Course Descriptions

Introduces students to selected research and writings in the area of Women's and Gender Studies, emphasizing the diversity of debates informing the field. Examines changing gender positions and representations across regional, national and international perspectives. Special attention will be given to experiences of gender inequities from the Canadian context.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours
Note: Students with credit for WGST 110.6 will not receive credit for this course. This course may be used as either Humanities or Social Science credit. Costs in addition to tuition may apply to Independent Studies sections of this course.

An introduction to the ways gender, sexuality and identity are represented and produced in popular culture, mainstream media and populist feminist culture. Focuses on critical analysis and intervention, the production of culture and a variety of cultural forms, mainstream media and representational practices.

Prerequisite(s): WGST 112.3 or completion of 18 credit units at the university level.
Note: May be used as Humanities or Social Science credit.

The relationship between gender, sexuality, and music; four main themes will be explored, namely rock culture, masculinities and music, femininities and music, and image and identity in music.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours
Prerequisite(s): 30 credit units at the university level or permission of the WGST Coordinator.
Note: May be used as Humanities or Social Science credit.

Interdisciplinary examination of current events relating to gender, race, sexuality, ethnicity, ability and class. Special attention will be paid to how recent/ ongoing wars, ecological crises, terrorism, economic recession, etc., impact the lives of women, children and subaltern men, and how such events are represented in mainstream and alternative media.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours
Prerequisite(s): Completion of 30 credit units at the university level or permission of the WGST Coordinator.
Note: May be used as Humanities or Social Science credit.

Locates queer embodiments, performances and projects in local, national and transnational contexts. What is made visible and invisible in performance theory, constructions/appropriations of the deviant, and the complex shifts in queer space taking place through globalization? How are effects produced as queer across interwoven spaces?

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours
Prerequisite(s): WGST 112.3 or completion of 18 credit units at the university level.
Note: WGST 110 or 112 is strongly recommended.

The body is fundamental to our sense of self and identity. This course explores the ways in which bodies are constituted in everyday life through the intersections of class, gender, ableness, sexual orientation, age, ethnicity and race.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours
Prerequisite(s): WGST 112.3 or 30 credit units at the university level.

Introduces students to core theorists in masculinity studies and examines how "masculinities" circulate in, and are structured by diverse economic and political contexts, social conventions and cultural spaces. Explores the ideological underpinnings of the category "masculinity", its shifting and contested meanings, and alternative possibilities for thinking and mobilizing the masculine.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours
Prerequisite(s):WGST 112.3 or completion of 18 credit units at the university level.
Note: May be used as Humanities or Social Science credit.

This course takes an intersectional, decolonizing, interdisciplinary approach to critical disabilities studies, inviting students to think critically about the reproduction of oppression and systemic barriers to inclusion operating out of prevailing socially constructed discourses of disability. Centering the invaluable scholarly and social rigour arising from minoritized perspectives, the course facilitates multi-disciplinary exploration of critical perspectives that engage social justice, social policy, human rights, social movements, intimate and international politics.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours
Prerequisite(s): WGST 112.3 or 18 credit units of university courses.
Note: This course is offered online.

Considers shifts in the directions and impact of feminist critical thought and diverse practices of cultural production. Offered occasionally as faculty resources permit, the topic will vary in accordance with the research interests of the instructor, student demand and new developments in the field.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours
Prerequisite(s):WGST 112.3 or completion of 18 credit units at the university level.
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.

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

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours

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

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours

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): WGST 112.3, and 3 additional credit units in WGST.
Note: Students with credit for 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): WGST 112.3, and 6 credit units in WGST and/or cognate courses, or permission of the WGST Coordinator.
Note: PHIL 227 is recommended. May be used as Humanities or Social Science credit.

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

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): WGST 112.3 or WGST 201.3 or permission of the WGST Coordinator.

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): WGST 112.3 and 9 credit units university courses; or 24 credit units university courses; or permission of instructor.
Note: Students with credit for WGST 398.3 Gender, Diversity and Professional Life may not take WGST 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 WGST and/or cognate courses; or permission of the WGST 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.

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.

Oral presentation of an academic paper in the department. The presentation is normally based on a paper already prepared, or in preparation, for a third- or fourth-year WGST seminar course.

Weekly hours: 3 Seminar/Discussion hours
Permission of the WGST Coordinator required.
Prerequisite(s): At least 3 credit units of 400-level WGST.
Note: WGST 400 is required in all Honours programs. Application for Honours must be made at least 18 months in advance of expected graduation date so requirement can be met.

Examines women's and allied efforts to organize across national borders with focus on: social movements and self-advocacy; innovative uses of human rights and international change instruments; efforts to reduce poverty and create access to citizenship in processes of cooperation and conflict; critiques of economic "development", land use, and environmental damage.

Weekly hours: 3 Seminar/Discussion hours
Permission of the WGST Coordinator required.
Note: May be used as Humanities or Social Science credit.

