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Women and Gender Studies
Faculty List
Professors Emerita
M.J. Alexander, BSW, MA, PhD
K. Armatage, BA, MA, PhD
K.P. Morgan, BA, MA, MEd, PhD
Professors
M. Murphy, BA, PhD
K. Rittich, Mus Bac, LLM, SJD
A. Trotz, BA, MPhil, PhD
L. Yoneyama, BA, MA, PhD
Associate Professors
D. Georgis, BA, MA, PhD
M. Lo, BA, MA, MSc, PhD
B. McElhinny, BA, Ph D
V. Tahmasebi-Birgani, BA, MA, PhD (UTM)
J. Taylor, BA, MA, PhD
Associate Professor, Teaching Stream
J. Larkin, BA, MEd, PhD
Assistant Professors
N. Charles, BA, MA, PhD (UTM)
R. Diaz, BA, MPhil, PhD
J Ellapen, BA. MA. MA. PhD (UTM)
W.C. Johnson, AB, MA, MFA, PhD
C. Lord BA, MA, PhD (UTM)
K. Recollet, BA, MA, PhD
S. Sweeney, BA, MA, PhD
S. Trimble, BA, MA, PhD
S. Ye, BA, MA, PHD (UTSC)
Introduction
For nearly five decades, we have trained students to think deeply about how gender and sexuality operate at individual, interpersonal, institutional and global levels. We are an interdisciplinary program with faculty expertise across a range of fields, including history and literature, sociology and law, cultural studies and queer theory, and African, Caribbean, Middle Eastern, East Asian, and Equity studies. We enable students to answer urgent and complex questions, such as how militarization can constrict men’s aspirations for their lives, why pay gaps exist, how sexual expression is scripted and can be re-scripted, and even what Lizzo might have in common with Shakespeare. In addition to training students to analyze a music video, a novel, and a government report with equal care and skill, we also focus attention on matters of scale: when to aggregate and when to parse significant distinctions; how to think comparatively across space and time.
The Women & Gender Studies Institute (WGSI) at the University of Toronto is distinctive for its transnational approach. We critically address how national borders and nationalist discourses frame constructions of gender, race, class, indigeneity, sexuality, ability, and other important differences. We study the effects of migration, diaspora, and displacement on experiences of home and heritage, family, desire, and selfhood. We provide students the conceptual tools to connect processes of imperialism and globalization with emergent economies and forms of labour and consumption. Finally, we encourage students to reflect on the varied histories of feminism when framing their own activisms in the present.
Our graduates go on to do innovative work in the public service, creative, and corporate sectors, and some enter the academy. They become everything from documentary filmmakers to grassroots activists to policy analysts in economic development agencies and professors in leading universities. All of them draw on the critical lenses they develop in this program, becoming part of a rich community of graduates who maintain their connections with one another, and who come back to the diverse classrooms where they once were students to share their experiences.
Undergraduate Coordinator: Prof. S. Trimble, New College, Room 2013 (416-946-0288).
Undergraduate Administrator: Marian Reed, New College, Room 2036 (416-978-3668).
Email: grad.womenstudies@utoronto.ca
Website: https://wgsi.utoronto.ca/
Women and Gender Studies Programs
Women and Gender Studies Specialist Program (Arts Program) - ASSPE0571
This is an open enrolment program. A student who has completed 4.0 credits may enrol in the program.
Women and Gender Studies Major Program (Arts Program) - ASMAJ0571
This is an open enrolment program. A student who has completed 4.0 credits may enrol in the program.
Women and Gender Studies Minor Program (Arts Program) - ASMIN0571
This is an open enrolment program. A student who has completed 4.0 credits may enrol in the program.
