Women and Gender Studies Courses

For Distribution Requirement purposes all WGS courses are classified as Humanities courses except WGS261Y1 AND425Y1, which are Social Science courses.

| Course Winter Timetable |


100-Series Courses


During the first round of enrolment, WGS160Y1 is subject to certain enrolment restrictions. Please refer to the 2008-2009 Registration Handbook & Timetable.

WGS160Y1
Introduction to Women and        [48L, 24T]

Gender Studies (formerly NEW260Y1)
An integrated and historical approach to social relations of gender, race, class, sexuality and disability, particularly as they relate to women’s lives and struggles across different locales, including Canada.
Exclusion: NEW260Y1/WGS260Y1




200-Series Courses

During the course enrolment period, WGS262Y1 is subject to certain enrolment restrictions. Please refer to the 2008-2009 Registration Handbook & Timetable.

WGS261Y1
Scientific Constructions of Sex and Gender        [48L, 24T]

Critically examines how the scientific construction of sex and gender in the context of race, class and nation have both reinforced and challenged racial hierarchies, colonialism and the formation of academic disciplines such as psychology, anthropology and biology.
This is a Social Science course


WGS262H1
Texts, Theories, Histories (formerly WGS262Y1) [48L, 24T]

Examines modes of theories that shaped feminist thought and situates them historically and transnationally so as to emphasize the social conditions and conflicts in which ideas and politics arise, change and circulate. Exclusion: WGS262Y1
Prerequisite: NEW160Y1/WGS160Y1


WGS271Y1
Gender, Race and Class in Contemporary Popular Culture (formerly NEW371H1) [24L]

A critical examination of institutions, representations and practices associated with contemporary popular culture, mass-produced, local and alternative.Exclusion: NEW371H1



300-Series Courses

During the first round of enrolment, 300-Series Courses are subject to certain enrolment restrictions. Please refer to the 2008-2009 Registration Handbook & Timetable.

Note:
Courses numbered WGS330H1 - 339H1 are reserved for Special Topics in Women and Gender Studies offered each year by visiting scholars. Topics will change according to the interests of the instructor.

WGS330H1
Special Topic in Women and Gender Studies: Caribbean Women Writers        [24L]

A critical feminist reading of selected works of fiction, poetry and essays by Caribbean women writers. The aim is to appraise the development of this literature, situate texts within the key social and political debates which have influenced the region’s literary output, as well as to consider the implications of the environments within which these writers function.
Recommended preparation: NEW160Y1/WGS160Y1/NEW261Y1/WGS261Y1


WGS334H1
Special Topic in Women and Gender Studies

WGS335H1
Special Topic in Women and Gender Studies

An upper level seminar. Subjects of study vary from year to year.
Recommended preparation: NEW160Y1/WGS160Y1/NEW261Y1/WGS261Y1


WGS336H1
Selected Topics in Cultural Studies [24L]

An upper level course. Topics vary from year to year.
Prerequisite: NEW160Y1/WGS160Y1/NEW261Y1/WGS261Y1


WGS350H1
Masculinity and the Human in an Age of Terror [24L]

This course contextualizes racialized masculinities and violence within postcolonial and anti-imperial discussions on contemporary discourses of terror. Working with concepts in gender and queer studies, this course draws on cultural production to offer a complex reading of masculinities and what it means to be human in conflict zones.
Prerequisite: WGS262Y1 or permission of instructor


WGS362H1
Selected Topics in Gender and History [24S]

An upper level seminar. Subjects of study vary from year to year.
Prerequisite: NEW160Y1/WGS160Y1/NEW261Y1/WGS261Y1


WGS363H1
Selected Topics in Gender and Theory [24S]

An upper level seminar. Subjects of study vary from year to year.
Prerequisite: NEW160Y1/WGS160Y1/NEW261Y1/WGS261Y1


WGS365H1
Gender Issues in the Law [24L]

Examines the operation of the law as it affects women, the construction and representation of women within the legal system, and the scope for feminist and intersectional analyses of law. Includes an analysis of specific legal issues such as sexuality and reproduction, equality, employment, violence and immigration.
Recommended preparation: NEW160Y1/WGS160Y1/NEW261Y1/WGS261Y1


WGS366H1
Gender and Disability [24L]

A critical interdisciplinary investigation of how gender impacts on central topics in disability studies: ableism as a political ideology; the normalized body and cultural representations; sexuality, violence and nurturance relations; the cognitive and social roles of medicine; transnational perspectives on disability, disability rights and issues of social justice.
Prerequisite: NEW160Y1/WGS160Y1/NEW261Y1/WGS261Y1/NEW271Y1/WGS271Y1/NEW367H1/WGS367H1
Recommended preparation: WGS240Y1/WGS372H1/WGS374H1/PHL384H1/POL315H1/POL344Y1/ SOC373H1/SOC374H1/UNI255H1/UNI355H1