This course provides students with an in-depth understanding of how queer theories and lenses can be applied to various bodies of knowledge, including sexualities studies. It engages critically with the interconnections among feminist, queer and trans studies, and their intersections with other marginalized fields of academic inquiry.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours
Prerequisite(s): WGST 112.3; and 6 credit units from ANTH 310.3, EFDT 486.3, FREN 260.3, HIST 135.3, HIST 303.3, HIST 420.3, HIST 430.3, HIST 434.3, INDG 330.3, PHIL 224.3, PSY 227.3, PSY 427.3, RLST 382.3, WGST 201.3, WGST 220.3, WGST 250.3, WGST 290.3; or permission of the instructor.

Examines critical and creative crosscurrents that surface at sites where gender, culture and political struggle converge. Designed for advanced students, specific topics addressed in this course will vary according to instructor and student interests and emergent issues in the field.

Weekly hours: 3 Seminar/Discussion hours
Permission of the WGST Coordinator required.
Prerequisite(s): 18 credit units of WGST and/or cognate courses, including WGST 311.3, 312.3.
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.

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

Weekly hours: 3 Seminar/Discussion hours

Offered occasionally by visiting faculty and in other special situations. Students interested in these courses should contact the department for more information.

Weekly hours: 3 Seminar/Discussion hours

The body of work which comprises “feminist theory,” confounds disciplinary, linguistic, national, cultural, historical, thematic, and indeed “political” categorization. Therefore, this multi-sited interdisciplinary seminar will foreground “doing theory” as a critical activity and an imaginative mode of thought that questions existing meanings, inheritances and social phenomena, while articulating new possibilities and forms of knowledge. This course introduces students to theoretical approaches, vocabulary and key texts which have influenced feminist research, activism and practice in local and global arenas, in order to prepare them for advanced courses in our areas of specialization.

Weekly hours: 2 Seminar/Discussion hours
Restriction(s): Students must be enrolled in the College of Graduate Studies and Research.

This course will explore intersections between feminist theory, cultural studies and cultural production. In particular, the course presents culture as a dynamic arena of social struggle and possibility and aims to introduce students to some of the key thinkers and critical frameworks in the field of feminist cultural studies. The course examines how meaning is generated and mediated through various cultural practices, products, archives and phenomena and engages students in the analysis of a range of cultural texts which may include digital and social media, film and television, art, advertising, visual and popular culture, print culture and literature, performance, material culture and archives. The course is divided into four units of study including a foundational unit in cultural studies theory and three additional units each of which focuses on a unique cultural text, product, phenomena, practice or archive. Each unit will examine relationships between cultural texts/ cultural phenomena and their ideological and socio-historical contexts.

Weekly hours: 2 Seminar/Discussion hours
Restriction(s): Students must be enrolled in the College of Graduate Studies and Research.

Rooted in philosophy, literary theory and other humanities projects, queer theory can trace important elements of its genealogy to postmodern feminism, lesbian and gay studies, as well as queer activist practices. Sexualities studies is rooted in developments in sociology, anthropology, psychology and other social and human sciences, and exists in critical dialogue with queer theory. The use of the term ‘queer and sexualities’ studies is intended to include recent developments in trans studies. Students will explore the intersections of queer and sexualities theories with critical race, disabilities, intersex and transnational perspectives, in preparation for a community-engagement research project that investigates everyday struggles for actualization in evolving constructions of queer-positive publics.

Weekly hours: 2 Seminar/Discussion hours
Restriction(s): Students must be enrolled in the College of Graduate Studies and Research.

Beginning with a focus on Indigenous cultures in local, regional and international contexts, this course examines potentials for and challenges to achieving gender justice across borders and within communities. Centered on women’s contextual relationships with the land, each other, the nation state, identity systems and other resources, the course provides a spotlight on world views that emerge at sites of resistance to colonialisms/imperialisms and racialization processes. Emphasizing women’s self-determination in social movements ranging from the interpersonal to the international, this class will introduce students to intersecting gendered struggles involving: environmental sustainability, food and water sovereignty, the feminization of poverty and migration, women in politics, anti-militarization and conflict resolution, reproductive, labour, human and children’s rights.

Weekly hours: 2 Seminar/Discussion hours
Restriction(s): Students must be enrolled in the College of Graduate Studies and Research.

Offered occasionally in special situations. Students interested in these courses should contact the department for more information.

Offered occasionally in special situations. Students interested in these courses should contact the department for more information.

This interdisciplinary seminar includes discussions on research projects, papers, and professional development activities in Women’s, Gender and Sexualities Studies.

The topic must propose an original study and critical discussion of a meaningful question in Women’s, Gender and Sexualities Studies. The proposed research will include a critical review of the literature and, depending on the subject matter and focus of the thesis, is likely to require some combination of the following: • analysis of a range of possible texts, policies, practices, and/or other media (literature/s, cultural representations, popular culture, film, exhibitions, archives, etc.) • critical analysis of a theoretical problem • empirical research • performance • analysis of a social problem within communities and/or across borders. Each student will produce a substantive written thesis which critically engages historical and/or contemporary socio-cultural issues and/or knowledge production.

Students admitted to a special-case Ph.D. program in Women's, Gender, and Sexualities Studies will register in this course for the duration of the graduate program.

Prerequisite(s): Admission to a special case Ph.D. program in Women, Gender, and Sexualities Studies.