Course Groups
Core Group
- WGS160Y1 Introduction to Women and Gender Studies
- WGS260H1 Texts, Theories, Histories (formerly WGS262H1/WGS262Y1)
- WGS271Y1 Gender in Popular Culture
- WGS273H1 Gender & Environmental (In)Justice
- WGS275H1 Men and Masculinities
- WGS280H1 Special Topics in Women and Gender Studies
- WGS331H1 Special Topic in Women and Gender Studies
- WGS332H1 Special Topic in Women and Gender Studies
- WGS333H1 Special Topic in Women and Gender Studies
- WGS334H1 Special Topic in Women and Gender Studies
- WGS335H1 Special Topic in Women and Gender Studies
- WGS336H1 Selected Topics in Cultural Studies
- WGS340H1 Women and Revolution in the Middle East
- WGS350H1 (no longer offered)
- WGS355H1 Gendered Labour Around the World
- WGS360H1 Making Knowledge in a World that Matters
- WGS362H1 Selected Topics in Gender and History
- WGS363H1 Selected Topics in Gender and Theory
- WGS365H1 Gender Issues in the Law
- WGS367H1 The Politics of Gender and Health
- WGS369H1 Studies in Post-Colonialism
- WGS370H1 Utopian Visions, Activist Realities
- WGS372H1 Women and Psychology/ Psychoanalysis
- WGS373H1 Gender and Violence
- WGS374H1 Feminist Studies in Sexuality
- WGS376H1 Studies in Queer and Trans (formerly WGS272H1/WGS272Y1)
- WGS380H1 Feminist Graphic Novels
- WGS385H1 Gender and Neoliberalism
- WGS386H1 Gender and Critical Political Economy
- WGS390H1 Land-ing: Indigenous and Black Futurist Spaces
- WGS395H1 Indigeneity(s), hub spaces and decolonization
- WGS396H1 Writing the Body
- WGS397H1 The Politics of Girlhood
- WGS420H1 Asian/North American Feminist Issues
- WGS426H1 Gender and Globalization: Transnational Perspectives
- WGS434H1 Advanced Topics in Women and Gender Studies
- WGS435H1 Advanced Topics in Women and Gender Studies
- WGS440H1 Decolonial Cyborgs for Planetary Futures
- WGS442H1 Toxic Worlds, Decolonial Futures
- WGS450H1 Modernity, Freedom, Citizenship: Gender and the Black Diaspora
- WGS451H1 Independent Study in Women and Gender Studies Issues
- WGS460Y1 Honours Seminar
- WGS461Y1 Advanced Topics in Women and Gender Studies
- WGS462H1 Advanced Topics in Gender and History
- WGS463H1 Advanced Topics in Gender Theory
- WGS465H1 Special Topics in Gender and the Law
- WGS470Y1 Community Engagement
- WGS480H1 Challenging Coloniality: Caribbean Sexualities in Transnational Perspective
- WGS481H1 Gender, Sexuality and Black Liberation from Black Power to #BlackLivesMatter
- WGS482H1 Translating Sexuality: Queer Migration, Queer Diasporas
Group A
- ANT343H1 Social Anthropology of Gender
- ANT456H1 Queer Ethnography
- ANT460H1 Global Perspectives on Womens Health
- CDN335H1 Black Canadian Studies
- CLA219H1 Women in Antiquity
- CLA319H1 Sexuality and Gender in Classical Literature
- ENG273Y1 Queer Writing
- ENG355Y1 Transnational Indigenous Literatures
- FRE304H1 Contemporary French Women's Prose Fiction
- GGR320H1 Geographies of Transnationalism, Migration, and Gender
- GGR327H1 Geography and Gender
- HIS202H1 Gender, Race and Science
- HIS205H1 Topics in Women's History
- HIS297Y1 History of Africa from a Gender Perspective
- HIS306H1 Islam and Muslims in the Balkans
- HIS348H1 Topics in Gender History
- HIS354H1 Men, Gender and Power in Europe from the Renaissance to the French Revolution
- HIS363H1 Dynamics of Gender in Canadian History
- HIS383Y1 Women in African History
- HIS406H1 Advanced Topics in Gender History
- HIS446H1 Gender and Slavery in the Atlantic World
- HIS448H1
- HIS481H1 Elite Women, Power, and Modernity in Twentieth-Century Africa
- ITA455H1 Women Writers in Italy
- JAL355H1 Language and Gender
- JPS315H1 Sexual Diversity Politics
- NEW325H1 Caribbean Women Thinkers
- NEW454H1 Migration, Mobility, and Displacement in Contemporary Africa
- NMC284H1 Topics in Judaism and Feminism: Conflict, Competition, Complement
