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Undergraduate
Questions?
Miranda Green-Barteet, PhD, Undergraduate Chair
Office: Lawson Hall 3245
Phone: 519.661.2111 x 84661
e-mail: gswsugchair@uwo.ca
Alicia McIntyre, Undergraduate Coordinator
Office: Lawson Hall 3260
Phone: 519.661.3759
E-mail: amcint4@uwo.ca
2022-2023 Courses
2022-2023 FALL/WINTER COURSES
1000 Level Courses
GSWS 1020E INTRODUCTION TO GENDER AND WOMEN'S STUDIES
We will explore, among other topics, the following: challenges to the sex- and gender-binary, including transgender, non-binary, and intersex identities; intersectionality and solidarity across gender, race, class, and ability; constructions of masculinities and femininities; the operation of state power on gender and sexual minorities; colonialism and Indigenous resistances; activism and protest, including through literature and art.
Come join us as we discuss these topics through conversations about sex testing in the Olympics; K-pop and boy bands; racism on dating apps like Tinder and Grindr; Uber, the gig economy, and mommy blogs; reproductive rights for trans folks; the recently released report from the inquiry on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA People; incels, rape culture, and misandry; self-care and emotional labour.Course outline
| Fall/Winter | 1020E 001 | Laura Cayen | Tuesdays 1:30 - 3:30pm plus 1 hour tutorial |
| Fall/Winter | 1020E 002 | Laura Cayen |
Thursdays 4:30 - 6:30pm plus 1 hour tutorial |
GSWS 1021F INTRODUCTION TO SEXUALITY STUDIES
This course is an interdisciplinary half-year course that will introduce students to the field of sexuality studies. It will examine this field through several different approaches: theoretical, literary, visual, cultural and historical. The aim will be to explore questions of identity and representation as they relate to sexuality: how are sexual identities formed? Are they essential or constructed? Who controls representations of sexuality? Why do we think of certain sexualities as normal and others as deviant? Within this context, we will analyze how certain expressions of sexuality are socially excluded and devalued in the name of a sexual norm.
| Fall | 1021F | Cornel Grey | Wednesdays 1:30-3:30pm plus 1 hour tutorial | Course outline |
GSWS 1022G GENDER, JUSTICE, CHANGE
The 21st century is a period of accelerating change focused around issues of gender, justice and activism. This interdisciplinary course will introduce students to the ways in which movements for justice and change are informed by and take up gender issues in struggles for social justice, economic empowerment, education, health, poverty alleviation, human rights, environmental protection, peace-building, good governance and political representation. A variety of case studies and examples will be used to highlight the ways in which women and other marginalized groups organize and agitate for change, resist oppression and theorize the concept of justice.
| Winter | 1022G | Bipasha Baruah | Asynchronous Online | Course outline |
GSWS 1023G GAY LIFE AND CULTURE IN THE 21ST CENTURY: BEYOND ADAM AND STEVE
Modern gay identities are defined by their integration into liberal capitalism and multicultural democracy. A once marginalized group now benefits from unprecedented social mobility. This course will survey the impact of a shifting market and new federal policies on topics like the social politics of gay spaces, gentrification, art and culture and more. Students will gain a historical understanding of gay culture and an interdisciplinary set of texts to analyze an ever multiplying set of identities that fit within gay culture. By the end of this course, students will be introduced to topics in gay and lesbian studies, queer theory and gender studies and have a set of critical tools to approach these topics from music studies, political theory and sociology.
| Winter | 1023G | Jacob Evoy | Tuesdays 10:30 - 1:30pm | Previous course outline |
GSWS 1024F INTRODUCTION TO EQUITY, DIVERSITY AND HUMAN RIGHTS
This introductory course surveys theory and practice in the fields of equity, diversity, and human rights. The course addresses how equity, diversity, and human rights policies and practices respond to social difference and relations of power; as well, we will examine arguments about multiculturalism as a strategy to promote social inclusion, the rights of minoritized groups, and the politics of affirmative action. Towards these goals, we will take up readings about these issues from disciplines such as: anti-racism, feminism and gender studies, sexuality, disability, education, and legal studies. This also includes discussions of relevant case studies that highlight contemporary debates. Therefore, from different vantage points, the course examines some of the following questions: How are equity, diversity and human rights shaped by political and state interests? What are (some of) the limits and possibilities of institutionalized, liberal approaches to equity and diversity? What are human rights and what does it mean to have such rights? And how are these rights contested and protected?
| Fall | 1024F | TBA | Tuesdays 10:30 to 12:30 pm | Previous course outline |
GSWS 1030G INTRODUCTION TO BLACK STUDIES (NEW COURSE!)
