Course Descriptions

This course brings together feminist political ecology, geography, and post-development thought to interrogate ways of accounting for and responding to the impacts human animals are having on the environments we share with all the inhabitants of Earth's biosphere. It offers an advanced overview of the concepts, theories and implications arising from debates generated through eco-feminisms, as they intersect with the socially constructed geographies of local and global environments. How might sustainable or even post-development approaches to the flourishing of local and planetary bio-diversities, draw on intersectional gender-based ecological inquiry and feminist place-centered critiques? How might scholars and activists begin to imagine practical environmental justice? How do current models of work, consumption and the variously mediated strategies informing political ecology enable or disable gender-sensitive socio-ecological and feminist geographical research?

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours
Prerequisite(s): GENS 112.3, and 3 additional credit units in GENS.
Note: Students with credit for WGST 305 or WGST 398.3 Geographies of Gender and Ecology may not take this course for credit. This course is offered online.

Through interdisciplinary and intersectional frameworks, this course focuses on selected feminist theories that examine gender in contemporary life, analyzing the shift from what is known as 'Second Wave' to 'Third Wave' Feminisms. A variety of feminist theories will be considered with a focus on diversity, power relations and subjectivity.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours
Prerequisite(s): GENS 112.3, and 6 credit units in GENS and/or cognate courses, or permission of the GENS Coordinator.
Note: PHIL 227 is recommended. May be used as Humanities or Social Science credit. Students with credit for WGST 311 will not receive credit for this course.

Examines various feminist methodologies and approaches to the formal construction of knowledge. A survey of the major methods of research in diverse fields is presented in the context of feminist critique and epistemology. Androcentric bias, feminist epistemology, ethics and subjectivity are central themes of the course.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours
Prerequisite(s): (GENS 112.3 or INDG 107.3) and (6 credit units GENS and/or cognate courses) and 30 credit units at the university level; or permission of the GENS Program Coordinator.
Note: Students may find having GENS/WGST 112 and INDG 107 helpful preparation for this course. Students with credit for GENS 398 Special Topics: Feminism and the Construction of Knowledge may not take this course for credit. May be used as Social Science credit. Students with credit for WGST 312 will not receive credit for this course.

Examines contemporary feminist art since the 1970s, specifically: 1) diverse strategies of representing the female body and women's heterogeneous cultural experiences, 2) shifting relationships between art/activism, theory/practice, private/public spheres, Canadian/international contexts, and 3) the ways the practices of making, exhibiting and writing about art have intersected feminist thought.

Weekly hours: 3 Seminar/Discussion hours
Prerequisite(s): GENS 112.3 or GENS 201.3 or permission of the GENS Coordinator.
Note: Students with credit for WGST 324 will not receive credit for this course.

This course offers students from all disciplines an opportunity to consider the ways their chosen or aspirational career pathways are implicated in the ongoing projects of the colonialist nation state and neoliberal capitalist expansion. They will also have the chance to explore potentials for their particular professional field/s to support more inclusive and just social relations. Students will examine North American histories of violence as organized through various forms of labour, whether valued, devalued, exploited, conscripted to national and other agendas, or privileged in local, national and transnational contexts. They will also consider the ways selected current events are shaped by human labour as a socio-political mechanism for consolidating hegemony and its many alternatives. The course provides an advanced option for students in Women's and Gender Studies, as well as other disciplines.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours
Prerequisite(s): GENS 112.3 and 9 credit units university courses; or 24 credit units university courses; or permission of instructor.
Note:Students with credit for WGST 375.3 or WGST 398.3 Gender, Diversity and Professional Life may not take GENS 375 for credit.

Examines the ways diverse disciplinary projects have intersected with feminist studies. Whether co-taught, to provide an overview of converging approaches, or delving more deeply into a particular theme, the course is offered occasionally and topics vary in response to instructor and student interests, and developments in the field.

Weekly hours: 3 Seminar/Discussion hours
Prerequisite(s): 30 credit units at the university level including at least 6 credit units of GENS and/or cognate courses; or permission of the GENS Coordinator.
Note: May be used as Humanities or Social Science credit. Students may take this course more than once for credit, provided the topic covered in each offering differs substantially. Students must consult the Department to ensure that the topics covered are different. Students with credit for WGST 390.3 will not receive credit for this course.

Offered occasionally by visiting faculty and in other special situations to cover, in depth, topics that are not thoroughly covered in regularly offered courses.

Offered occasionally by visiting faculty and in other special situations to cover, in depth, topics that are not thoroughly covered in regularly offered courses.