GDBA 531 Professional Business Skills

Offered: 2017-18 /4
Credits: 3 credits 

This course provides students with the necessary skills that help with successful interaction with others in business settings. Topics include designing and delivering effective written and oral messages from concept to delivery, working in groups, and negotiating and resolving conflict by using ethical communication tactics. Pedagogical methods include group-based work, in-class workshops, case studies, presentations, and report writing.

Contact: Karen Fada

FMST 630/830 Christian Metz and The structuralist Moment in Film Theory

Offered: 2017-18 /4
Credits: 3 credits 

This seminar examines the work of French film theorist Christian Metz (1931-1993) who revolutionized film theory and inaugurated what is now called “Contemporary Film Theory”. As Francesco Casetti indicates, Metz single-handedly introduced a “methodological turn” in writing about the cinema, aligning it with the other human sciences by introducing to it the principles of structuralism and, later, psychoanalysis. Metz’s pioneering work led to lasting changes in the study of cinema not only in terms of the concepts he elaborated (the “Grande syntagmatique” that looks to break down classical narrative films; “primary” and “secondary” identification as ways of attending to our engagement with characters and, especially, with the camera’s gaze; "impersonal enunciation" to study the discursivity and the forms of address of cinema; etc.) but also in the theoretical attitude he embodied. For several years, from the end of the 1960s to the late 1970s Metz was at the center of the field of film studies and therefore had a large role in shaping it.  He set the agenda for film studies and as Warren Buckland recently put it, his “ideas were taken up, digested, refined, red interpreted, criticized and sometimes dismissed, but rarely ignored”. This seminar will also be an opportunity to learn about the basic principles of structuralism which was arguably the most important intellectual and critical tradition of the second half of the 20th century in the humanities.

Prerequisites: Registered in an MA or PhD program.

Contact: Ian Tonnies

FMST 640 Gender Issues in Film: Women and Film Culture

Offered: 2017-18 /4
Credits: 3 credits 

Film culture emerged in the interwar period, parallel to the establishment of institutions, practices, and discourses that recognized films’ artistic and educational values and purposes. Focusing on more recent developments within this area of film discourse and phenomena, this seminar brings attention to texts, activities, and intitutions explicitly advocating feminist or gender-specific approaches to film and visual culture. The course also investigates the role of women as film critics and scholars, members of film and video collectives, filmmakers or artists, festivals programmers, museums or galleries curators.

While not following any chronological order, case studies cover a period between the rise of women’s cinema to third-wave feminists’ response to post-feminist backlash. Particular attention will be drawn to present-day phenomena, both local and international, emphasizing the changes that digital technology and globalization have brought to the niche tradition of women’s film practices. To this effect, artists, scholars, as well as individual players or representatives of various geocultural areas and generations will join us in conversation to bring their testimonies and expertise. In March, we will visit the exhibition “Qui Parle Fort,” held at the Leonard and Bina Gallery, featuring multimedia works on the theme of self-representation by local female artists.

Prerequisites: Graduate standing

Special instructions: While priority will be given to students in the MA program in Film Studies, the course is open to graduate student (MA and PhD in related disciplines)

Contact: Rosanna Maule

FMST 660 Approaches to Pasolini’s Cinema

Offered: 2017-18 /4
Credits: 3 credits 

This class will analyse Pier Paolo Pasolini’s cinema and its global legacy, as well as the different methodological and theoretical paradigms in the study of film and authorship. More specifically, this course will move chronologically through Pasolini’s filmmaking career (1960-1975) in the context of post-WWII European modernist cinema while, at the same time, it will allow students to interrogate the different scholarly approaches (auteur theory, Marxism, Semiotics, Postcolonial and Queer Theory, among others) which have been applied to this canonical director’s films. This class will also introduce students to “remakes” and visual ripostes of and to Pasolini’s work from filmmakers and artists the world-over, thus further interrogating the notion of cinematic legacy and impact. The aim of this class is therefore twofold. On the one hand, it gives students an opportunity to analyze in depth Pasolini’s work, its time, and its global legacy; on the other, to use Pasolini as a case study to work through different approaches to the study of modernist cinema. 

