Explore brand new Romance Studies (RMST) courses that will be offered in the 2026 Winter Session.

What makes Romance Studies courses unique?

• They are open to students from all programs.
• They have no prerequisites (with a few exceptions).
• They are taught in English.
• They fulfill the BA breadth requirements in the “Humanities and Creative Arts” and “Place and Power” categories.

Winter Term 1

Introduction to Translation Theories
RMST_V 317

Instructor: Dr. Irem Ayan | Tues Thurs | 9:30am – 11:00am
Fulfills the “Humanities and Creative Arts” BA breadth requirement

Get a comprehensive overview of the discipline of translation studies, including what is lost and found in translation, translating literature and cultural cues, fluency and transparency, register and tone, the author-translator-reader triangle, translating humorous verses, puns, wordplays, and more.

Photo credit: Glenna Matoush, Not An Act of God

Francophone Indigenous Literatures in Dialogue
RMST_V 326

Instructor: Dr. Isabella Huberman | Tues Thurs | 2:00pm – 3:30pm
Fulfills the “Place and Power” BA breadth requirement

Explore the work of Indigenous writers, filmmakers and artists in Quebec and BC who engage with the impact of resource extraction that is separating Indigenous peoples from their lands. Through the study of life-writing, testimony, autofiction and dystopian fiction, explore the themes of relationship to land, culture and kin, and interrogate the dynamics that govern current extractivist and colonialist systems of exploitation and power.

The Italian Baroque
RMST_V 440-A

Instructor: Dr. Katharina Piechocki | Tues Thurs | 11:00am – 12:30pm
Fulfills the “Humanities and Creative Arts” BA breadth requirement

The “Baroque” is often reduced to—or dismissed as—an odd style: it’s excessive and exaggerated. And yet, the Baroque is so much more. Delve into the Baroque as a 17th-century way of interpreting the world during a period of major upheavals, both scientifically and artistically, leading to doubts about our own existence. Is our life just a dream and the world a stage? Do we now live in Baroque times? Explore concepts such as the monstrous, ineffable and excessive, alongside Baroque’s blurred line between the real and the virtual.

Winter Term 2

1887-1889: the Building of the Eiffel Tower | Learn more: https://www.unjourdeplusaparis.com/paris-reportage/1887-1889-construction-tour-eiffel-images

Paris
RMST_V 221

Instructor: Dr. Joël Castonguay-Bélanger | Mon Wed | 11:00am – 12:30pm
Fulfills the “Humanities and Creative Arts” BA breadth requirement

Represented a thousand times in literature, paintings and films, Paris is one of the major cities in the world that has most inspired the imagination. Yet, behind the ‘modern myth’ of the museum-city and its postcard clichés is a city that evolves at a pace that is not necessarily that of its representations. Through the study of literary works, this course equips you with the tools to interrogate the discursive and symbolic heritage of Paris as it has been built and transmitted since the 19th century, and the role of social discourse in our relationship to urban space.

Italian Fashion Cultures
RMST_V 243

Instructor: Dr. Gaoheng Zhang | Tues Thurs | 12:30pm – 2:00pm
Fulfills the “Humanities and Creative Arts” BA breadth requirement

How does fashion help forge individual, brand, national, and other cultural identities? How do “Made in Italy” narratives add symbolic value to consumers? How is clothing represented in primary texts to influence the audience’s cognitive and affective knowledge? Examine the national history of Italian fashion since the post-WWII period and its global dimensions—including creative tension with France, the United States, and China.

Introduction to Hispanic Cultures
RMST_V 270

Instructor: Dr. Alessandra Santos | Tues Thurs | 11:00am – 12:30pm
Fulfills the “Humanities and Creative Arts” BA breadth requirement

Draw on literature, film, visual arts, and music to explore how Hispanic cultures shape history and society. Discover how culture reflects and intervenes in public life by developing practical techniques for cultural analysis, understanding transnational flows and networks through which culture circulates, and examining key themes such as migration, resistance, gender, and transnationalism.

Echo and Narcissus (1903). Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool

Myths, Mirrors, and Metamorphoses: Narcissus and Echo in Medieval and Early Modern Romance Literatures and Cultures
RMST_V 307

Instructor: Dr. Nancy Frelick | Mon Wed | 2:00pm – 3:30pm
Fulfills the “Humanities and Creative Arts” BA breadth requirement

Most people today have heard of narcissism. Yet, how many of us really know the original story of Narcissus and Echo, or its various adaptations? Explore the most influential version of the myth, along with reworkings and reinterpretations in France, Italy, and the Hispanic world. Examine timeless questions related to desire and death, love and passion, reality and illusion, identity and difference, knowledge of self and other, mimesis and representation, as well as androgyny and gender fluidity.

Italian Mafia Movies
RMST_V 348

Instructor: Dr. Gaoheng Zhang | Tues | 3:00pm – 6:00pm
Fulfills the “Humanities and Creative Arts” BA breadth requirement

The mafia movie genre addresses both the perceived glamour of mafioso bosses and the unsung heroism of anti-mafia activists, making screen culture complex, nuanced, and open to diverse interpretations. Learn how to conduct a film analysis that situates films within their socio-historical and cultural contexts, unravelling representational complexities, intentions, and agendas.

Afro-Latinidad
RMST_V 470-A (cross-listed with LAST_V 425)

Instructor: Dr. Ramón (Arturo) Antonio Victoriano-Martinez | Mon Wed | 12:30pm – 2:00pm
Fulfills the “Humanities and Creative Arts” BA breadth requirement

What does it mean to be Black in Latin America? Who gets counted, who gets erased—and why? From the brutal architecture of slavery to the Haitian Revolution’s geopolitical shockwaves, trace the African diaspora to the Americas across history, literature, politics, and cultural expressions. Central to the course is the concept of Black ways of knowing: epistemologies that challenge the colonial assumptions embedded in Western academic life.