WGS367H1
The Politics of Gender        [24L], 12T

and Health
Examines diverse traditions and normative models of health (e.g. biomedicine, social constructionist, aboriginal health) in conjunction with analyses of the origin, politics, and theoretical perspectives of contemporary Women’s Health Movements. Topics may include fertility, sexuality, poverty, violence, labour, ageing, (dis)ability, and health care provision.
Recommended preparation: NEW160Y1/WGS160Y1/NEW261Y1/WGS261Y1/WGS262Y1/PHL281H1/SOC325Y1


WGS368H1
Gender and Cultural Difference: Transnational Perspectives (formerly NEW368Y1) [24L]

Explores the ways in which gendered constructions of cultural identity and difference are implicated in local and transnational political projects, including feminism. Challenges colonialist stereotypes of women as exotic or “victims of culture”.
Prerequisite: NEW160Y1/WGS160Y1/NEW261Y1/WGS261Y1/permission of the instructor
Exclusion: NEW368Y1


WGS369H1
Studies in Post-Colonialism (formerly NEW369H1) [24L]

Examines gendered representations of race, ethnicity, class, sexuality and disability in a variety of colonial, neo-colonial, and “post”-colonial contexts. Topics may include the emergence of racialist, feminist, liberatory and neoconservative discourses as inscribed in literary texts, historical documents, cultural artifacts and mass media.
Prerequisite: NEW160Y1/WGS160Y1/NEW261Y1/WGS261Y1/permission of the instructor
Exclusion: NEW369H1


WGS370H1
Utopian Visions, Activist Realities        [24L]

Drawing on diversely situated case-studies, this course focuses on the ideals that inform struggles for social justice, and the mechanisms activists have employed to produce the change. Foci include the gendered implications of movement participation, local and transnational coalition, alternative community formation, and encounters with the state and inter/supra/transnational organizations.
Prerequisite: WGS160Y1Y, WGS262Y1Y


WGS372H1
Women and Psychology/ Psychoanalysis [24L]

An interdisciplinary analysis of the relationship of women to a variety of psychological and psychoanalytical theories and practices. Topics may include women and the psychological establishment; women’s mental health issues; feminist approaches to psychoanalysis.
Prerequisite: NEW160Y1/WGS160Y1/NEW261Y1/WGS261Y1/permission of the instructor


WGS373H1
Gender and Violence [24L]

An interdisciplinary study of gendered violence in both historical and contemporary contexts including topics such as textual and visual representations; legal and theoretical analyses; structural violence; war and militarization; sexual violence; and resistance and community mobilization.
Prerequisite: NEW160Y1/WGS160Y1/NEW261Y1/WGS261Y1/permission of the instructor


WGS374H1
Feminist Studies in Sexuality [24L]

Sexual agency as understood and enacted by women in diverse cultural and historical contexts. An exploration of the ways in which women have theorized and experienced sexual expectations, practices and identities.
Prerequisite: NEW160Y1/WGS160Y1


WGS375H1
Colonialism, Sexuality,        Spirituality and the Law [24L]

Examines the challenge indigenous knowledges posed to colonialism by analyzing Spanish and British legal codes. Focusing on the links between sexuality and spirituality, we explore how gender shaped the social dynamics of conquest and resistance and draw out the implications for contemporary colonialisms.
Prerequisite: NEW160Y1/WGS160Y1/NEW261Y1/WGS261Y1


WGS380H1
Aboriginal, Black and Immigrant Women in the Land of Dollars [24L]

Examines the gendered effects of white settler colonization on/in 21st Century Canada and traces the formation of multiple settlements by examining black and immigrant populations. The course poses a challenge to contemporary formulations of diaspora and multiculturalism. It examines solidarity movements within and across these three communities.
Prerequisite: NEW160Y1/WGS160Y1/NEW261Y1/WGS261Y1


WGS385H1
Gender and Neoliberalism [24L]

Reviews major feminist transnational, Marxist and Foucaultian approaches to the study of neoliberalism. Adopts a comparative, historical and global approach to the ways that gender is implicated in state restructuring, changing roles for corporations and non-governmental organizations, changing norms for personhood, sovereignty and citizenship, and changing ideas about time/space.
Prerequisite: WGS160Y1
Recommended Preparation: WGS262Y1


JNV300H1
Gender, History and Literature [24L]

The study of a selected group of creative writers from at least two national literatures whose texts raise issues regarding gender as either an historically or culturally variable construct. Texts will be chosen on the basis of a shared historical era, a literary genre, experience, institutional categorization, or project.
Prerequisite: One course in Literary Studies or one course in Women and Gender Studies




400-Series Courses

Students wishing to enrol in 400-Series courses must fill out a ballot form available from the Women and Gender Studies Program Office, ROOM 2036, Wilson Hall, New College, 40 Willcocks St. This form must be signed and approved by both the course instructor and the Undergraduate Coordinator for the Women and Gender Studies Program. Students cannot enrol in 400-Series courses on ROSI.

