Wed, 2:00 PM–3:30 PM

ASIA_V 412: Pre-Modern Chinese Poetry
Read early Chinese poetry by Qu Yuan, Cao Cao, and Tao Yuanming, plus anonymous voices, in translation, and build the tools to make sense of texts written centuries ago.
Mon/Wed, 11:00 AM–12:30 PM

FNEL 489A: Language, Landscape, and All Our Relations
Explore how ancestral languages and landscapes are inseparable, and what it means to document and reclaim a language through land.
Mon/Wed, 11:00 AM–12:30 PM

ANTH_V 275: Anthropology of Migration and (Im)mobilities
Examine the lived, everyday realities of migration and border-crossing, and the forces that constrain who gets to move freely.
Tue/Thu, 9:30 AM–11:00 AM

CENS_V 201 (Sec 101): Controlling Objects
Unpack how your phone, your clothes, and your commute quietly shape who you are, through a century of literature, film, and photography.
Tue/Thu, 2:00 PM–3:30 PM

CENS_V 201 (Sec 103): Ukraine: Narratives We Didn't Know
Trace Ukraine's story from the twentieth century to today through literature and film you probably haven't encountered yet.
Mon/Wed/Fri, 11:00 AM–12:00 PM

CSIS_V 200: Introduction to Critical Studies in Gender and Sexuality
Build a foundation in sexuality studies, and see how sexuality intersects with race, class, ability, and power rather than existing on its own.
Tue/Thu, 11:00 AM–12:30 PM

FNIS_V 210: Indigenous Politics and Self-Determination
Get into the politics, land claims, and self-government struggles that define the relationship between Indigenous peoples and the Canadian government.
Mon/Wed, 9:30 AM–11:00 AM

HIST 217: Global History Before 1500: Eurasia
Rewrite your mental map of the ancient world, from Sumer to the Caliphate, without Europe at the centre.
Mon/Wed/Fri, 11:00 AM–12:00 PM

PHIL_V 222: Enriched Symbolic Logic
Build formal proofs from the ground up, from set theory to predicate logic, if you like puzzles with actual right answers.
Mon/Wed, 11:00 AM–12:30 PM

PHIL_V 230: Introduction to Ethics
Wrestle with what actually makes something right or wrong, through classic and contemporary readings on obligation and value.
Mon/Wed, 11:00 AM–12:00 PM

PSYC_V 203: Career Exploration Using Psychology
Apply psychology to your own career planning, with real strategies for figuring out what's next, not just theory about other people.
Sec 002: Mon, 2:00 PM–3:00 PM. Sec 003: Mon, 3:00 PM–4:00 PM

AMNE_V 318: The Roman Republic
Follow Rome from its founding through the collapse of the Republic, and see how empire-building and political dysfunction fed each other.
Mon/Wed/Fri, 2:00 PM–3:00 PM

AMNE_V 361: The Origins of Judaism
Trace the history of Jews and Judaism from the destruction of the First Temple to the roots of the rabbinic tradition.
Mon/Wed/Fri, 10:00 AM–11:00 AM

ASIA_V 366: Queer/Early/Asias
Dig into queer life across pre-modern Asia through texts, field trips, and film screenings, and help re-imagine queer Asian futures.
Tue/Thu, 2:00 PM–3:30 PM

ASIA_V 373: History of Hong Kong
Trace Hong Kong's transformation from a 19th-century colonial port to one of the world's most distinct global cities.
Mon/Wed, 2:00 PM–3:30 PM

ASIX_V 300: News, Information, and Knowledge in Early Modern East Asia
See how "fake news" anxieties played out across Ming China, Tokugawa Japan, and Joseon Korea centuries before social media.
Mon, 11:00 AM–12:00 PM / Wed, 11:00 AM–1:00 PM

LAST_V 315A: Food in Mexico and Central America
Study corn, cuisine, and identity in Mexico and Central America, from pre-colonial cosmologies to the politics of your dinner plate today.
Mon/Wed, 2:00 PM–3:30 PM

ASIX_V 430: Indigenous Environmentalism in Asia
Explore how Indigenous environmentalism is embodied, experienced, and expressed across Asia and beyond, beginning with the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm land where the course is taught.
Tue, 2:00 PM–3:30 PM