Contact: Luca Caminati

COMS 652 Canadian Documentary Film

Offered: 2017-18 /4
Credits: 3 credits 

This one semester course will focus on recent Canadian documentaries in various media which explore the relationship between place, memory and the search for personal and cultural identity within a rapidly changing contemporary Canadian society.  Working within these themes, the course will emphasize the work of contemporary Canadian documentary filmmakers who use personal voice, generational memory, and unique aesthetic approaches as the means to investigate issues of immigration, ethnicity, alienation, and family and gender roles in the context of recent Canadian social history.

Contact: Timothy Schwab

COMS 882 Communication, Democracy & Power

Offered: 2017-18 /4
Credits: 3 credits 

This course considers the communicative structure and performance of democracy within modern society. Attention is paid to the discursive resources available to perform and affect democracy, the constitution of democratic agents, the role of media in constituting and maintaining a public sphere, communicative strategies, norms of regulation and power, the performance of difference and various aspects of public culture.

The course critically examines the concept of democracy from different contexts and perspectives and focuses on its intersection with various power structures in our society. Traditional and new media outlets are studied in connection to the above intersection in order to have better insight into the inner-workings of media role and its effects on political institutions and the public. Some of the questions that the course seeks to address include: Do the Internet and new technologies enhance or undermine democracy? Does the media have a role in consolidating democracy during election times? What are the possibilities that new technologies offer in relation to social movements? Since this is a seminar course, students are expected to actively participate in class discussions.

Contact: Ahmed Al-Rawi

APLI 623 Sociolinguistics

Offered: 2017-18 /4
Credits: 3 credits 

This course is an introduction to educational and sociolinguistic issues affecting the promotion and maintenance of individual and societal bilingualism, multilingualism, and multiculturalism. The societal consequences of being multilingual and multicultural and the perspectives of both students and educators in multilingual/multicultural language classrooms will be examined. The course is designed to help students understand basic concepts related to bilingualism and multilingualism at the individual and societal levels, develop critical thinking in reading sociolinguistic research, and learn about a variety of research tools and methodologies used in sociolinguistic research. After completing this course, students should be able to understand several basic sociolinguistic processes and phenomena involved in language learning, know how to read and understand sociolinguistic research, be familiar with common sociolinguistic methodologies, and be able to discuss social issues of bilingualism and multilingualism with various stakeholders (e.g., educators, policymakers, parents, general public).

Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor

Special instructions: Priority will be given to students in the MA in APLI.

Contact: Nadine Wright

HENV 610 Advanced Quantitative Research Methods for the Environmental Sciences and Geography

Offered: 2017 /3
Credits: 3 credits 

This beginning graduate student course considers experimental design and advanced data analysis methods in Geography and the Environmental Sciences. Phenomena describable by multiple variables arise in many subfields of physical and human geography, the environmental sciences and related disciplines. This course focuses on the display and analysis of multivariate geographical and environmental data by traditional multivariate methods and by newer methods of scientific visualization. The open-source R programming environment is used (free for you to use these skills for the rest of your career!). Graduate students with all levels of statistical and R expertise are welcome! 

Prerequisites: An undergraduate statistics course

Contact: Dr. Jeannine-Marie St-Jacques or Jennifer Srey

ADMI 832/4A (PhD) & MSCA 672/4F (MSc) 
Strategic Relationship Marketing

Offered: 2017-18 /4
Credits: 3

The course will take place at 8:45-11:30 am on Tuesday. It can be quite useful for students who desire to take a Graduate Management course and Qualitative Methods the same day. The three courses are inter-related (concepts and methods).

Contact: 
PhD students: Dolores Mosquera, ext. 7352
MSc students: Brooke Welburn, ext. 4149 (MB 11-347)

MAST 679H Statistical Learning

Offered: 2017-18 /4
Credits: 3

This course is an introduction to statistical learning techniques. Some applications to finance and insurance will be illustrated. Topics covered include: Cross-validation; Regression methods; Linear models; Variable selection methods; Shrinkage methods: Ridge regression and LASSO; Generalized linear models; Classification methods; K-nearest neighbors; Linear and quadratic discriminants; Logistic regression; Tree-Based Methods; An introduction to neural networks; Unsupervised learning; Clustering: K-means, hierarchical clustering; Principal component analysis; Markov decision problems and dynamic programming.