Black Studies is comprised of the knowledge production practices and worldviews among African and African descendant peoples across the globe. It is rooted in rich histories, cultures, and philosophies that have given rise to anti-colonial, anti-racist, the Negritude, Pan-African and civil rights movements, including #BlackLivesMatter. This survey course introduces students to foundational debates, ideas, and practices in the Black intellectual tradition. With an emphasis on interdisciplinarity, course materials include book chapters, journal and magazine articles, music, film, art, and poetry. We will locate contemporary topics (e.g., identity, aesthetics, gender, race, sexuality, and popular culture, etc.,) in historical frameworks, with a focus on resilience and resistance in Black life. The purpose of the course is to deepen our understanding of how social, political, economic, and cultural issues are taken up in the Black intellectual-activist tradition.
| Winter | 1030G | Erica Lawson | Thursdays 1:30-3:30pm | Course outline |
2000 Level Courses
GSWS 2140 WOMEN IN CANADIAN HISTORY: CHANGING ROLES AND DIVERSE SOCIAL REALITIES
A survey of Canadian women's history from first European contact to the 1960s, with a focus on the realities of women's lived experience as recorded through biography. No prerequisites.
| Fall/Winter | 2140 | Katherine McKenna | Online |
GSWS 2160A INTIMATE RELATIONS: SEX, GENDER AND LOVE
Intimate Relations focuses on how expectations of intimacy and relationships rely on particular understandings of love, sex, sexuality and bodies to shape how we experience ourselves as gendered and sexual beings. The course considers how intimacy (sexual, maternal, familial, affectionate) is understood in relation to history, philosophy, health, society and popular culture. No prerequisites.
| Fall | 2160A | Lauren Auger | Tuesdays 4:30 - 7:30pm | Previous course outline |
GSWS 2161B WOMEN AND POPULAR CULTURE: GARBO TO GAGA
How are women represented in popular culture? Women's images in the media, from newspaper and magazines to television, film and music videos produce particular notions of what it means to be a woman, be feminine, etc. We will examine both the historical and contemporary roles of women in popular culture. No prerequisites.
| Winter | 2161B | Nikki Edwards | Online Course | Previous course outline |
GSWS 2162B THE BODY
We will examine social and scientific constructions of the body, including concepts of beauty, health, fitness, sexuality, and questions of representation. Among other things, we may examine particular social problems, such as technologies of the body and bodily modification, ideas of health and illness, society's difficulty with understanding the disabled body as sexual, the cultural obsession with body size, psychiatric and medical responses to people who feel that their bodily sex does not match their gender, changing ideas about beauty and attraction, and artistic conceptions, representations, and alterations of the human body. No prerequisites.
| Winter | 2162B | Cornel Grey | Wednesdays 4:30 - 7:30pm | Course outline |
GSWS 2163A SEX, HOW TO: SEX EDUCATION, ITS HISTORY AND CONTROVERSIES
Sex education is a controversial topic; should we even be teaching people how to have sex or how not to have sex? This course traces the history of sex education and its many controversies as well as looking at contemporary sex education practices both locally and in an international context. No prerequisites.
| Fall | 2163A | Nikki Edwards | Online course | Course outline |
GSWS 2164A GENDER AND FASHION
This course is designed to give students an introduction to the role played by fashion in the construction of gendered identities (in addition to learning about fashion history, fashion in relation to sexuality, and fashion as identity). Topics to be covered include: what clothing can tell us about empire, gender, sexuality, class, race, industry, revolution, nation-building, identity politics and globalization; fashion as art; drag queens and kings; fashion and sustainability; fashion journalism; the metrosexual; the history of the stiletto; veiling; and fashion subcultures such as goth and punk. We will also examine the trends of athleisure, anti-fashion, slow fashion, and normcore.Although the focus of much of the course will be on Western fashion, we will also look at Asian and African designers and influences (Harajuku fashion, Pei and Yamamoto; hip-hop and The Black Panther), as well as indigenous fashion. No prerequisites.
