This page is currently being updated. 2026-27 course descriptions will be added as they become available.

PLEASE NOTE:

  • Times and locations of courses are published in the Public Class Schedule.
  • Official Calendar Course Descriptions are available in the Undergraduate and Graduate Calendars.
  • Official Course Outlines will be distributed at the first class of the term.

Fall 2026/Winter 2027

CDNS 5003W: Photography, Memory, Archive – Winter Term

  • INSTRUCTOR: Carol Payne
  • DESCRIPTION: This seminar will address the role that photography plays in conceptualizations of memory. The class will engage with the rich body of theory drawn from Memory Studies, Photo Studies, and the critique of the archive.  As part of our exploration of photography and memory, we will also draw on work from photographic archives in the National Capital.
  • METHOD OF EVALUATION: 50% on a term-long research project (this project will be ‘scaffolded’ with smaller assignments culminating in a research paper). 50% on course work (including regular reflection papers, facilitation of discussion, class participation). Note that in all components, there will be an emphasis on critical analysis and writing
  • READINGS: Assigned reading will be available through Brightspace and ARES unless otherwise noted.
    Specific assigned reading TBA
  • CROSS-LISTED WITH: ARTH 5500W & CLMD 6105W

CDNS 5102B: Settler World-Making and Indigenous Resistance – Winter Term

  • INSTRUCTOR: Jennifer Henderson
  • DESCRIPTION: Moving between 19th and 21st century texts, this course focusses on the role of discourse and narrative in organizing settler-colonial time-space in the territory known today as Canada. We look at some of the literary genres through which a settler-colonial world has been imaginatively consolidated as well as disrupted. Primary texts will be supplemented by criticism and theory.
  • METHOD OF EVALUATION: Assignments to include weekly reading notes; seminar presentation; meeting with professor; scaffolded research essay.
  • READINGS: Students will be asked to purchase 4-5 literary texts. Other readings will be online.
  • CROSS-LISTED WITH: ENGL4806

CDNS 5201A:Critical Perspectives on Canadian Feminism: Rereading Women’s Liberation – Fall Term

  • INSTRUCTOR: Jennifer Henderson
  • DESCRIPTION: This course takes a historical materialist and intersectional approach to the Women’s Liberation movement of the 1970s. We look at archival materials and media representations from the period, as well as recent scholarship on the complex legacies of the movement and ambivalent relations to it. Our readings include movement writing and periodicals, autobiography, art installation, film, manifesto and ephemera as we work with several Canadian archives. The course focusses on the movement’s rhetorics, figures, and emotions; its practices of consciousness raising, formation of collectives and direct action; its wild imagination and something like its atmosphere. We pay attention to the uncertain and contested meanings of ‘woman’ and ‘women’; the construction of ‘lesbian feminist’ as a political identity; the attempt to produce an analysis of housework in relation to capitalist production. Throughout, we’ll be thinking about the movement’s staging both within and against colonialism, racism, heteronormativity, and binary gender. The course aims to be an inclusive, 2SLGBTQ-positive space and is for anyone interested in learning how to think about identities and politics historically. Women’s Liberation took shape in a world very different to ours–before the structural and ideological changes of neoliberalism, which is part of what we’ll work to understand as we look at a politics in its moment of messy eruption and relate to its memory as a complex inheritance.
  • METHOD OF EVALUATION: Commonplace book, media analysis, archive presentation, archives assignment or research essay.
  • READINGS: Maria Campbell, Halfbreed [1973] (McClelland & Stewart, 2019) plus online readings.
  • CROSS-LISTED WITH: ENGL5804, WGST5902

CDNS 5401A: Heritage Conservation: History, Principles, and Concepts – Fall Term

  • INSTRUCTOR: Jerzy (Jurek) Elżanowski
  • DESCRIPTION: Course topic for Fall 2026: “Heritage in Polycrisis.” Conservationists in Canada are questioning the relevance of the term “heritage.” Some want to embrace “adaptive reuse” as a new model, while others argue that the field is stuck in a colonial paradigm out of step with reality. Connected in recent years to right-wing populist groups such as the Washington-based Heritage Foundation, the term describes with decreasing precision the complex, stewardship-driven approaches that often guide contemporary heritage planning and architectural conservation. In a world overwhelmed by a network of crises—climate change, mass migration, war, the polarization of wealth, and rising authoritarianism—what role can heritage conservation play in sustaining human and more-than-human lives, practices, and places? In this course, we will critically examine the historical and philosophical roots of values-based conservation. Together, we will look for a path forward—if not for “heritage,” then at least for an ethical practice that nurtures change. For more information, please see the instructor’s website: https://carleton.ca/canadianstudies/people/jerzy-jurek-elzanowski/
  • METHOD OF EVALUATION: Evaluation is based on two main components: a shared Encyclopedia of Heritage in Polycrisis (55%) and class participation (45%). The encyclopedia contribution includes a proposal (10%), full draft (25%), and final edit/website upload (25%). Participation includes regular engagement with readings in class (30%), discussant contribution (10%), and a short final participation statement (5%). Details may change and will be provided in the final outline.
  • READINGS: Please see the last term’s (winter 2026) outline for a tentative list of readings for the fall.