Full year FSYM courses:
FYSM 1600 — Contemporary Controversies in Canadian Society
Students will explore a broad range of social issues affecting Canadians today. Using an interdisciplinary lens, this course will analyze how these issues are connected to larger global systems and to world histories. Topics may include nationalism, race, language and ethnicity, sexuality, gender, Aboriginal governance, globalization, the environment, and human rights. Course materials are drawn from a broad range of disciplines. Attendance and critical engagement are essential.
1.0 credit Lecture: Wednesday 11:35 – 1425
FYSM 1409 — Social Change in Canada
Students are introduced to a range of movements for social change in Canada.
Thematic units address a set of academic concepts, a social movement that is associated with them, and the experiences of injustice members of these social movements want to challenge. Together, over the fall and winter terms, students examine seven movements whose members have fought for structural and ideological changes within Canada. More specifically, the course will focus in turn on labour rights, anti-racism, feminism, LGBTQ+ identities, Indigenous nationalism, Québécois nationalism, and disability rights. The people involved in these social movements have played important roles in redefining the social and legal parameters of Canadian citizenship and identities. Attendance and critical engagement are essential.
1.0 credit Lecture: Thursday 1435 – 1725
Full year CDNS course:
CDNS 1000 — Introduction to Canadian Studies
Tim Browne
This full-year course introduces students to the interdisciplinary field of Canadian Studies. We begin by asking basic questions about nations: What drives people to come together as a national community – not just in Canada, but in any country? We also ask tough questions about inclusion and exclusion: Who has been left out of representations of Canada and why? How have these representations changed over the years?
The course allows students to extend their gaze beyond Canada’s borders and consider how Canada presents itself to the world. To what extent does a Canadian identity defined by what Canada is not (American, European, “uncivilized”, etc.) hamper acknowledgment of problems that Canada shares with other countries and regions? Where does Canada fit in an increasingly globalized corporate world? We will discuss such issues as mining, immigration, language, and eugenics, highlighting the ways in which public policy has either supported or undermined what many Canadians consider to be key aspects of Canadian identity.
The goal is to help students develop a deeper understanding of Canada from a variety of perspectives and a deeper appreciation of the human experience more generally. Students will also cultivate critical thinking skills and engage in lively class discussions on core topics, many of which
1.0 credit Lecture: Monday 1805 – 1955 Discussion Groups: Tuesday & Wednesday at various times
T Browne CDNS 1000 2019-20
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Fall 2019
CDNS 2210 — Introduction to the Study of Canadian Culture
Professor Jennifer Henderson
In this course, we study Canadian culture through advertising, restaurant menus, National Parks, museum exhibits, stories, music, television, painting, film, and cultural policy. We talk about the central myths and metaphors in Canadian nationalist discourse and how these have been contested. Canada is a socially-stratified settler nation-state in which the unifying time-space of the national culture overwrites very different geographies, histories, and experiences. Culture is where struggles over identity, power, memory, and belonging take place. The course introduces the study of culture in different forms–as representation, as commodity, as collective memory, as place, as resistance, as everyday practice.
0.5 credit Lecture: Wednesday 1435 – 1625 Discussion Groups: Wednesday 1635 or 1735
J Henderson CDNS2210 Fall 2019 poster
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CDNS/FINS 2510 R (exclusively online) — Introduction to Québec Society
Professor Anne Trépanier
Students will do a survey of geographical, historical, demographical, cultural, political and social developments in Québec, from the colonial period to the present. Course themes include the evolving structures and values of Quebec society, cultural production and policies, relations with English Canada, Indigenous peoples, and debates on identity and nationalism.
This course will provide students with a firmer understanding of Quebec society’s development from New France and the Patriots’ Rebellions of 1837-1838, to the period of terrorism in the 1960s leading to the October crisis of 1970, and the subsequent referenda on sovereignty. Students will be able to contribute to debates about federalism, national identity, métissage, Quebec’s distinctiveness, and multiculturalism.
0.5 credit No classroom component
A Trepanier CDNS 2510 F 2019
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CDNS 3000/GEOG 3001 — Producing Knowledge/Doing Qualitative Research
Professor Sophie Tamas
How do we produce ethical, useful knowledge? This small seminar course investigates the theory and methods used in qualitative inquiry, offering students both hands-on experience as knowledge producers and rigorous discussion of the beliefs and claims that shape what counts as knowledge and who counts as knowledge-holders.
The course content will include a mix of engaging and challenging experiential activities, small group discussions, readings, and written reflections, designed to help students learn about qualitative methods and put them to work.
0.5 credit Lecture: Tuesday 1135 – 1425
S Tamas CDNS 3000 Fall 2019
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CDNS 4403/5403 — Heritage Conservation & Sustainability
Professor Susan Ross
How are historic places evolving in response to changing ideas of how we care for the land and important places? Can heritage conservation contribute more to the circular economy, to resource scarcity, and to environmental justice? What are new contexts for heritage and roles for conservation in climate adaptation and resilience? How can Indigenous ideas of reciprocity and human environmental relations inform processes and practices for meaningful change?