| Fall | 2164A | Jacob Evoy | Online course | Course outline |
GSWS 2165B GENDER MIGRATION AND CLIMATE CHANGE
This second-year course engages with feminist and interdisciplinary approaches in order to understand the connections between gender, migration and climate change. It is critical to engage with all three, as they intersect in complex ways to shape the experiences of populations globally. This course will therefore engage with interdisciplinary theories and literature drawn from gender, migration, climate change and feminist studies to help students develop broader ways of thinking about the intersections of these phenomena. No prerequisites.
| Winter | 2165B | Judy Bae | Mondays 4:30 - 7:30pm | Course outline |
GSWS 2167B QUEER(ING) POPULAR CULTURE
How are Queer individuals represented in popular culture? Images of 2SLGBTQ+ individuals in media, including news, film, and television, produce particular ideas of queer identity. This course examines the historical and contemporary presence of queer individuals within popular culture and popular culture produced for and by 2SLGBTQ+ people. No prerequisites.
| Winter | 2167B | Amy Keating | Mondays 4:30 - 7:30pm | Previous course outline |
GSWS 2205G MAKING MEN: CRITICAL STUDIES IN MASCULINITY
In emphasizing the social construction of manhood and masculinity as constitutive of the enormous capital that men command, this course aims to advance a critical view whereby such concepts are seen not as impenetrable bastions of historically oppressive power, but as privileged nodes that have been instrumentalized within discursive ideological networks. Through an examination of diverse media sources (literature, film, art, critical journalism, news articles, music, etc.) and their treatment of issues like “guy” culture, male body image, homosociality, aggression, family, success, and male sexuality, this course encourages the centrality of critical reflection in understanding the oftentimes violent negotiation of masculinity across various intersectional sites, and how those dynamics are refracted in men’s relationships with themselves, other men, women, and institutions. No prerequisites.
| Winter | 2205G | Christian Ylagan | Mondays 1:30 - 4:30pm | Course outline |
GSWS 2220E FEMINIST THEORY AND PRACTICE ACROSS THE DISCIPLINES
(Reqiuired 2nd yr. theory course)
An examination of the implications of feminist theories and practices at work in many different disciplines, including arts, media, social sciences, health sciences, science, law. We introduce students to theoretical concepts and ask questions about the ways sex, gender and sexuality are understood and researched from a range of perspectives. Prerequisite(s): GSWS 1020E, or 1.0 course from GSWS 1021F/G, GSWS 1022F/G, GSWS 1023F/G, GSWS 1024F/G.
| Fall/Winter | 2220E | Kim Verwaayen and Lauren Auger | Thursdays 10:30am - 1:30pm | Course outline |
GSWS 2233G MARRIAGE: FEMINIST AND QUEER PERSPECTIVES (NEW COURSE!)
This course covers five themes: the history of marriage, primarily in the West; the transition from arranged marriage to companionate marriage; feminist attempts to render marriage egalitarian; capitalism and the growth of the wedding industrial complex; queer perspectives on both heterosexual and same-sex marriage. No prerequisites.
| Winter | 2233G | WG Pearson | Wednesdays 10:30 - 1:30pm | Course outline |
GSWS 2240F FOUNDATION OF FEMINIST THOUGHT
This course takes up foundational readings in the history of feminist thought from early feminists’ calls for women's equality and rights to postmodern understandings of gender. The course will consider how feminist thought has emerged, developed and evolved in response to various historical, intellectual, social, political and cultural challenges. No prerequisites.
| Fall | 2240F | Alison Lee | Wednesdays 10:30 am - 1:30pm | Previous course outline |
GSWS 2243F SPECIAL TOPICS: READING THE RAINBOW: LGTBQ+ YOUNG ADULT LITERATURE (NEW COURSE!)
