What is ACS?
Toronto Metropolitan University’s Arts and Contemporary Studies (ACS) program is an interdisciplinary four-year undergraduate learning opportunity that draws from the humanities and social sciences and is designed to:
- Put students on a path of leadership and making a difference;
- Study the most influential people and ideas that have shaped our world;
- Expand cultural, historical, and social awareness;
- Develop critical-thinking, communication, leadership, and research skills;
- Become more creative;
- Learn about Canadian and global histories, cultures and societies;
- Critically examine influential global contemporary issues;
- Have flexibility to explore a range of interests; and,
- Provide the basic skills essential to succeed in any field.
Interested in a rich path to undergraduate education that mixes Humanities and Social Sciences training? The Arts & Contemporary Studies (ACS) program strikes a balance between theoretical and practical education. A unit within the Faculty of Arts, ACS’s core interdisciplinary curriculum, combined with the various major Options and Minor choices, ensures that students graduate with a wide array of professional choices and opportunities.
Rich training in the Humanities as well as a performance-driven curriculum in the Social Sciences provides ACS students with an in-depth understanding of social groups, historical events, and a broad range of ideas that have shaped Western and global cultures.
Our Program
In a set of common courses in the first two years of the program, you study the great ideas that have shaped the world from ancient times to the present day. These courses are interconnected in a manner that stimulates and challenges your sense of what it means to live as an individual, a citizen and a member of a complex, multifaceted and volatile global society.
You learn about the challenges and perspectives offered in the works of such divergent thinkers as Northrop Frye, Albert Einstein, Margaret Atwood, Aristotle, Leonardo da Vinci, Dionne Brand, Karl Marx, Jacques Derrida and Tomson Highway. You draw connections between such topics as literary theory, philosophy, history, religion, science and global affairs.
Skills Development
In other core courses in the first two years of the program, you develop skills that are essential in today’s workplace. You will hone your ability to read precisely and critically with a comprehensive view of language and its roots; to communicate effectively in speech and in writing; to design, implement, and evaluate research projects; to create strategies for lifelong learning; to think critically; to mediate conflict; and to work in teams.
Choose From Many Options
ACS offers a combination of Interdisciplinary and Subject-based Options to fit your learning goals. These are optional, but highly encouraged. For those who don't choose an Option, ACS also offers a Generalist path.
This option examines the study of anthropology in its attempts to understand the human experience, past and present, using holistic, comparative, and field based cultural, linguistic, and biological perspectives and practices. Students will earn a strong base in anthropological history, theory and methods as well as acquire important skills allowing them to conduct research and analysis in the mode of an anthropologist, examining and interpreting the immediate world around them.
Students examine the forms of cultural expression that have become a measure of who we are and who we dream of becoming. They explore cultural identity through both high culture and popular entertainment.
Our diverse and politically charged social space is the focus of this interdisciplinary option. It explores the encounters of language, perspective and value that shape contemporary politics, culture and society.
This option explores the often volatile mix of global issues and perspectives, environmental concerns and corporate interests that drive contemporary society and culture at a time when global transformations are transcending political boundaries.
This option provides students with a course of study that focuses on how to read critically—that is, analyze, historicize, and politicize—a wide range of literary and cultural texts. Students examine how such things as genre, form, method, historical period, geography and nation inform narrative media, including works of literature, film, television, digital culture, and the visual arts. Through an engagement with narratives of the past and the present, students develop a critical understanding of contemporary cultural production.
This option provides students with the opportunity to gain a specialization in this important linguistic and cultural field. It allows students to develop a better understanding of the culturally diverse populations of the Francophone world in Africa, Asia, Europe and North America, while acquiring critical insights into the important role that French and Francophone culture play both at a national level in this country and in the broader international context.
This option provides students with the opportunity to gain a specialization in this important linguistic and cultural field. It allows students to develop a better understanding of the culturally diverse populations of the Francophone world in Africa, Asia, Europe and North America, while acquiring critical insights into the important role that French and Francophone culture play both at a national level in this country and in the broader international context.
This option provides students with a broad understanding of the main historical trends and contemporary developments within the discipline of philosophy. With its sustained and systematic plan of study in Philosophy, the option has two general objectives. First, it encourages students to read and think about philosophical issues and problems in an active and critical manner. Second, it provides students with an understanding of, and appreciation for, the contributions made by some of the greatest thinkers of the past and present.
Applying Your ACS Degree
Many students in ACS are interested in becoming teachers, and the flexible curriculum allows you to pursue this goal. ACS graduates also go on to become involved in higher education, mangagement, administration, NGO-work, go to graduate school, and pursue many other career directions as well. An ACS degree with grant you the flexibility to study to your interests and pursue your professional and intellectual goals.
The Arts & Contemporary Studies (ACS) core interdisciplinary curriculum, combined with the various major Options and Minor choices, ensures that students graduate with a wide array of professional choices and opportunities.
Apply to ACS
Ready to get started? Apply to ACS, a Bachelor of Arts Honours Degree here at TMU.