- NMC484H1 Gender-related Topics in Jewish Law and Religion
- PHL243H1 Philosophy of Human Sexuality
- PHL367H1 Philosophy of Feminism
- POL344Y1 Social Movements in Europe and North America
- POL432H1 Feminist Theory: Challenges to Legal and Political Thought
- POL450H1 Women and Politics
- PSY323H1 Sex Roles and Behaviour
- RLG235H1 Religion, Gender, and Sexuality
- RLG311H1 Gender, Body and Sexuality in Asian Traditions
- RLG312H1 Gender, Body and Sexuality in Islam
- RLG313H1 Gender, Sexuality and Religion in the West
- RLG315H1 Rites of Passage
- RLG416H1 Topics in Religion and Gender
- SLA248H1 Women and Women's Themes in Ukrainian Literature
- SOC214H1 Sociology of the Family
- SOC265H1 Gender and Society
- SOC314H1 Family Relations
- SOC365H1 Gender Relations
- SOC366H1 Sociology of Women and Work
- SOC367H1 Race, Class, and Gender
- SOC383H1 The Sociology of Women and International Migration
- SOC465H1 Advanced Studies in Gender
- SPA382H1 Spanish American Women in Art, Film, and Literature
- VIC342H1 Women and Writing in the Renaissance
- VIC343Y1 Sex and Gender
Group B
- ANT329H1 Language & Power Structure
- ANT477H1 Transnational Korea in and outside the Peninsula
- CIN332Y1 Screening Race
- CIN372Y1 Contemporary World Cinema
- CIN432H1 Advanced Study in Cinema as Social and Cultural Practice
- EAS314H1 Culture & World After Hiroshima & Nagasaki
- ENG270H1 Introduction to Colonial and Postcolonial Writing
- ENG323H1 Austen and Her Contemporaries
- ENG370Y1 Postcolonial and Transnational Discourses
- FCS390H1 Special Topics in French Cultural Studies II
- GER250H1
- GGR328H1 Labour Geographies
- GGR363H1 Critical Geographies: An Introduction to Radical Ideas on Space, Society and Culture
- GGR457H1 The Post-War Suburbs
- HIS459H1 Soviet History and Film, 1921-1946
- HIS474H1 Emancipate Yourselves from Mental Slavery? Historical Narratives of Caribbean Decolonisation
- JHA394H1 The Asia Pacific War
- JPR364Y1 Religion and Politics
- NEW214H1 Socially Engaged Buddhism
- NEW240H1 Introduction to Critical Equity and Solidarity Studies
- NEW241Y1 Introduction to Critical Disability Studies
- NEW302Y1 C.G. Jung: Stories, Patterns, Symbols
- NEW341H1 Theorizing Settler Colonialism, Capitalism and Race
- NEW344Y1 Body Matters: Oppression, Solidarity and Justice
- NEW345H1 Equity and Activism in Education
- NEW351Y1 African Systems of Thought
- NEW449H1 Contemporary Theories in Critical Disability Studies
- NMC384H1 Life Cycle and Personal Status in Judaism
- PHL268H1 Philosophy and Social Criticism
- PHL281H1 Bioethics
- PHL373H1 Issues in Environmental Ethics
- PHL380H1 Global Bioethics
- PHL384H1 Ethics, Genetics and Reproduction
- POL480H1 Studies in Comparative Political Theory
- SDS255H1 Histories of Sexuality
- SDS256H1 Methods in Sexual Diversity Studies
- SDS345H1 Sex and the Epidemic: Social Work, HIV, and Human Sexuality
- SDS346H1 Feminist and Queer Approaches to Technology
- SDS354H1 Theories of Sexuality I: Western Trajectories
- SDS355H1 Theories of Sexuality
- SDS365H1 Sexuality and Law
- SDS377H1 Lesbian Studies: Identity/Theory/Culture
- SDS379H1
- SDS382H1 Intro to Queer of Colour Critique
- SDS475H1 The New Queer Visibility
- SDS477H1 Transgender Studies
- SDS478H1 Queer Musics
- SOC207H1 Sociology of Work & Occupations
- SOC220H1 Social Stratification
- SOC309H1 HIV and AIDS: Social Policies and Programs
- HST211H1 Health Policy in Canada
- HST310H1 Critical Health Policy
- HST330H1 Population Health
- VIC341H1 The Self and Society: Women, Men and Children
Women and Gender Studies Courses
WGS160Y1 - Introduction to Women and Gender Studies
An integrated and historical approach to social relations of gender, race, class, sexuality and disability, particularly as they relate to womens lives and struggles across different locales, including Canada.