Much has changed in the landscape of 2SLGBTQIA+ adolescent literature since the publication of John Donovan’s young adult novel, I’ll Get There. It Better Be Worth the Trip (1969), arguably the first text with queer content written for and read by teen audiences. Originally a niche genre of literature, 2SLGBTQIA+ young adult (YA) novels have become cornerstone texts in the field, reaching a previously unthinkable degree of admiration and celebration in both academic and popular contexts. How can 2SLGBTQIA+ YA literature push us to better appreciate different ways of existing, surviving, and thriving in heterocentric, patriarchal, and antiqueer cultures? To what extent can different branches of (queer) theory assist us in unpacking and examining the literary and radical potentiality of this increasingly mainstream subset of YA literature? In order to effectively answer these questions, we will draw from different queer approaches— including queer temporality, queer of color critique, and queer narratology—to examine a variety of recent 2SLGBTQIA+ YA texts. No prerequisites
| Fall | 2243F | Jeremy Johnston | Thursdays 4:30 - 7:30pm | Course outline |
GSWS 2244 WOMEN AND HEALTH
This course takes a critical, interdisciplinary approach to understanding women’s health. The course is organized into six modules with each module covering a topic area that is relevant to women and health. The topics covered in this course are:The Medicalization of Women’s Health; Representing Gender and Women’s Health; The Politics of Reproduction; Diversity and Women’s Experiences of Health Care; The Social Determinants of Women’s Health; and Women, Work and Health. No prerequisites.
| Fall/Winter | 2244 | Jessica Polzer | Wednesdays 1:30 - 4:30pm | Previous course outline |
GSWS 2260 WOMEN, LAW AND SOCIAL CHANGE
This course is an introduction to various areas of law which affect women in specific ways. It will examine laws relating to sex discrimination, employment, sexual harassment, rape and sexual assault, abortion, marriage, divorce, child custody, inheritance, pornography and prostitution. It will explore topical debates in these various areas of law and how law can be used as a strategy for bringing about social change. No prerequisites. Antirequisite(s): GSWS 2270A/B.
| Fall/Winter | 2260 | Katrina Younes | Tuesdays 1:30 - 4:30pm | Previous course outline |
GSWS 2263F INTERSECTIONS: RACE, CLASS AND SEXUALITY
One of the main objectives of this course will be to unravel how human beings become categories that expand beyond the seemingly binary divide between “the sexes,” “the races,” and the “haves and have-notes.” Instead, we will consider the real-life experiences of “Muslim women” or “two-spirit people” through an examination of texts from the fields of anthropology, cultural studies, feminist studies, and queer studies, among others. In addition, our examination of products from popular culture, such as films, television shows, music videos, and clips from the internet, will provide thoughtful, and often provocative, examples of the complex representations of race, gender, class, and sexuality in our society. Prerequisite(s): GSWS 1020E or 1.0 from GSWS 1021F/G, 1022F/G, 1023F/G and 1024F/G.
| Fall | 2263F | Kate Korycki | Tuesdays 10:30 - 1:30pm | Course outline |
GSWS 2264G THE WORKING WORLD: GENDER, SEX, AND THE FUTURE OF WORK (NEW COURSE!)
Drawing on diverse literature from political economy, economics, and feminist media studies, this course investigates the relationships among gender, sex, and labour within capitalist societies, particularly in the digital age. We will begin by examining the political economy of gender and girlhood, exploring the economy through a feminist lens, and navigating the foundations of social reproduction theory to understand gender’s place within a capitalist system. In the course’s second unit, we will explore the intersectional layers of gender, race, sexuality, and class, covering topics such as “Black Political Economy,” “Gender Capital,” how masculinity operates under neoliberalism, “Trans Work,” and “Queer Workerism.” Finally, we will turn to the future of gender, sex, and labour in the digital age, examining topics such as sex work and sexualized labour within digital cultures; the intersections of gender, consumerism, and authenticity; gender, labour, and social media; and we will conclude the course by reviewing feminist critiques of the new ideologies of work. Prerequisite(s): GSWS 1020E or 1.0 from 1021F/G, 1022F/G, 1023F/G and 1024F/G.
| Winter | 2264G | Jeremy Johnston | Thursdays 4:30 - 7:30pm | Course outline |
GSWS 2273E SEXUAL SUBJECTS
This interdisciplinary course focuses on sexuality as a subject of study and considers how sexuality defines individual and social subjectivity. The course will explore sexual subjects within a theoretical context and might include sexology, psychoanalysis, queer theory, feminism, the history of sexual identity, and its representation in cultural production. No prerequisites.
| Fall/Winter | 2273E | Laura Cayen | Mondays 10:30 - 1:30pm | Course outline |
GSWS 2274G INTRO TO TRANSGENDER STUDIES
This course will focus on trans identities, history, theory and politics from the perspectives of feminist, queer, and emerging trans theory. Topics may include transphobia and oppression of trans people, sex and gender change, transvestism, gender passing, transgender children and their families, and intersectionalities with sexuality, race, class, ability, etc. Antirequisite(s): Women's Studies 4460F/G if taught in Winter 2013; Women's Studies 3343F/G if taught in Fall 2015. Prerequisite(s): GSWS 1020E or 1.0 from 1021F/G, 1022F/G, 1023F/G and 1024F/G.
