Course Listing

Addresses issues of importance to women as recipients and providers of health care and as subjects of health research. Students are introduced to various models of health and illness, and to the origins and theoretical underpinnings of the gendered dimensions of health in Canadian and global contexts. Prerequisite: 0.5 GESO or WMST credit at the 1000 level, or a minimum of 60% in all required NURS 1000-level courses, or permission of instructor. Equivalent to WMST 2121H.

Cross-listed: NURS-2121H

How have feminists conceptualized social justice, especially as connected to struggles for social change? This course explores some of the key historical and contemporary feminist theories, inviting debate about the many different ways that feminists have explained and analyzed social inequalities, imagined alternatives, and strategized for social gender justice. Prerequisite: 4.0 university credits including 0.5 GESO, PHIL, or WMST credit at the 1000 level, or permission of instructor. Equivalent to WMST 2141H.

Cross-listed: PHIL-2141H

Uses a feminist lens to analyze a variety of contemporary social issues that may include sexual violence, migrant labour, transgender and queer politics, and environmental justice, as well as the new frontiers of transnational and digital feminist activism. Prerequisite: 4.0 university credits including 0.5 GESO or WMST credit at the 1000 level, or permission of instructor. Equivalent to WMST 2151H.

A project/practice-based class engaging with artists who play outside the canon and creative makers who challenge systemic injustices. Students create work exploring how to use creative practice to engage and reimagine justice-seeking research questions, collective histories, and possible futures. This course revels in the rough draft, experimentation, dissent, and celebration. Prerequisite: GESO 1001H (or WMST 1001H).

Fat studies interrogates and interrupts fat as a historically dependent social and political construction. This course locates the origins of fat as moral and racial panic, critically examines anti-fatness as a social justice issue, and unpacks the systemic biases that have embedded these attitudes into our daily lives. Prerequisite: 3.0 university credits.

An introduction to historical and contemporary popular and everyday culture, arts, and entertainment as mechanisms that produce and reinforce ideologies about gender, race, class, ability, sexuality, and citizenship. Prerequisite: 4.0 university credits including 0.5 GESO, WMST, or CUST credit at the 1000 level, or permission of instructor. Equivalent to WMST 2210H.

Cross-listed: MDST-2210H, CUST-2210H

An analysis of the intersectional gender relations that shape political, socio-economic, and cultural issues and struggles for sustainable development across the globe. Introduces students to feminist political economy and ecology frameworks and pathways to gender justice and human rights. Prerequisite: 0.5 HURI, GDST, IDST, GESO, or WMST credit at the 1000 level, or permission of instructor. Equivalent to IDST 2251H, WMST 2251H.

Cross-listed: GDST-2251H, HURI-2251H

Examines the role of popular culture in various forms--including live theatre, music, fashion, film, and television--within Canadian and American social movements of the twentieth century that sought to reimagine gender. Emphasizes the role of race, class, sexuality, ability, and medium in the production and consumption of protest cultures. Equivalent to WMST 2410H.

Cross-listed: MDST-2410H

Focuses on gender as a core aspect of social organization and inequality. Key concepts are gender, femininity, masculinity, sexuality, homosexuality, heterosexuality, and queer. Naturalist ideas and sociological analyses developed within feminism and lesbian and gay theories are studied. Prerequisite: 60% or higher in SOCI 1002H or 0.5 GESO credit. Not open to students with credit for SOCI-WMST 3430H.

Cross-listed: SOCI-2430H

Looks at how contemporary feminisms can urgently turn to recognition and foregrounding of Indigenous Peoples and their voices across territories. With emphasis on Indigenous women and 2SQ people as creative makers, vibrant thinkers, and vital members of our communities, we examine Indigenous/feminist acts of resistance, resilience and resurgence. Prerequisite: GESO 1001H (or WMST 1001H). Equivalent to WMST 2487H.