Breadth Requirements: Creative and Cultural Representations (1); Thought, Belief and Behaviour (2)
WGS260H1 - Texts, Theories, Histories (formerly WGS262H1/WGS262Y1)
Examines modes of theories that shaped feminist thought and situates them historically and transnationally so as to emphasize the social conditions and conflicts in which ideas and politics arise, change and circulate.
Recommended Preparation: WGS160Y1
Distribution Requirements: Humanities
Breadth Requirements: Thought, Belief and Behaviour (2)
WGS271Y1 - Gender in Popular Culture
A critical examination of institutions, representations and practices associated with contemporary popular culture, mass-produced, local and alternative.
Distribution Requirements: Humanities
Breadth Requirements: Creative and Cultural Representations (1)
WGS273H1 - Gender & Environmental (In)Justice
Hours: 48L/24T
Using a transnational, feminist framework, this course examines material and conceptual interrelations between gendered human and non-human nature, ecological crises, political economies and environmental movements in a variety of geographical, historical and cultural contexts. Does environmental justice include social justice, or are they in conflict? What might environmental justice and activism involve?
Distribution Requirements: Humanities; Social Science
Breadth Requirements: Society and its Institutions (3)
WGS275H1 - Men and Masculinities
Examines how masculinities shape the lives of men, women, transgender people. Effects of construction, reproduction and impact of masculinities on institutions such as education, work, religion, sports, family, medicine, military and the media are explored. Provides critical analysis of how masculinities shape individual lives, groups, organizations and social movements.
Distribution Requirements: Humanities
Breadth Requirements: Thought, Belief and Behaviour (2)
WGS280H1 - Special Topics in Women and Gender Studies
Subjects will vary from year to year.
Breadth Requirements: Thought, Belief and Behaviour (2)
WGS281H1 - Special Topics in Women and Gender Studies
Subjects vary from year to year.
Breadth Requirements: Thought, Belief and Behaviour (2)
WGS331H1 - Special Topic in Women and Gender Studies
An upper level seminar. Subjects of study vary from year to year.
Distribution Requirements: Humanities
Breadth Requirements: Creative and Cultural Representations (1)
WGS332H1 - Special Topic in Women and Gender Studies
An upper level seminar. Subjects of study vary from year to year.
Distribution Requirements: Humanities
Breadth Requirements: Creative and Cultural Representations (1)
WGS333H1 - Special Topic in Women and Gender Studies
An upper level seminar. Subjects of study vary from year to year.
Distribution Requirements: Humanities
Breadth Requirements: Creative and Cultural Representations (1)
WGS334H1 - Special Topic in Women and Gender Studies
An upper level seminar. Subjects of study vary from year to year. Please consult the Women & Gender Studies Institute's website for more information.
Distribution Requirements: Humanities
Breadth Requirements: Creative and Cultural Representations (1)
WGS335H1 - Special Topic in Women and Gender Studies
An upper level seminar. Subjects of study vary from year to year.
Distribution Requirements: Humanities
WGS336H1 - Selected Topics in Cultural Studies
An upper level course. Topics vary from year to year. Please consult the Women & Gender Studies Institute's website for more information.