| Winter | 2274G | TBA | Tuesdays 10:30 - 1:30pm | Previous course outline |
WS 2275F HETEROSEXUALITIES
This course is interested in the interdisciplinary study of heterosexualities. Topics covered will include: social and historical productions of (hetero)sexualities; cultural performances of (hetero)sexualities; heterosexual pleasures and dangers; heterosexed pornographies and sex-work; erotic (hetero)sexual power play; and heterosexualities that cross the boundaries of (cis)gender, race, age, ability, class and nation. Prerequisite(s): GSWS 1020E or 1.0 from 1021F/G, 1022F/G, 1023F/G and 1024F/G.
| Fall | 2275F | Lauren Auger | Wednesdays 4:30-7:30pm | Previous course outline |
GSWS 2283G DESIRING WOMEN
This course looks at how female sexuality and subjectivity is experienced, understood, represented and theorized across a range of disciplines; these may include art, literature, media, psychology, anthropology, sociology, biology and medicine. It explores how female sexual desires, practices and identities are shaped in relation to individual, cultural and social meanings of female sexuality. No prerequisites.
| Winter | 2283G | Lauren Auger | Wednesdays 4:30 - 7:30pm | Course outline |
3000 Level Courses
GSWS 3163G CONTEMPORARY QUEER TOPICS
This course investigates topics in contemporary queer life, including same-sex marriage, gay and queer radicalism and the fight for sexual liberation, the growth of assimilatory politics and its consequences, homonationalism and pink-washing, homophobia and bullying, the role of religion, and the globalization of LGBT human rights rhetoric and politics.Prerequisite(s):GSWS 2220E or GSWS 2273E, or permission of the Department.
| Winter | 3163G | Jacob Evoy | Thursdays 10:30am - 1:30pm |
GSWS 3311F FEMINIST WRITING MADNESS (NEW COURSE!)
This course explores feminist approaches to madness from across various critical perspectives, disciplines, time periods, and genres but with a primary focus on representation in literature by women. Why have women been historically linked with mental deficiency or madness? What social, political, economic, and literary ends have been served by this connection? How do other axes of identity, such as race, class, sexuality, age, (dis)ability etc. intersect with the social construction of madness? Ultimately, these queries lead us to ask: how do women respond? How do they write experiences of reason and madness, cure and illness, liberation and imprisonment? By reading works (short stories, novels, memoirs) by women from both within and outside the asylum experience, and various approaches to madness by feminist theorists, we will focus on how various writers explore, question, and defy their discursive and material imprisonments. Prerequisite(s):GSWS 2220E, or permission of the Department.
| Fall | 3311F | Kim Verwaayen | Mondays 1:30 - 4:30pm | Course outline |
GSWS 3315G BLOOD, BREATH AND THE BLACK BODY (NEW COURSE!)
This course draws on Black feminist and queer theories to think through questions of health, risk, and care. We will consider some of the ways Black people have been depicted as non-human, vectors of disease, and a problem for public health. Students will engage the work of Black Studies scholars and artists whose critical interventions push us to think differently and expansively about what health science data can do for black people, but also to imagine models of care that account for the multiple dimensions of Black peoples’ lives. Possible topics include the politics of blood donation in Canada, blackness and fatphobia, anti-Black racism and pandemics, sexual risk and pleasure, and environmental racism.Prerequisite(s):GSWS 2220E, or permission of the Department.
Listen to Dr. Grey talk about this course here https://youtu.be/0ydhDvWOyHs
| Winter | 3315G | Cornel Grey | Wednesdays 10:30-1:30pm | Course outline |
GSWS 3316G ART(S) MATTER: FEMINISM, ARTS AND SOCIAL JUSTICE (NEW COURSE!)
How do creative practices respond to and attempt to intervene within historical and ongoing forms of injustice, including in our contemporary moment? How can the arts move us to be, and do, otherwise? This course looks to examples of feminist artivism (across visual art, media, spoken word performances, poetry, film, and theatre, as potential examples) in relation to some major and lesser known local and global social justice movements and issues. Together we will work to understand and assess various relations between art, aesthetics, feminism, and politics and cultural change. Prerequisite(s):GSWS 2220E, or permission of the Department.
| Winter | 3316G | Kim Verwaayen | Tuesdays 1:30 - 4:30 pm | Course outline |
GSWS 3320F INTRODUCTION TO GENDER AND FEMINIST METHODOLOGIES (NEW REQUIRED COURSE!)