Cross-listed: INDG-2487H

Documentary film, music, and poetry as modes of inquiry into contemporary Canadian life. Topics may include gender and the arts; community and memory; climate change and the "Anthropocene"; ecological ethics; the politics of indigeneity; cultural approaches to addiction and education; grief and emotional renewal. Prerequisite: 3.0 university credits. Students may take only one of CAST-GESO-MDST 2600Y or 2601H for credit.

Cross-listed: CAST-2601H, MDST-2601H

Studies a range of works from different periods and genres that raise moral questions and ethical dilemmas concerning issues of social justice involving race, ethnicity, class, gender, age, and other variables. Considers literature's power to evoke the plight of the socially disadvantaged, and the implications for social change. Prerequisite: 4.0 university credits.

Cross-listed: ENGL-2703H

An overview of the history of feminist ideas, strategies, and actions in Canada. We explore the diversity and distinctiveness of Canadian feminism at different historical moments, celebrating the strength and creativity of organized and individual forms of resistance, while also probing the complicated, difficult, and sometimes "messy" workings of feminism. Prerequisite: 4.0 university credits including 0.5 GESO, WMST, CAST, or HIST credit at the 1000 level, or permission of instructor. Equivalent to WMST 2711H.

Cross-listed: HIST-2711H, CAST-2711H

How can research be used as a tool for social change? This course teaches students how to design anti-oppressive, decolonial, and feminist research in collaboration with community organizations. With attention to a range of current social issues, students learn about the theory, ethics, and design of engaged research. Prerequisite: 7.0 university credits including GESO 2141H and 0.5 additional GESO or WMST credit at the 2000 level or beyond, or permission of instructor. Equivalent to WMST 3021H.

A study of philosophical concepts of gender, sex and sexuality, feminist critique, and developments in feminist philosophies. Prerequisite 7.0 university credits or permission of department chair.

Cross-listed: PHIL-3050H

Highlighting work by racialized and Indigenous women, this course explores contemporary themes within feminism about critical race theory, white supremacy, and anti-racist practice. Topics include intersections of racism with other systems of inequality, everyday and systemic racism, racial violence, whiteness and privilege, and feminist anti-racism responses. Prerequisite: 8 university credits including 1.0 GESO or WMST credit at the 3000 level, or permission of instructor. Not open to students with credit for WMST 4050H.

Undertakes a socio-cultural analysis of how gender, race, and sexuality shape the construction, configuration, and meanings of sports and athleticism. Examines professional and amateur sports and athletics as they are played and represented within the gender binary and beyond, engaging with pertinent questions related to trans bodies, disability, aging, settler colonialism, etc. Prerequisite: 8.0 university credits.

Cross-listed: KINE-3134H

Explores the ways trans and gender diverse bodies intersect with questions of queerness, feminism, nationalism, colonialism, citizenship, criminalization, race, and capital. What strategies of representation and resistance do trans communities engage in as part of their work of imagining and enacting freedom? Prerequisite: 1.0 GESO or WMST credit at the 2000 level or beyond, or permission of instructor. Not open to students with credit for GESO 4150H. Equivalent to WMST 3150H.

How does sexual and gendered difference map on to cultural, racial, and national difference? This course considers how marginalized, transnational, and diverse forms of sexuality and/or gender expression shape, and are shaped by, discourses of (homo)nationalism and sexual citizenship, histories of race and racialization, indigenous contexts, neoliberalism, (im)migration and labour, sex work, and human rights. Prerequisite: 3.0 university credits including 0.5 GESO or WMST credit, or permission of instructor. Not open to students with credit for WMST 2161H.

Selected themes and topics examining the relationship between gender and spatial organization. Themes include the nature of domestic space; gendered use of public, private, and urban space; and the intersections between gender, sexuality, racism, and cultural difference. Prerequisite: GEOG-CAST-ERST 2710H or GEOG-CAST 2810H; or 1.0 GESO or WMST credit at the 2000 level or beyond; or permission of instructor.

