In Canada, ongoing attempts at reconciliation with aborignal peoples have met with limited success. Globally as well, 'truth and reconciliation' commissions and calls for apology and redress for wrongs or crimes against disenfranchised, traumatized, and colonized peoples are criticized as well as lauded. This course will examine reconciliation, largely within the Canadian cultural context, focusing on theoretical, philosophical, and cultural complexities entailed in the words 'reconcile' and 'reconciliation'. We will examine, most importantly, the concept of 'the other' (and of 'alterity'), of how and if we can come to know the other (person, group, culture, animal, even self) and what, therefore, reconciliation means as a result of these explorations. Our starting point will be work produced by the Aboriginal Healing Foundation in Canada. Students will select a research topic of their own to work on throughout the term. This course has a significant online component, and runs concurrently on both U of C and Red Deer campuses.