This course introduces students to gender studies and feminist research methodologies from a variety of disciplinary traditions and theoretical perspectives. Students will learn about and begin to apply specific methodological issues, including ethics, archival work, researcher positionality, and the practices and politics of data collection, interpretation, and reporting.Antirequisite(s):BOTH GSWS 3321F/G and GSWS 3322F/G. Prerequisite(s): GSWS 2220E, or permission of the Department.
| Fall | 3320F | Susan Knabe | Thursdays 10:30 - 1:30pm |
GSWS 3324G CONTEMPORARY TOPICS IN CRITICAL RACE STUDIES
From black face performances, appropriation of cultural and spiritual practices, and its centrality in economic and other forms of social inequalities, race and racism persists. In this course, we will ask: What is race and its formations? How does it shift and change over time? Why do we remain so deeply invested in race/racism but are afraid to talk about it? And how is race debated and contested in the twenty-first century? We will explore these, and other questions, with sources from across disciplines (e.g., sociology, feminism, anthropology, literature), as well as in popular culture/media, and in liberation and anti-colonial movements. The course does not offer definitive answers about race, but rather explores its historical roots and contemporary manifestations. Prerequisite(s):GSWS 2220E or GSWS 2273E, or permission of the Department.
| Winter | 3324G | Erica Lawson | Mondays 1:30 - 4:30pm | Course outline |
GSWS 3358F BLACK GIRL MAGIC: A STUDY OF BLACK GIRLS AND GIRLHOOD (NEW COURSE!)
This interdisciplinary course introduces students to theories, methods, and pedagogical approaches that understand Black girls as meaning-makers and political actors. Throughout this course we will examine how narratives of Black girlhood crafted by Black women address issues of gender, race, geography, class, sexuality, citizenship, and more. To do this, we will appraise the lived consequence of antiblackness, settler colonialism, imperialism, and heteropatriarchy for Black girls in a series of academic texts, novels, tv-shows, music and podcasts. The stories that we pay attention to - lived or imagined - in this course work against one-dimensional readings of Black girls. Instead, such stories emerge from the belief that Black girls already know a lot about the social worlds they inhabit while also considering the joy, kinship, play, love, and freedom dreams that Black girls experiences in the places they are in. In this course, we center Black girl magic. Prerequisite(s): GSWS 2220E, or permission of the Department. Prerequisite(s): GSWS 2220E, or permission of the Department.
| Fall | 3338F | Jade Nixon | Tuesdays 1:30 - 4:30 pm |
GSWS 3359F REVOLUTIONARY MOTHERING AND DISRUPTIVE MOTHERS (NEW COURSE!)
Motherhood is a contested site of engagement, representation, and political participation; it is a topic of much feminist theorizing touching on areas such as fashion (e.g., Rihanna’s insistence on dressing and showing off her pregnant body), activism (Moms Against Guns), and debates (Pregnant people? Pregnant women?). Feminist literature informs us that people who identify as mothers can resort to violence in the name of justice and freedom; some leverage maternalism for war or peace; others conform to national and cultural ideals; still others are disruptive and troublesome, charting new and transgressive paths that challenge state and ‘traditional’ expectations. Through articles, media, fashion, film, and conversation, this thematically organized survey course explores disruptive and revolutionary motherhood and mothering practices in a global context. Prerequisite(s): GSWS 2220E, or permission of the Department.
| Fall | 3359F | Erica Lawson | Thursdays 1:30 - 4:30pm | Course outline |
GSWS 3363G LGBTQIA+ AND POLITICS (NEW COURSE!)
This course traces the shape and the stakes of sexuality politics in theoretical, historical and contemporary guises. Its explorations are anchored in the empirical cases of Iran, USA, Canada, Uganda and Eastern Europe. We begin our exploration with the history of sexuality and trace its implication with the creation of the state and its biopolitics. We continue with sexual politics imbrications with the formation of nations, empires, and religious orders, as well as notions of terrorism and homonationalism. We end the class with the extensive exploration of gender ideology wars as well as the assault on trans-rights and their connection to white nationalism.