Cross-listed: GEOG-3220H, CAST-3220H

Students explore bodies, desires, relations, and culture through queer and feminist theories. We consider connections among queer feminist scholarship, personal experience, political struggle, and artistic expression. Gender, sexuality, transgression, and intersectionality are central to the inquiry and conversation. Prerequisite: 7.0 university credits including 0.5 GESO or WMST credit at the 2000 level or beyond, or permission of instructor. Not open to students with credit for GESO-CUST 4250H. Equivalent to WMST 3250H.

Cross-listed: CUST-3250H

Introduces students to critical perspectives that push thinking about disability beyond medical and social models. Focuses on connections between gender and disability. Explores feminist challenges to ableism. Other topics include bodies, race, sexuality, education, creativity, access, eugenics, intersections, and austerity. Prerequisite: 6.0 university credits. Equivalent to WMST 3300H, 3400H.

Cross-listed: SOCI-3400H, PHIL-3400H

Explores sexuality as a complex issue in sociological analysis. Examines theoretical approaches to the body, gender, and sexuality, the construction of "normal" and "deviant" sexualities, and various forms of sexual regulation and resistance. Prerequisite: 5.0 university credits including at least 1.0 credit in SOCI and/or GESO at the 2000 level.

Cross-listed: SOCI-3440H

We read works that imagine disease, cure, and convalescence as gendered modes, asking how literature exposes pathologization and how authors rewrite illness beyond pathology. We focus on the regulation imposed by cultural and social understandings of "sickness" and the resistance posed by authors to medicalization. Prerequisite: 4.0 university credits.

Cross-listed: ENGL-3609H

A critical look at gender-based violence as a political and legal construct. Topics may include missing and murdered Indigenous women, legalization debates regarding sexed work, hegemonic masculinities and violence. Prerequisite: 7.0 university credits including 60% or higher in CRIM 2616H or GESO 2141H.

Cross-listed: CRIM-3625H, PLCW-3625H

Examines issues of diverse intersectional gender identities and gender experiences, including Indigeneity, (dis)ability, race, class, LBTQ, and fat, and provides socio-political perspectives to understand activism, community building, and possibilities for socio-political and policy change. Prerequisite: 7.0 university credits including 1.0 POST, CAST, GESO, and/or SOCI credit at the 2000 level, or permission of instructor. Recommended: POST-CAST 2011H and/or 2012H. Not open to students with credit for POST-CAST-WMST 3670Y.

Cross-listed: POST-3672H, CAST-3672H, SOCI-3672H

Examines literary and cultural representations of queerness through historical, theoretical, and aesthetic approaches. What does it mean for a text to be "queer"? How do sexual identities intersect with racial, ethnic, and religious ones? What can explorations of queerness as an identity category tell us about identity itself? Prerequisite: 4.0 university credits.

Cross-listed: ENGL-3704H

Studies selected girlhood bodies and narratives as they have developed within the contexts of Canadian and global literature and popular culture. Focusing on the negotiation of girlhood bodies and narratives through a variety of spaces and over diverse borders, this course considers relationships between Canadian and global girlhoods. Prerequisite: 4.0 university credits including 1.0 ENGL credit or permission of the instructor.

Cross-listed: ENGL-3709H, CAST-3709H

Explores principles and practices of feminist psychology, theories of gender and sexual development, and the psychology of women. Focus is on feminist critiques of psychology and feminist contributions to psychology. Feminist relational, community, post-colonial, and narrative approaches are emphasized. Prerequisite: 6.0 university credits including 1.0 GESO, WMST, and/or PSYC credit at 2000 level or beyond. Not open to students with credit for GESO-PSYC 4796H. Equivalent to WMST 3796H.

Cross-listed: PSYC-3796H

Analyzes power relations and lived experiences through the intersections of gender, race, ethnicity, and class. Students undertake the critical work of understanding the ongoing implications of these interlocking systems of privilege and oppression upholding inequalities and fueling resistance in Canadian and international contexts. Prerequisite: 6.0 university credits including 1.0 GESO, WMST, CAST, and/or SOCI credit at 2000 level or beyond, or permission of instructor. Equivalent to WMST 3860H.