Prerequisites: Linear Regression/Linear Models (e.g. STAT 360 or equivalent) Basic linear algebra (e.g MATH 251)

Contact: Debbie Arless, Frederic Godin, Arusharka Sen

PHIL 609 Advanced Topics in the History of Philosophy: Dante and Philosophy

Offered: 2018 /2
Credits: 3

Dante was not a professional philosopher but he was seriously engaged with philosophy and this engagement was essential to his work as a whole. Moreover, Dante (1265-1321) lived at a very special time. This is the time when Aristotle’s philosophy and science were made available for the first time to the Latin West. For the above reasons, we will read selections from the Convivio and Divina Commedia. We will try to reconstruct Dante’s philosophical outlook, which is an eclectic form of Aristotelianism tempered by an infusion of Christian thought.

Special instructions: Knowledge of Italian or Latin is not required to do well in this class. However, willingness to engage in close and attentive reading of complex works as well as ability to do independent research outside class are absolutely essential to your success in this course.

Course may of interest to students in English, CMLL, and Italian Studies.

Contact: Emma Moss Brender

Note: Priority will be given to students in the Political Science PhD and MPPPA programs. Interested students must obtain permission to enroll from the professor.

POLI 683/POLI 815 - Democratic Governance, Public Policy & Research Methodology

Offered: Summer, Fall, Winter (2017, 2018, 2019)
Credits: 3

This course provides a unique opportunity for students to take a selection of the Workshops on Social Science Research (WSSR) offered by the Department of Political Science for credit.

The WSSR are intensive short learning experiences designed to enhance your knowledge and skills in the areas of democratic governance and public policy. These workshops are led by highly reputable and insightful guest lecturers from well-known academic institutions and/or well-qualified and distinguished backgrounds. For this course, you must select, register in, and attend six workshops, as well as complete all the requirements listed in this outline below.

Prerequisites: Graduate students from all faculties are welcome to take the WSSR for credit. Be sure to consult with your Graduate Program Director (GPD) in order to confirm that you are eligible to receive credit toward your degree. Please email confirmation of eligibility from your GPD to wssr@concordia.ca once you have completed and submitted your "Permission Request" form (see below). See a list of Concordia GPDs and GPAs.

Special instructions:

• To apply for permission to register for this course, students need to complete the Permission Request Form on the website.
• To earn credit for this course, students will select, register in, and attend six days-worth of workshops (9:00am-4:30pm). The listing of workshops can be found on the website.
• For information about how the course works, download the course outline.

PSYC 727 Circadian Rhythms in Regulation of Brain Processes and Role in Psychiatric Disorders

Offered: 2018 /1
Credits: 3

Recent studies have revealed that clock genes are rhythmically expressed throughout the brain and play critical roles in the regulation of normal brain processes.
Current evidence suggests that circadian rhythms regulate short and long-term synaptic plasticity in neural circuits that underlie rhythmic behaviors, including respiration, blood pressure, cortisol, and locomotor activity, among others. Despite the evidence that circadian rhythms are involved in the regulation of several neural processes and in turn behaviors, this topic has not been extensively studied thus far, and there is much that is not known as to how and why circadian rhythms regulate such processes. Although mammalian circadian rhythms are controlled predominantly by the suprachiasmatic nucleus, recent advances made in this field on the emerging roles of clock gene rhythms across brain regions have suggested that the circadian system is involved in brain region specific regulation of cell activity and specific behaviors. Furthermore, recent studies have suggested a critical role of the circadian system in several disorders, including major depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, anxiety, stress regulation, age related cognitive deficits including Alzheimer’s disease, eating disorders, drug addiction, and alcoholism. The impact of circadian rhythm disruption on cognitive function, mood, and cardiovascular health, in populations of shift. workers and frequent travelers, may also be due to underlying effects of circadian disruption on synaptic plasticity.

The aim of the seminar is to discuss recent advances in the role of the circadian system in normal brain functions and psychiatric disorders.

Potential topics include but are not limited to the following: 

• Recent advances in our understanding of peripheral brain oscillators
• Clock gene regulation of neuronal function including synaptic plasticity
• Circadian rhythm abnormalities in mood disorders and psychotic disorders
• Circadian disruption and health in shift workers and frequent travelers
• Role of circadian rhythms in cognition and aging
• Circadian rhythms in regulation of reward processes and addiction
• Interactions between the circadian system and stress response system

Prerequisites: Some background in behavioral neuroscience and/or biology

Contact: Shimon Amir

PSYC 734 Multivariate Statistics, aka Latent Variable Modelling

Offered: 2017-18 /4
Credits: 3

This course covers the analysis of continuous and categorical latent variable based on continuous and categorical indicators, taking into account the nesting of information units within individuals (longitudinal) and groups (multilevels). As such, we will cover: Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA), Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA), Path Analysis, Mediation, Structural Equation Modeling (SEM), Exploratory and Bifactor SEM, Multiple groups analyses and tests of measurement invariance, Moderation, Autoregressive cross lagged models, Latent change models, Latent curve models, multilevel analyses, and doubly latent multilevel analyses. Emphasized for these topics are the correct estimation of models, the correct interpretations of the results, and the ability to pursue autonomous learning thereafter.