Distribution Requirements: Humanities
Breadth Requirements: Creative and Cultural Representations (1)
WGS340H1 - Women and Revolution in the Middle East
This course examines the conplex and conflictual relations between women and revolutionary struggles and foces on a number of theoretical and empirical issues relevant to the Middle East and North Africa context.
Recommended Preparation: WGS160Y1
Distribution Requirements: Social Science
Breadth Requirements: Society and its Institutions (3)
WGS355H1 - Gendered Labour Around the World
This course will focus on masculinities and femininities in workplace settings, with an emphasis on service work around the world. We will discuss workers' lived experiences of gender regimes which are embedded within the dynamics of class, race and nation. The relationships between gender processes and workplace hierarchies will be explored.
Recommended Preparation: WGS160Y1
Distribution Requirements: Social Science
Breadth Requirements: Society and its Institutions (3)
WGS360H1 - Making Knowledge in a World that Matters
Teaches skills in feminist approaches to making knowledge. Introduces feminist practices for doing research and navigating the politics of production and exchange. Develops skills for conveying knowledge to the wider world, such as through research papers, reports, performance, new media, art.
Distribution Requirements: Humanities; Social Science
Breadth Requirements: Creative and Cultural Representations (1)
WGS362H1 - Selected Topics in Gender and History
An upper level seminar. Subjects of study vary from year to year.
Distribution Requirements: Humanities
WGS363H1 - Selected Topics in Gender and Theory
An upper level seminar. Subjects of study vary from year to year.
Distribution Requirements: Humanities
WGS365H1 - Gender Issues in the Law
Examines the operation of the law as it affects women, the construction and representation of women within the legal system, and the scope for feminist and intersectional analyses of law. Includes an analysis of specific legal issues such as sexuality and reproduction, equality, employment, violence and immigration.
Distribution Requirements: Humanities; Social Science
Breadth Requirements: Society and its Institutions (3)
WGS367H1 - The Politics of Gender and Health
Examines diverse traditions and normative models of health (e.g. biomedicine, social constructionist, indigenous health) in conjunction with analyses of the origin, politics, and theoretical perspectives of contemporary Womens Health Movements. Topics may include fertility, sexuality, poverty, violence, labour, ageing, (dis)ability, and health care provision.
Distribution Requirements: Humanities; Social Science
Breadth Requirements: Society and its Institutions (3)
WGS369H1 - Studies in Post-Colonialism
Hours: 24L
Examines gendered representations of race, ethnicity, class, sexuality and disability in a variety of colonial, neo-colonial, and post-colonial contexts. Topics may include the emergence of racialist, feminist, liberatory and neoconservative discourses as inscribed in literary texts, historical documents, cultural artifacts and mass media.
Recommended Preparation: WGS160Y1
Distribution Requirements: Humanities
Breadth Requirements: Creative and Cultural Representations (1)
WGS370H1 - Utopian Visions, Activist Realities
Drawing on diversely situated case-studies, this course focuses on the ideals that inform struggles for social justice, and the mechanisms activists have employed to produce the change. Foci include the gendered implications of movement participation, local and transnational coalition, alternative community formation, and encounters with the state and inter/supra/transnational organizations.
Distribution Requirements: Social Science
Breadth Requirements: Society and its Institutions (3)
WGS372H1 - Women and Psychology/ Psychoanalysis
An interdisciplinary analysis of the relationship of women to a variety of psychological and psychoanalytical theories and practices. Topics may include women and the psychological establishment; womens mental health issues; feminist approaches to psychoanalysis.
Distribution Requirements: Humanities; Social Science
Breadth Requirements: Thought, Belief and Behaviour (2)
WGS373H1 - Gender and Violence
An interdisciplinary study of gendered violence in both historical and contemporary contexts including topics such as textual and visual representations; legal and theoretical analyses; structural violence; war and militarization; sexual violence; and resistance and community mobilization.