WGS425Y1
Women and Issues of International Development [48S]

Provides a gender analysis of the political economy of development and globalization, and a critical overview of related feminist theoretical, policy, and strategy debates. Issues explored include feminisation of labour, gender mainstreaming, trafficking in women, poverty-alleviation strategies, and transnational feminist organizing.
Recommended Preparation: NEW160Y1/WGS160Y1, POL201Y1 or another course addressing development issues, and a half course at the 300+ level in Women and Gender Studies.
This is a Social Science course


WGS430H1
Queer Diasporas [26S]

This course is an overview of the growing field of Queer Diasporas. It considers how queer people inhabit transnational spaces. It also examines how diaspora, as an analytical framework that challenges meanings of un/belonging, might be queered. Alongside theoretical works on queer diasporas, this course draws on cultural/aesthetic texts to think through its major themes.
Prerequisite: One course in the field of Sexuality Studies and third year standing.


WGS434H1
Advanced Topics in Women and Gender Studies [24S]


WGS435H1
Advanced Topics in Women and Gender Studies [24S]

An upper level seminar. Topics vary from year to year depending on instructor.
Recommended preparation: NEW160Y1/WGS160Y1 and one full course at the 300+ level in Women and Gender Studies


WGS440H1
Gender and the Sacred [24S]

Examines how gender illuminates the sacred by focusing upon the forces of nature within the Vodou and Yoruba cosmological systems. Explores how these sacred knowledges disturb the secular parameters of feminism through close attention to the conceptual and ceremonial practices among practitioners in the diaspora.
Prerequisite: NEW160Y1/WGS160Y1/NEW261Y1/WGS261Y1 and one full course at the 300+ level in Women and Gender Studies.
Exclusion: NEW435H1/WGS435H1, winter sessION 2005.


WGS445H1
Migrations of the Sacred [24S]

Considers the gendered impact of migration on women’s indigenous spiritual practices, taking globalization as a political economic starting point. Focuses on the lives of women whose experiences emblematize displacement and examines how women’s agency interrupts and transforms normative meanings of ‘tradition’ and “modernity.’
Prerequisite: NEW160Y1/WGS160Y1/NEW261Y1/WGS261Y1 and one full course at the 300+ level in Women and Gender Studies


WGS451H1
Independent Study in Women and Gender Studies Issues [TBA]

Under supervision, students pursue topics in Women and Gender Studies not currently part of the curriculum.
Prerequisite: Permission of the Undergraduate Coordinator, Women and Gender Studies Program


WGS460Y1
Advanced Research Seminar in Women and Gender Studies [TBA]

Supervised individual research project undertaken in Third or Fourth year. Students attend a seminar to discuss research methods and findings. A required course for Specialist students.
Prerequisite: Permission of the Undergraduate Coordinator, Women and Gender Studies Program
Recommended Preparation: NEW160Y1/WGS160Y1 and one full course at the 300+/400+ level in Women and Gender Studies.


WGS461Y1
Advanced Topics in Women and Gender Studies [48S]

An upper level seminar. Topics vary from year to year depending on the instructor.
Prerequisite: NEW160Y1/WGS160Y1 and a half course at the 300+ level in Women and Gender Studies


WGS462H1
Advanced Topics in Gender and History [24S]

An upper-level seminar. Topics vary from year to year depending on instructor.
Prerequisite: NEW160Y1/WGS160Y1 and one full course at the 300+ level in Women and Gender Studies


WGS463H1
Advanced Topics in Gender Theory [24S]

Senior students may pursue more advanced study in feminist theory. Topics vary from year to year depending on instructor.
Prerequisite: NEW160Y1/WGS160Y1 and one full course at the 300+ level in Women and Gender Studies


WGS465H1
Special Topics in Gender and the Law [24S]

Senior students may pursue advanced study in gender and law. Topics vary from year to year.
Prerequisite: NEW160Y1/WGS160Y1, NEW365H1/WGS365H1, or permission of the instructor


WGS470Y1
Women and Gender Studies Practicum [48S]

The application of theoretical study to practical community experience. Advanced Women and Gender Studies students have the opportunity to apply knowledge acquired in the Women and Gender Studies curriculum through a practicum placement within a community organization.
Prerequisite: NEW160Y1/WGS160Y1 and at least one full course at the 300+/400+ level in Women and Gender Studies.