This advanced seminar explores a shift in heritage conservation discourse that embraces related objectives of environmental, sociocultural, and economic sustainability.
Through readings discussion and analysis of Canadian and international research, policy and projects, the course introduces theory, principles and practices that help bridge diverging ideals.
0.5 credit Lecture: Thursday 1135 – 1425
S Ross CDNS 4403-5403 F F 2019
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CDNS 4901 — Speculating Futures/Imagining Otherwise
Professor Eva Mackey
Academics excel at critiquing the past and present. But can we imagine otherwise? As a class, this exploratory interdisciplinary 4th year course will research how we might begin to imagine (and create) alternative ways of thinking, acting, and being that move beyond the limits of our present social condition. How might we build on our critiques to imagine and reflect on the creative possibilities of as yet unimaginable worlds and relationships, including those that may reflect innovative forms of justice and decolonization. How can we ensure that our imaginaries do not unintentionally reproduce inherited and deeply problematic patterns and assumptions? Building on selected critical essays and theories in numerous fields, this class examines diverse examples and genres of “imagining otherwise”–including speculative fiction, sci-fi, cli-fi, visual media, popular culture and art, etc. We do so to explore the possibilities and limitations of how we may think and perceive differently, outside of our given imaginaries. Can we imagine what might seem impossible? How do our preconceptions and socially ingrained habits of
seeing and imagining get in the way? Can we imagine otherwise? What do we learn in the process of trying?
0.5 credit Lecture: Thursday 1435 – 1725
E Mackey CDNS 4901 F 2019
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CDNS 5003 C/ CLMD 6102 — Issues in Transnationalism
Professor Catherine Khordoc
Transnationalism and transculturation are terms that are often used in cultural and literary studies. Are they interchangeable? How are they different?
Through a variety of readings, and case studies (mostly literary, but also cinematographic), we’ll consider how these terms may be used productively to discuss
and analyse contemporary cultural/literary works.
0.5 credit Lecture: Thursday 0835 – 1125
C Khordoc CLMD 6102 CDNS 5003
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CDNS 5501 — Decolonizing Canada:Cultural Politics and Identities
Professor Eva Mackey
In this interdisciplinary graduate seminar, we explore the possibilities and limitations of the concept of “decolonization” in what is now known as Canada. We begin by addressing Canada as a settler-colonial nation, and discuss what is meant by “decolonization.” We then interrogate the continuities and differences between the colonial origins/development of Canada and contemporary “multicultural” society — specifically in terms of the construction, reification, and management of collective identities and territories. The second half of the course focuses more explicitly on resurgence, resistance and decolonization, exploring emerging debates about de-colonizing identities and practices.
0.5 credit Lecture: Wednesday 1135 – 1425
E Mackey CDNS 5501 F 2019
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INDG 1010 — Introduction to Indigenous Peoplehood Studies
Geraldine King
This course begins by looking at Creation Stories of different Indigenous peoples and builds to discuss Indigenous worldviews, ways of living, ecological relationships, inter-Indigenous relations and diplomacy among Indigenous peoples. Course materials are rooted in self-situated and collective understandings of Indigenous peoples. This course centres around stories, with a particular emphasis on reading and interpreting Indigenous stories of Creation. Students will also be offered the opportunity to tell their own stories through various course evaluations that honour diverse modes of learning and being.
0.5 credit Lecture: Monday 1135 – 1325 Discussion Groups: Friday afternoon
G King INDG 1010 Fall 2019
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INDG 4011 — Indigenous Representation in Contemporary Canada
Professor Allan Ryan
This course will explore the work and film making styles of several Canadian First Nations, Métis and Inuit film directors, screen writers and producers. National Film Board documentaries, independently produced shorts, experimental videos, and commercial ventures will be examined.
No previous knowledge of film studies or film making is required. Students are encouraged to approach this course from an interdisciplinary perspective, noting similar themes, issues and concerns emerging in other disciplines, and other Indigenous creative genres such as literature, music, theatre and the “fine arts.” Students invariably find themselves compiling “film playlists” to share with friends, family, youth groups and instructors in other courses.
0.5 credit Lecture: Wednesday 1435 – 1725
A Ryan INDG 4011 Fall 2019
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Winter 2020
CDNS 4901– Creative Engagement with Indigenous Self-Portraits: A Discourse on the Nature of Self-Representation
Professor Allan Ryan
This course will take as its primary referent, About Face: Self-Portraits by Native American, First Nations and Inuit Artists, the catalogue to an exhibition of contemporary Indigenous self-portraits co-curated by the instructor, and shown at the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in 2005-2006. (Over half of the self-portraits were created by Indigenous artists from Canada.) Still the only exhibition of its kind, this body of work will be considered in light of the history of Indigenous self-representation, from its early focus on communal and socio-political identities to the emergence of more individualistic portrayals in the late 19th and early 20th century; and in light of the history of North American Indigenous experience as recounted in Thomas King’s immensely engaging book, The Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative. Interdisciplinary thinking is strongly encouraged.
0.5 credit Lecture: Monday 1135 – 1425
A Ryan CDNS 4901B Winter 2020