Distribution Requirements: Humanities; Social Science
Breadth Requirements: Society and its Institutions (3)
WGS374H1 - Feminist Studies in Sexuality
Sexual agency as understood and enacted by women in diverse cultural and historical contexts. An exploration of the ways in which women have theorized and experienced sexual expectations, practices and identities. This course will be offered every three years.
Distribution Requirements: Humanities; Social Science
Breadth Requirements: Thought, Belief and Behaviour (2)
WGS376H1 - Studies in Queer and Trans (formerly WGS272H1/WGS272Y1)
Takes up conversations in queer and trans studies as separate and entangled fields. It explores how queer and trans people have experienced and theorized gender and sexuality.
Recommended Preparation: WGS160Y1
Distribution Requirements: Humanities
Breadth Requirements: Creative and Cultural Representations (1)
WGS380H1 - Feminist Graphic Novels
Comics aren't new, and graphic novels aren't either, but feminists have built a rich array of stories about consciousness, resistance, and coming of age in this genre that warrant scholarly attention. In this case, we will read graphic novels for their subtleties, thinking about what picture and text make possible in the exploration of emotion, interconnection, and identity. Reading about resistance to marriage in Ay of Yop City, a child's view of revolution in Perspolis, parent child reckoning in Fun Home, and loneliness in Skim will advance students' understandings of the of the power of narrative and the pictorial displacement of innocence.
Distribution Requirements: Humanities
Breadth Requirements: Creative and Cultural Representations (1)
WGS381H1 - Black Britain: Race, Gender and Entangled Diasporas
An exploration of Black British history and culture, with a particular focus on labour, overlapping migrations, and racial formations following World War II. Topics and themes may include Afro-Asian-Arab politics and transnational solidarities against empire; citizenship and (non)belonging; mobilizations against fascism and state violence; the Black Women's Movement and Black British Feminisms; the emergence and interventions of Cultural Studies; the Caribbean Artists Movement and Black British cultural productions more generally.
Distribution Requirements: Humanities
Breadth Requirements: Thought, Belief and Behaviour (2)
WGS382H1 - Decolonial Aesthetics and Indigenous Futurities
Students are invited to think through the relationships between Indigenous and Afro-futurist concepts and land. This class will engage indigenous feminist and emergent indigenous queer theories to Indigenous and Afro-futurist thought. We explore various 'texts' relating to theoretical concepts and methodologies emerging from Indigenous decolonial work towards land and futures.
Recommended Preparation: WGS160Y1 and completion of at least 4.0 FCE
Distribution Requirements: Humanities
Breadth Requirements: Creative and Cultural Representations (1)
WGS385H1 - Gender and Neoliberalism
Reviews major feminist transnational, Marxist and Foucaultian approaches to the study of neoliberalism. Adopts a comparative, historical and global approach to the ways that gender is implicated in state restructuring, changing roles for corporations and non-governmental organizations, changing norms for personhood, sovereignty and citizenship, and changing ideas about time/space.
Distribution Requirements: Humanities; Social Science
Breadth Requirements: Society and its Institutions (3)
WGS386H1 - Gender and Critical Political Economy
Offers a critical analysis of political economy, its historical and contemporary contentions and the ruptures that open the space for alternative theorizing beyond orthodox and heterodox thinking, by inserting gender and intersecting issues of power, authority and economic valorization across multiple and changing spheres: domestic, market and state.
Distribution Requirements: Humanities; Social Science
Breadth Requirements: Society and its Institutions (3)
WGS390H1 - Land-ing: Indigenous and Black Futurist Spaces
Students are invited to think through the relationships between Indigenous and Afro-futurist concepts of land. This class will engage Indigenous feminist and Black queer and feminist theories of land and space, linking them to Afrofuturist and Indigenous futurist thought. We explore various texts in relation to emergent methodologies, decolonial desires, and love and radical relationalities.