Prerequisites: This course is an advanced graduate course in statistics, and as such requires students to have completed at least one prior graduate statistics course (similar in content to PSYC 601) and covering at least the basic principles of correlation, regression, and analysis of variance.

Contact: Kim Breux

RELI 630/RELI 833 Anthropology of Christianity

Offered: 2017-18 /4
Credits: 3

Anthropology of Christianity has attracted so much ethnographic and theoretical attention that it  has  become  one  of  the  fastest  growing  sub-disciplines  in  contemporary  anthropology. This  course will engage current themes that are pertinent to the study of religion in anthropology as a  whole,  but  will  focus  on  major  debates  and  topics  pertaining  especially  to  Christianity. Themes  may  include  conversion  and  debates  about  continuity  versus  rupture;  explorations  of  how  individualism  and  sociality  interact  on  earth  and  in  the  afterlife;  the  interplay  of  public  and  private  spaces  and  constructions  of  the  secular. This  course relies  on  in-depth  seminar  discussion   and   reading   materials   will   span   Christianity   globally,   including   Catholicism,   Pentecostalism, and Eastern Orthodoxy.

Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.

Contact: Hillary Kaell

RELI 630F/RELI 835 Islam in the West: Gender Issues

Offered: 2017-18 /4
Credits: 3

This course treats gender issues in relation to Muslim communities in Canada and the West overall both in terms of the perceptions of non-Muslims and commitments and debates among Muslims themselves. Topics include veiling practices, media representations, gender ideals, Muslim family law, women’s participation and authority, queer movements and intermarriage.

Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.

Contact: Lynda Clarke

RELI 650 Women in the Hebrew Bible

Offered: 2017-18 /4
Credits: 3

Many presume to be able to identify—and easily reject-- the systemic patriarchy of biblical literature. This course aims at reintroducing the text itself and the notion of patriarchy to clarify, challenge and open up a critical discussion with individual female characters and their historic portrayal. The reading course will interrogate women’s experiences and expressions only in the narrative traditions of the Hebrew Bible. Students will be challenged to rethink accepted categories of gender and scripture. The close reading of text will require a critical consideration of narrative forms and popular renditions of said stories.

Readings and discussion will engage both feminist critical theory and Judaic tradition. A variety of Judaic approaches will be considered such as are found in classical commentaries, legends and midrashic literature. Both Judaic and feminist approaches will challenge our notions of women’s place and participation in the ancient Israelite community.

The graduate course will concentrate on one biblical book as our group project while students will choose their own character to discuss and probe. The reading course will meet bi-weekly but students will be expected to attend the undergraduate course. Each student will be required to participate in class discussions and present their own research.

Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor.

Contact: Norma Joseph

ANTH 601 World Anthropologies

Offered: 2017-18 /4
Credits: 3

This course takes the idea of the ‘world’ as fundamental to ethnographic research. By the ‘world,’ this course refers to both the ‘public-We’ and one’s ‘own’ closest environment and to relations in-between. On this premise we will look at various case studies and ethnographic investigations in order to interrogate how it is humans experience and gain knowledge of self, Others, objects, and practices in the world. We will traverse issues ranging from globalization, development and action research to apprenticeship, psychiatry and off the grid living in a bid, on the one hand, to better understand how anthropologists generate theory about the human condition through ethnographic research and writing and, on the other, to mull over the central question of whether it is individuals who experience the world or is it subjects who are constituted through experience?

Contact: Eve Girard

SOCI 603 Issues in Contemporary Sociological Theory

Offered: 2017-18 /4
Credits: 3

This course is an in-depth study of issues in contemporary sociological theory. It is designed to foster awareness of the plurality, diversity, and divergence among contemporary readers and readings of current texts. The focus is on critical analysis of major writings representing diverse theoretical orientations in recent sociology. Attention is given to fundamental assumptions and to practical implications of given orientations and styles of sociology.

Contact: Eve Girard