New College offers interdisciplinary standalone courses that bring together diverse perspectives from the humanities, social sciences and sciences to help students think critically, make connections and deepen their understanding of the world around them.
Courses
NEW271H1 – The Happy Mind: Scientific Perspectives on Wellness
Explore the science of how to cultivate a Happy Mind. This course will merge cutting-edge research from cognitive neuroscience, psychology, and contemplative traditions to investigate what it means to live a fulfilling life. Students will engage with scientific models of well-being, including computational neuroscience models, computational psychiatry, and the neuroscience of emotions. They will study how the mind constructs its reality through predictions, emotions, and habits, examining both the promises and perils of these processes.
Students will:
- Combine both modern scientific research with contemplative traditions to show how they can enhance each other
- Explore questions such as what constitutes a happy and meaningful life?
- Examine socio-technological advances such as social media to artificial intelligence and how it affects mental health
- Develop practical tools of evidence-based strategies to strength your own well-being and make a positive impact on those around you
Pre-Requisites: None
Delivery Mode: In-Person
2025-2026 Timetable: Fall 2025 – Thursday 10 AM – 1 PM
Notes: This is a special topics course, so the topic may vary from year to year and there is no guarantee the same one will be offered in future sessions.
This course may also count towards Breadth Requirement 5: The Physical and Mathematical Universes. If you wish to use this course towards this Breadth Category, please contact your College Registrar’s Office to request for it to be manually applied.
JQR360H1 – The Canadian Census: Populations, Migrations and Demographics
Examines the Canadian population census through the experience of diasporic groups in Canada. Approaches the census as a statistical tool, a historical source and an ideological project of citizenship and nationalism. Uses census data to explore mathematical and statistical concepts and to integrate numerical ways of thinking with qualitative analysis.
Jointly sponsored by African Studies, Diaspora and Transnational Studies, Caribbean Studies, Critical Studies in Equity and Solidarity, and Latin American Studies.
Students will:
- Develop skills to collect, analyze and present statistical data using basic methods of quantitative research. No previous experience with statistics necessary!
- Work with real-time census data in a lab component in a highly interactive sessions through activities and lab assignments
- Learn how the Canadian Census is both a powerful tool of state surveillance and an individual source of data for social justice research
Pre-Requisites: DTS200H1/ DTS200Y1/ HIS230H1/ HIS231H1/ LAS200H1/ LAS201H1/ CAR120Y1/ AFR150Y1/ CAR220H1/ CAR221H1/ NEW224Y1/ CAR225H1/ CAR226H1/ CSE240H1/ NEW240Y1 or equivalent preparation. Please contact nc.undergradadmin@utoronto.ca if you are interested in taking the course but have not completed one of the pre-requisite courses.
Delivery Mode: Online Synchronous
2025-2026 Timetable: Winter 2026 – Thursday 5 – 8 PM
Notes: First time the course is being offered online during the Fall/Winter session.
This course may also count towards Breadth Requirement 5: The Physical and Mathematical Universes. If you wish to use this course towards this Breadth Category, please contact your College Registrar’s Office to request for it to be manually applied.
Interdisciplinary Courses in Jungian Theory
Since 1996, New College has offered interested students opportunities for sustained, interdisciplinary engagement with the thought of Carl Jung. Students have the opportunity to consider Jung’s thought and practice in relation to a range of disciplinary and cultural issues in order to open up conversations about models of consciousness and mind.
These courses cultivate a distinctive learning experience formed in small seminars and enhanced by the diversity of student participants. Historically, students have come together from disciplines as wide-ranging as Cognitive Science, English, Neuroscience, Psychology, Religion and Visual Studies. Students engage in a critical reading of primary texts of Jung put in interpretive dialogue with selected primary texts, films, and other cultural artifacts drawn from religion, philosophy, anthropology, art and literature, architecture, and popular culture.
Students learn through producing substantial oral and written projects that articulate their critical and creative response to this dialogue and to Jung’s thought as an interpretive practice.
The U of T Jungian Society is dedicated to exploring the psychology and philosophy of C.G. Jung, as well as post-Jungian thought and related explorations of wisdom, mind, and the unconscious. As a group, they facilitate opportunities for their members to explore these theories within an academic, social, and/or experiential context. They encourage enquiry, discussion, fun, and making new friends!
Please note: NEW402 & NEW403 is no longer being offered.
NEW302Y1 – C. G. Jung: Stories, Patterns, Symbols
Explore the impact of Jung’s analytical psychology, critical methodology and interpretative practice on issues in religion, anthropology, art and literature, popular culture, gender studies and postmodernist critique.
Theoretical studies include traditional Jungian and contemporary post-Jungian texts together with feminist and non-Jungian sources.
Students will:
- Develop skills to collect, analyze and present statistical data using basic methods of quantitative research. No previous experience with statistics necessary!
- Work with real-time census data in a lab component in a highly interactive sessions through activities and lab assignments
- Learn how the Canadian Census is both a powerful tool of state surveillance and an individual source of data for social justice research
Pre-Requisites: 4.0 credits completed, with at least 1.0 of which being in a Humanities course/Breadth Requirement 1 or 2.
Delivery Mode: In-Person
2025-2026 Timetable: Fall/Winter: full year – Wednesday 6 – 9 PM
Notes: First time the course is being offered in three years.
This course may also count towards Breadth Requirement: Creative and Cultural Representations (1) Thought, Belief and Behaviour (2)
NEW303H1 – Hypotheses of the Unconscious
Current discussions of the hypotheses, starting with Freud’s and Jung’s hypotheses, especially Jung’s collective unconscious; critical examination through retrospective analysis of the evolution and development of the concept in works from philosophy, psychology, poetry, ethnology, science and popular culture that anticipated, influenced or were influenced by the work of Freud and Jung, post-Freudians and post-Jungians.
Pre-Requisites: 4.0 credits completed, with at least 1.0 of which being in a Humanities course/Breadth Requirement 1 or 2.
Not offered for 2025-2026 academic year
Notes: This course may also count towards Breadth Requirement: Thought, Belief and Behaviour (2)