Prerequisite(s): GSWS 2220E or GSWS 2253E or GSWS 2273E, or permission of the Department.
| Winter | 3363G | Kate Korycki | Thursdays 1:30 - 4:30pm | Course outline |
4000 Level Courses
GSWS 4456F QUEER TRAUMA AND RESILIENCE: CANADIAN PERSPECTIVES (NEW COURSE!)
This course will examine queer responses to dominant notions of trauma and resilience. Students will gain a critical understanding of queer and trans trauma through topics that expand medicalized discourse on post-traumatic stress disorder. We will examine issues such queer homelessness and foster care, suicide, intimate partner violence, and post-traumatic growth. We will also explore the painful effects of large-scale, traumatizing historical events throughout Canadian queer history, such as the HIV/AIDS pandemic, racism, homonationalism, as well as the raids of cruising parks and bathhouses. We will examine queer of colour critique in topics such as trans necropolitics, the development of ethno-specific AIDS service organizations, and queer diasporas. This course will have practical implications, exposing students to both activist and professional queer organizations and their responses queer and trans trauma. The course will take an interdisciplinary approach that will be beneficial for students interested in the non-profit sector, trans health, counselling, psychology, social work, nursing, medicine, sociology, and health sciences. Prerequisite(s): GSWS 2220E, or permission of the Department.
| Fall | 4456F | Kody Muncaster | Fridays 10:30 - 1:30pm |
GSWS 4460G GENDER, PANDEMICS AND SOCIAL EQUALITY (NEW COURSE!)
Despite the devastating effects of the most recent COVID-19 pandemic, the potential for learning about social, economic, and political inequality from COVID-19 is tremendous. This course offers students a dynamic opportunity to engage with the timeliness of this topic; evaluate policy, programming, activism, and patterns of inequality through a feminist lens; and explore how issues of gender equality, social justice, and crisis response and policy interact with pandemics. We will build a foundation of feminist theory establishing that gender affects how people experience public health crises, and then explore how factors such as race, Indigeneity, sexuality, class, disability, incarceration, vocation, family status, immigration status, housing, and experiences of violence shape those experiences further. We will focus on emerging literature and examples from the most recent COVID-19 pandemic and the Canadian experience, but students are encouraged to bring knowledge and examples from different historical and cultural contexts to the table. Course content will be interdisciplinary and appeal to students across the humanities, social sciences, and health sciences. Prerequisite(s): GSWS 2220E, or permission of the Department.
| Winter | 4460G | Andrea Burke | Tuesdays 10:30 - 1:30pm | Course outline |
GSWS 4463F QUEER SCIENCE FICTION
This course will look at queer depictions of sexuality in science fiction, a genre that has been arguably somewhat queer from its inception in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Although we will touch on historical concerns, the primary focus of the course will be on work published after Ursula K Le Guin's monumentally influential novel,The Left Hand of Darkness (1967). The course will cover topics such as critiques of heteronormativity in sciencefiction, futures that imagine alternative epistemologies of sexuality, futures without binary sex/gender systems, the question of what roles sexuality plays in robotics and Artificial Intelligence, sexuality and post-humanism, sexuality in cyberpunk and its offshoots, and responses to the AIDS crisis. Prerequisite(s): GSWS 2220E or GSWS 2253E or GSWS 2273E, or permission of the Department.
| Fall | 4463F | WG Pearson | Thursdays 11:30am - 2:30pm | Course outline |
GSWS 4464G GENDER AND DEVELOPMENT: ENGAGING WITH THEORY AND PRACTICE
This Course is informed by the interests and needs of future scholars and practitioners of gender equality - i.e. students who hope to engage in research, project design and implementation, policy formulation and analysis, monitoring and evaluation, advocacy and/or networking in international development, global cooperation or other related domains. A few readings and lectures will be devoted to providing students with a historical perspective on the evolution of the theory of gender and development. The rest of the course will focus almost exclusively on key contemporary gender issues in development. The course seeks to provide students with a strong theoretical and conceptual grounding in gender and development as well as applied skills to work as development professionals. Students will study development policy and learn tools and methodologies that will enable them to pursue careers as gender equality practitioners with the United Nations system, other intergovernmental organizations, state agencies, NGOs and other civil society organizations, think-tanks, bilateral and multi-lateral agencies, and private foundations.
| Winter | 4464G | Bipasha Baruah | Mondays 10:30am - 1:30pm | Course outline |
