Women's/Gender Studies
WGS101H5F
Simalchik
Introduction to Women and Gender Studies
This foundation course introduces the core ideas students will explore throughout their studies in Women and Gender Studies. It immerses students in a highly participatory and provocative encounter with history, social theory, politics, policy, art and culture seen through a gender lens. It provides an interdisciplinary overview of the historical 'waves' of women's movements for equality in a global context and background to the development of Women/Gender Studies as a site of learning and feminist inquiry.
T 3-5
WGS200Y5Y
Ruffle/Tahmasebi-Birgani
Theories in Women and Gender Studies
This course provides an opportunity to engage in an in-depth examination of specialized and scholarly work within women and gender studies with a focus on the diverse, multidisciplinary and transnational expressions of feminist thought. It incorporates study of the themes and debates concerning the socially constructed categories of femininity, masculinity and gender and in historical and contemporary contexts.
T 11-1
WGS205H5F
TBA
Women and Popular Culture
This course explores the forms and functions of popular culture and its representation and understanding of the social category of women. It examines specific media forms including, but not limited to, film, song, visual arts, music, video, television, advertising and new media forms. It critically analyzes the impact of these portrayals on women in society while examining the cultural constructions of race, sexuality, class and ability.
TH 3 - 5
WGS215H5F
Tahmasebi-Birgani
Women, Politics and the State
This course takes a comparative, historical and global approach to the ways that the notion of ‘women’ is implicated in state structures and the social basis of political systems. Exploring the changing norms assigned to personhood and citizenship, it analyzes how the state influences the identities of woman and gender relations.
TU 1 - 3
WGS250H5S
TBA
Women in Families
This course studies how the notion of family is conceptualized and organized transnationally and historically and examines the multiple familiar roles of women in diverse contexts.
M 3-5
WGS301H5F
Kassam
Gender and Islam
The course explores historical and contemporary debates regarding the construction of gender in Islam. It examines historic and literary representations, ethnographic narratives, legal and human rights discourses, the politics of veiling, and Islamic feminism. This course situates Muslim women as complex, multidimensional actors engaged in knowledge production and political and feminist struggles, as opposed to the static, victim-centered, Orientalist images that have regained currency in the representation of Muslim women in the post 9/11 era.
M 5 - 7
WGS335H5S
TBA
Women, Migration and Diaspora
This course examines the process of migration to Canada from a gender perspective, noting the interplay between structural impediments and women's own agency. Historical perspectives on migration and government policy, and on ways women have rebuilt lives and shaped communities.
W 9 - 11
WGS336H5S
TBA
Women, History and Representation
This course evaluates the ways in which the category “woman” has been constructed, enacted and embodied, historically and contemporarily, in Western art forms and performance including theatre and literature. It interrogates the ways in which the art forms have been altered by feminist theoretical models and focuses on modes of representation and the possibilities, limitations, and criticisms suggested by them.
W 11 - 1
WGS337H5F
Bain
Special Topics in Women and Gender Studies: Gender and Violence
A special topic by guest instructor. Topics vary from year to year.
F 11 - 1
WGS337H5S
TBA
Special Topics in Women and Gender Studies: Feminist & Contemporary Women's Issues
A special topic by guest instructor. Topics vary from year to year.
TH 5 - 7
WGS350H5S
TBA
Critical Race Theory in Women and Gender Studies
This course's central focus is an examination of the way race and gender operate together in structuring social inequality. It offers the analytical tools for exploring the interconnections between race and gender, along with other systems of domination, and incorporates perspectives from women of colour and from women in the global "South."
M 5 - 7
WGS353H5S
TBA
Theories of Masculinity
Working with gender studies’ theories, this course draws on social and cultural constructions and practices to offer a complex reading of masculinities. It explores contemporary debates of the ways in which masculinities have been theorized and experienced in practices and identity formation.
M 11 - 1
WGS355H5S
TBA
Wired Women: Gender, Cyberspace and New Information Technology
The course examines how computer technologies facilitate women’s participation in cyberspace and how women define and construct their involvement. It studies the simultaneous generation of new modalities of empowerment and disempowerment including language, role-playing, communication, gaming, and networking and conduits for sex trafficking, harassment and other forums of exploitation.
F 11 - 1
WGS365H5S
Ruiz-Austria
Gender, Justic and the Law
This course discusses the construction and representation of women in Canadian and International law. It analyzes specific contexts and historical issues including employment, sexuality, reproduction, deviance and a variety of justice theories relating to gender.
TU 3 - 5
WGS366H5S
Abdulnour
Women and Psychology
An interdisciplinary analysis of the relationship of women to a variety of psychological and psychoanalytical theories and practices. Topics include gender development, stereotyping and gender roles, the impact of gender on intimate relationships, women and the psychological establishment, women's mental health issues and feminist approaches to psychoanalysis.
W 6 - 8
WGS367H5F
TBA
Women and Health
Feminist theories and frameworks examining the interconnections between women, health and biomedicine in North America and transnationally.
W 6-7
WGS368H5F
Simalchik
Women in World Cultures
Examines the diversity and shared experiences of women in western and non-western societies. This is primarily a history course, supplemented with some contemporary perspectives. It compares women in diverse economic, cultural and religious settings.
W 11-1
WGS370H5F
Ruffle
Gender, Sexuality, Identity
This course examines philosophical, psychoanalytic and literary texts on love, passion, and desire from a gender studies perspective. Theoretical in "ethos", the course seeks to understand the role of love in the construction of gendered identity and sexuality. It explores, among other things, the tension between the notion of love as a threat to the integrity of the self on the one hand and the ideal of love as a site of psychic, bodily, and spiritual rebirth on the other.
TU 3 - 5
WGS434H5F
Bain
Special Topics in Women & Gender Studies:
A special topic by a guest instructor. Topics vary from year to year. Check the web site for information about this offering each term.
TH 1-3
WGS435Y5Y
Simalchik
Women and Gender Studies Practicum
The practicum allows advanced WGS students to combine theory and practice through part-time unpaid placement with a community agency, government body, educational or social change organization.
W 3-5
WGS450H5S
TBA
Theories of Sexuality
This course offers a critical overview of contemporary theories of sexuality. Topics include heterosexuality, homosexuality, and bisexuality; transgenderism and transsexuality; essentialism and constructivism; desire, pleasure, fantasy and ideology; normativity and resistance; performativity and queer theory; as well as emotional risk and vulnerability.
TH 1-3
WGS470H5S
TBA
Feminism and Popular Culture
This course examines the ambivalent relationship between feminist theory and popular culture. Major themes include: the visual construction of the gendered, sexualized, and racialized subject; power and ideology; the gaze, desire, and fetishization; fantasy, seduction, and idealization; as well as the possibility of resistant and/or counter hegemonic interpretations.
TU 9-11