Exclusion: WGS335H1 (Special Topic in Women and Gender Studies: Indigenous Feminist Theory), offered in Fall 2015, WGS335H1 (Special Topic in Women and Gender Studies: Decolonial Aesthetics and Futurities), offered in Winter 2018, Winter 2019 and Winter 2020
Recommended Preparation: WGS160Y1
Distribution Requirements: Humanities
Breadth Requirements: Creative and Cultural Representations (1)
WGS396H1 - Writing the Body
Examines the ways in which bodies are lived and enscribed and represented through a variety of genres. Students will work through issues of corporeality and materiality in the production and reception of texts and will practice embodied writing on a personal level through in-class workshops and written assignments.
Recommended Preparation: WGS160Y1
Distribution Requirements: Humanities
Breadth Requirements: Creative and Cultural Representations (1)
WGS397H1 - The Politics of Girlhood
The course communicates the growing field of "girl studies" and provides a critical exploration of the historical, social, psychological and political definitions attached to girlhood. We will move toward a feminist understanding of how definitions of girl-child shape individual experience, historical narratives, cultural representations, political agendas and futures.
Recommended Preparation: WGS160Y1
Distribution Requirements: Humanities; Social Science
Breadth Requirements: Thought, Belief and Behaviour (2)
WGS420H1 - Asian/North American Feminist Issues
A transpacific examination of issues that have directly and indirectly shaped the feminist and other related critical inquiries in Asia and among the Asian diasporas in Canada and the United States.
Distribution Requirements: Humanities
Breadth Requirements: Society and its Institutions (3)
WGS426H1 - Gender and Globalization: Transnational Perspectives
Critically examines current interdisciplinary scholarship on globalization, its intersections with gender, power structures, and feminized economies. Related socio-spatial reconfigurations, ‘glocal’ convergences, and tensions are explored, with emphasis on feminist counter-narratives and theorizing of globalization, theoretical debates on the meanings and impacts of globalization, and possibilities of resistance, agency, and change.
Exclusion: WGS463H1, fall session 2009
Distribution Requirements: Social Science
Breadth Requirements: Society and its Institutions (3)
WGS434H1 - Advanced Topics in Women and Gender Studies
An upper level seminar. Topics vary from year to year depending on instructor. Please consult the Women & Gender Studies Institute's website for more information.
Distribution Requirements: Humanities
WGS435H1 - Advanced Topics in Women and Gender Studies
An upper level seminar. Topics vary from year to year depending on instructor.
Distribution Requirements: Humanities
WGS440H1 - Decolonial Cyborgs for Planetary Futures
Drawing together film, fiction, and theory this course invites students to explore ways of imagining other worlds. From afro-futurism to planetary humanism, from cyborgs to hauntings, from science fiction fantasies to the politics of aliens, the course examines and produces feminist, postcolonial, anti-racist, and queer visions of other worlds.
Distribution Requirements: Humanities
Breadth Requirements: Creative and Cultural Representations (1)
WGS442H1 - Toxic Worlds, Decolonial Futures
This course explores the ways environmental violence is an integral practice of settler colonialism that affects human and non-human life, disrupts Indigenous sovereignty, and enacts ongoing racism. A typical way of addressing environmental violence is to document the harm done to bodies and communities. This class asks, how might we also refuse environmental violence and enact better obligations to land/body relations? What kind of decolonial futures can be summoned in the aftermath of environmental violence? Our readings will bring Indigenous feminist approaches together with Black feminist, queer, and feminist environmental justice approaches. Participants will build upon the readings to create their own decolonial environmental justice future projects.
Exclusion: WGS463H1 (Advanced Topics in Gender Theory: Toxic Worlds, Decolonial Futures), offered in Winter 2018, Winter 2019 and Winter 2020
Distribution Requirements: Humanities
Breadth Requirements: Thought, Belief and Behaviour (2)
WGS450H1 - Modernity, Freedom, Citizenship: Gender and the Black Diaspora
Explores transnational feminist genealogies of the black diaspora. The course pays attention to the contexts and movements that generated key questions, exploring how these interventions disclose preoccupations with modernity, freedom and citizenship. Topics may include trauma and memory, sexual citizenship, Afrofuturism, indigeneity, and the crafting of political communities.