Cross-listed: SOCI-3860H, CAST-3860H

Focuses on how globalization is transforming intersectional gender dynamics that underpin relationships between and within states, markets, civil society, and households. Introduces students to feminist perspectives on the global political economy, focusing on specific issues such as international trade agreements, labour, security, migration, health, environment, and human rights. Prerequisite: 1.0 HURI, GDST, IDST, GESO, WMST, POST, and/or SOCI credit at the 2000 level or beyond, or permission of instructor. Not open to students with credit for GESO-POST 4881H or WMST-POST 3880Y. Equivalent to IDST 3881H.

Cross-listed: GDST-3881H, POST-3881H, SOCI-3881H, HURI-3881H

An interdisciplinary introduction to the topic of women and gender in science. How is gender difference understood within scientific disciplines? Why are women under-represented in various science and technological fields? How are women, and feminist scholarship, changing science? Prerequisite: 6.0 university credits including 1.0 GESO or WMST credit at the 2000 level, or permission of instructor. Not open to students with credit for GESO-ANTH 4932H.

Cross-listed: ANTH-3932H

Explores key issues, theories, and debates concerning gender, feminism, and the law, primarily in Canada. Approaching law as a site of regulation and constraint and drawing upon restorative justice pedagogies and decolonial methodologies, the course examines issues such as family, sexuality, violence, pornography, prostitution, poverty, employment, and immigration. Prerequisite: 1.0 GESO, WMST, CAST, CRIM, and/or POST credit, or permission of instructor. Equivalent to WMST 3962H.

Cross-listed: CAST-3962H, POST-3962H, SOCI-3962H, CRIM-3962H

Examines how gender-based violence impacts individuals, communities, and societies, and applies an intersectional lens to consider differences in experiences, interventions, and acts of resistance. This course assesses responses to gender-based violence at the community, institutional, and policy levels, and critically reflects on strategies required to make change. Prerequisite: 6.0 university credits including GESO 1001H.

Cross-listed: CRIM-3965H

A criminological analysis of women in trouble from early to late modernity to the present moment, with specific analysis of the disciplining and incarceration of cisgender women and trans women. Focuses on the Canadian criminal justice system, with analysis of its racist, colonial, patriarchal, homophobic, ableist legacies. Prerequisite: 1.0 GESO, WMST, CAST, CRIM, and/or SOCI credit, or permission of instructor. Equivalent to WMST 3966H.

Cross-listed: CAST-3966H, SOCI-3966H, CRIM-3966H

Examines debates and issues involved in understanding environmental problems from a gender and justice perspective. Students are introduced to environmental justice issues and concepts, feminist approaches and critiques, and explorations of emerging discourses, making links between justice, sustainability, and issues like climate change. Prerequisite: 6.0 university credits including 1.0 GESO, WMST, and/or ERST credit at the 2000 level, or permission of instructor. Not open to students with credit for GESO-ERST 4990H.

Cross-listed: ERST-3990H

Consult the department office for information and for the required thesis registration form. Students wishing to take a double credit thesis with one credit applied to Gender & Social Justice and the second to a joint major should see the chair of the Gender & Social Justice Department. Equivalent to WMST 4010Y.

Highlighting work by racialized and Indigenous women, this course explores contemporary themes within feminism about critical race theory, white supremacy, and anti-racist practice. Topics include intersections of racism with other systems of inequality, everyday and systemic racism, racial violence, whiteness and privilege, and feminist anti-racism responses. Prerequisite: 8.0 university credits including 1.0 GESO or WMST credit at the 3000 level, or permission of instructor. Not open to students with credit for GESO 3052H. Equivalent to GESO 4050H, WMST 4050H.

Explores the ways trans and gender diverse bodies intersect with questions of queerness, feminism, nationalism, colonialism, citizenship, criminalization, race, and capital. What strategies of representation and resistance do trans communities engage in as part of their work of imagining and enacting freedom? Prerequisite: 1.0 GESO or WMST credit at the 2000 level or beyond, or permission of instructor. Not open to students with credit for GESO 3150H. Equivalent to WMST 4150H.

