Explore The Topics in Arts Through These Courses
A look into the Topics category of courses in Visual arts and the wonder they provide.
The new school year is right around the corner and after a fun summer, switching your brain from summer to school mode can be worrisome. This is due to intimidating factors of back to school like course selection. Trying to register for the classes you need in time while also hoping they won’t put you to sleep before the first bathroom break. Thankfully, the Department of Visual Studies at UTM has a wide selection of fun offerings this year! There are too many to list in one article , so let’s examine an underappreciated category of course offerings within the department: the ‘Topics in ___’ courses.
These are courses within a specific field of study with the twist of not knowing the exact topic or genre until after you’ve signed up (though it may appear on the UTM timetable planner but not always). I took many topics courses throughout my cinema major, though Art History and Visual Culture offer them as well. They were always a fun gamble and some of my most enjoyable courses. The cinema topics courses encompass a variety of topics such as gender in film, classical Hollywood, the musical, and the war film. Aside from topics courses offering the thrill of the unknown regarding their subject matter, there is excitement in forcing yourself to explore a field you initially may not have picked. For example, I did not love classical Hollywood films beforehand but, I came to appreciate the genre more throughout the class and found some classical Hollywood films I enjoyed and may not have discovered otherwise. A major factor of the enjoyment in taking topics courses comes from the teachings assigned in class, as these added historical or social context providing a different lens to watch the film through and enhances your overall experience as a viewer.
Another benefit topics courses provide is the opportunity to find new sources and concepts to use in your other classes. Individual fields of study tend to have overlap, especially since the topics courses can be slightly broader and thus more applicable to a variety of genres. Learning about gender in film during a topics course was extremely beneficial, as gender is typically present across all genres of film, thereby allowing the concepts learned in this topics class to be used in another cinema class. I also found specific readings assigned for the class could be used as sources for essays written in other classes, such as the aforementioned classical Hollywood, war film topics courses, or others such as Avant-Garde Film or Canadian Auteurs, making essay writing and finding sources significantly easier.
All of the Visual Studies topics courses being offered for the 2025-2026 academic year can be found here. Happy back to school and best of luck to all new and returning UTM students!