Exclusion: WGS434H1 Black Diasporic Feminisms: Modernity, Freedom, Citizenship
Distribution Requirements: Humanities; Social Science
Breadth Requirements: Thought, Belief and Behaviour (2)
WGS451H1 - Independent Study in Women and Gender Studies Issues
Under supervision, students pursue topics in Women and Gender Studies not currently part of the curriculum. Not eligible for CR/NCR option.
Distribution Requirements: Humanities
WGS460Y1 - Honours Seminar
Supervised undergraduate thesis project undertaken in the final year of study. Students attend a bi-weekly seminar to discuss research strategies, analytics, methods and findings. A required course for Specialist students. Not eligible for CR/NCR option.
Distribution Requirements: Humanities; Social Science
WGS461Y1 - Advanced Topics in Women and Gender Studies
An upper level seminar. Topics vary from year to year depending on the instructor.
Distribution Requirements: Humanities
WGS462H1 - Advanced Topics in Gender and History
An upper-level seminar. Topics vary from year to year depending on instructor.
Distribution Requirements: Humanities
WGS463H1 - Advanced Topics in Gender Theory
Senior students may pursue more advanced study in feminist theory. Topics vary from year to year depending on instructor.
Distribution Requirements: Humanities
WGS465H1 - Special Topics in Gender and the Law
Senior students may pursue advanced study in gender and law. Topics vary from year to year.
Distribution Requirements: Humanities; Social Science
Breadth Requirements: Society and its Institutions (3)
WGS470Y1 - Community Engagement
The application of theoretical study to practical community experience. Advanced Women and Gender Studies students have the opportunity to apply knowledge acquired in the Women and Gender Studies curriculum through a practicum placement within a community organization. Not eligible for CR/NCR option.
Distribution Requirements: Social Science
Breadth Requirements: Society and its Institutions (3)
WGS480H1 - Challenging Coloniality: Caribbean Sexualities in Transnational Perspective
Hours: 24S
This course foregrounds the Caribbean as a transnational space, where sexuality, gender, race and class are intimately connected and shaped by colonial legacies and contemporary circuits of globalization.
Exclusion: WGS435H1 (Topics: Challenging Coloniality: Caribbean Sexualities in Transnational Perspective), offered in Summer 2017
Distribution Requirements: Humanities; Social Science
Breadth Requirements: Thought, Belief and Behaviour (2)
WGS481H1 - Gender, Sexuality and Black Liberation from Black Power to #BlackLivesMatter
Hours: 24S
This course maps genealogies of black insurgency and transnational itineraries of intersectional theorizing, organizing, and praxis from the 20th century to our present moment. Through close study of works by and about black revolutionary migrants, exiles, intellectuals, fugitives, and so-called terrorists, participants will critique and create radical visions for emancipation. Major topics and themes may include black feminisms; queer insurgencies; transnational imaginaries and solidarities; silence and intracommunal violence; accountability and transformative justice. Through collective discussion, writing, and reflection we interrogate visions and strategies of emancipation, and imagine radical futures historically and in our own times.
Exclusion: WGS435H1 (Topics: Sex, Gender and Revolution from Black Power to #BlackLivesMatter), offered in Winter 2017 and Fall 2017
Distribution Requirements: Humanities
Breadth Requirements: Thought, Belief and Behaviour (2)
WGS482H1 - Translating Sexuality: Queer Migration, Queer Diasporas
Hours: 24S
This course examines how notions of sexuality travel as people move within and beyond national borders. It investigates how queer and trans migrants pursue different versions of belonging, solidarity, survival, and hope. Participants will study transnational archives (which may include popular culture, new media, film, literature, and performance) as they trace globalization's effects on racialized, queer, and trans communities. Major topics may include: queer of color critique; queer settler colonialism; transnational and global south sexualities; imperialism and militarism; neoliberalism and homonationalism; humanitarianism and sexual rights; queer and trans social movements; postcolonial intimacies.
Exclusion: WGS434H1 (Topics: Trans/national Sexuality), offered in Fall 2016 and Fall 2017
Distribution Requirements: Humanities
Breadth Requirements: Creative and Cultural Representations (1)