Drawing from the meta-paradigm concepts of nursing science--person, health, environment, and nursing--the focus of this course is women's health and women-centered health care delivery in the Canadian context. Androcentric science, sex/gender-based analysis, and topics such as methadone and mothering, smoking as social control, and HPV vaccination are discussed. Prerequisite: A pass in NURS 3020H and 3021H; 60% or higher in NURS 3000H, 3001H, 3004H, 3031H, and 3550H; and permission of the department. For non-Nursing students: GESO 2121H and permission of the School of Nursing.

Cross-listed: NURS-4208H

Students explore bodies, desires, relations, and culture through queer and feminist theories. We consider connections among queer feminist scholarship, personal experience, political struggle, and artistic expression. Gender, sexuality, transgression, and intersectionality are central to the inquiry and conversation. Prerequisite: 1.0 GESO or WMST credit at the 2000 level or beyond, or permission of instructor. Not open to students with credit for GESO-CUST 3250H. Equivalent to WMST 4250H.

Cross-listed: CUST-4250H

Consists of an exploration of gender issues in French language and literatures with a focus on questions specific to French Canada and Quebec. Prerequisite: 5.0 FREN credits including 4.0 beyond the 1000 level, with a minimum of 60% in each; or permission of the program coordinator.

Cross-listed: FREN-4251H

Explores how difference--especially who is labelled "different"--changes according to social, political, and cultural factors and interests. Students focus on disability and its intersection with other identity-based categories, including gender, race, and sexuality. Readings come from Canadian literature and film, critical theory, social policy, and the mass media. Prerequisite: 14.0 university credits. Not open to students with credit for CAST-SOCI-WMST 4550Y.

Cross-listed: CAST-4551H, SOCI-4551H

Examines intersections of gender with "race," ethnicity, sexuality, and class. The implications of intersectional perspectives for how we understand gender equality strategies and outcomes are considered. Specific topics will be determined yearly and may be different in Peterborough and Durham. Prerequisite: 10.0 university credits, including one of SOCI-GESO 2430H or 3440H, and 2.0 credits at the 3000 level; or permission of instructor. Equivalent to SOCI-WMST 4610H.

Cross-listed: SOCI-4630H, GDST-4630H

Explores principles and practices of feminist psychology, theories of gender and sexual development, and the psychology of women. Focus is on feminist critiques of psychology and feminist contributions to psychology. Feminist relational, community, post-colonial, and narrative approaches are emphasized. Prerequisite: 2.0 GESO or WMST credits at the 2000 level or beyond; or 1.0 GESO or WMST credit and PSYC 2700H and one of PSYC 3730H, 3740H, 3300H, or 3760H. Not open to students with credit for GESO-PSYC 3796H. Equivalent to WMST 4796H.

Cross-listed: PSYC-4796H

An interdisciplinary introduction to the topic of women and gender in science. How is gender difference understood within scientific disciplines? Why are women under-represented in various science and technological fields? How are women, and feminist scholarship, changing science? Prerequisite: 8.0 university credits including 1.0 GESO or WMST credit at the 3000 level, or permission of instructor. Not open to students with credit for GESO-ANTH 3932H. Equivalent to WMST 4932H.

Cross-listed: ANTH-4932H

Examines debates and issues involved in understanding environmental problems from a gender and justice perspective. Students are introduced to environmental justice issues and concepts, feminist approaches and critiques, and explorations of emerging discourses, making links between justice, sustainability, and issues like climate change. Prerequisite: 8.0 university credits including 1.0 GESO, WMST, and/or ERST credit at the 3000 level, or permission of instructor. Not open to students with credit for GESO-ERST 3990H. Equivalent to WMST 4990H.

Cross-listed: ERST-4990H

Students focus on a key area of feminist scholarship through intensive seminar discussions that may include guest lectures from various feminist faculty members from the Social Sciences and Humanities. Students engage in a major independent research project and collaboratively organize a public or campus event. Prerequisite: Open to Honours Gender & Social Justice students with 12.0 university credits including GESO 3021H. Equivalent to WMST 4995Y.