This reading-intensive course explores historical and contemporary manifestations of anti-Muslim racism through a transnational lens, while paying special attention to scholarship from and about Canada and the United States. Issues related to gender and sexuality, race, citizenship status, Orientalism, colonialism, and military intervention cut across the readings.
In this course we will take an in-depth look at a number of topics related broadly to masculinity and the internet, including such things as the “manosphere”, incels, and representations of masculinity on social media. These topics will be examined through the lens of the sociological literature on gender and masculinities. A recurring theme relates to the questions: “Is masculinity changing?” Students will be encouraged to critically examine and evaluate these topics and the sociological literature in multiple ways.
This course offers an in-depth examination of selected topics in the sociology of inequality.
This course offers an in-depth examination of selected topics in the sociology of social institutions.
This course offers an in-depth examination of selected topics in the sociology of work.
This course offers an in-depth examination of selected topics in the sociology of gender.
This course offers an in-depth examination of selected topics in political sociology.
This course offers an in-depth examination of selected topics in Indigenous Studies.
This course offers an in-depth examination of selected topics in the sociology of culture.
This course offers an in-depth examination of selected topics in the sociology of globalization.
This course offers an in-depth examination of selected topics in the sociology of health.
This course offers an in-depth examination of selected topics in Race and Ethnicity.
Restricted to Criminology, Law and Society Specialists and Majors. Topics vary from year to year and are noted on the timetable once confirmed.
Restricted to Criminology, Law and Society Specialists and Major. Topics vary from year to year and are noted on the timetable once confirmed.
The body is an inevitable part of our existence, but it has not always played a central role in sociology. This course aims to bring the body into sociology by drawing on multiple approaches to theorizing and researching the body as a fundamental element of social interactions. We will work to connect the body to power, social problems and diverse forms of exploitation, but we also examine how the body serves as a source of pleasure, joy, and resistance. Fundamentally, we will study the processes by which bodies are shaped, and in turn, shape our social life. Body topics that may be covered include, but are not limited to, the following: health and illness, fatness, fitness and sport, diet culture, taste, aging, disability, sexuality, beauty, cosmetic surgery, and eating disorders.
This interactive course concentrates on identity theft and fraud. It provides a critical examination of definitions of, sociological explanations for, and responses to identity crime. Identity crime is examined in the broader context of privacy, national security and organized crime.
This course investigates emotional dynamics in law and justice. Topics will include public attitudes towards crime and punishment, the rights of victims in criminal proceedings, and restorative justice.
This lecture course looks at gender relations from a global perspective, focusing on how the social, political and economic aspects of globalization affect gender relations within various (local) contexts. Possible topics include gender and international migration, women's activism in local/global perspective and post-colonialism.
This course is an exploration of the societies of Asia, Africa, and Latin America through films created by directors living and working in the Global South. Each week, we’ll pair a social theory reading with a film made in the Global South to explore themes of colonialism, political economy, race, class, gender, power, and history.
This course examines the transnational, national and local historical, social and political contexts that produce, and is in turn affected by, criminal, state and other forms of violence in Latin America, and the challenges that this poses for the functioning of Latin American democracies and for the everyday life of people in the region, whose human and civil rights are frequently violated. Examples of transnational factors examined may include the legacies of the Cold War, the impact of the U.S. war on drugs, and the circulation of ideas about punishment throughout the hemisphere. We also contextualize the presence of violence into the historical and contemporary political and social realities of particular Latin American countries.
This course will apply sociological theories of inequality, health, and disability to contemporary problems associated with economic and health crises, including the COVID-19 pandemic. This course integrates both quantitative and qualitative methods across substantive themes, providing an opportunity for students to link theories to data.
This course situates disability within a social and political context. We focus on how disability serves as a basis for exclusion from social, legal, political and economic institutions as well as the ways in which actors (policymakers, activists, etc.) have sought to undermine this system of discrimination. We will investigate a variety of related themes including the “social model of disability,” policy and judicial transformations, the evolution of the disability rights movement (including the use of legal mobilization), disability identity, intersectionality, and the future of disability politics and the law.
This course presents a discussion and in-depth analysis of strands in contemporary sociological theory from the 1920s to the present day. Topics may include race and ethnicity, gender, class, post-colonial theory, queer theory, intersectionality, symbolic interactionism, new institutionalism, post-structuralism, and culture.
This seminar in Indigenous Studies focuses on the evolving relationship between Indigenous peoples and museums. It explores changes to museum policy and practice, the repatriation of Indigenous bodies, objects, and knowledges, the development of Indigenous museums, and the contributions of Indigenous artists to a new museology.
This advanced lecture course will provide students with the analytical tools necessary to engage in deep analysis of contemporary genocides and state violence.
This lecture course will ask students to engage with classic and contemporary views on power and its relation to the social bases of politics and social movements.
Three of the most fundamental cleavages in the contemporary world-economy are those between whites and people of colour, men and women, and capital and labour. This seminar course focuses on these cleavages and analyzes each through both an historical and global south perspective.
This course will examine environmental health with an emphasis on environmental justice, contested illness, and the politics of scientific knowledge production. We will study the politics of environmental health through case studies on activism in response to hazards, the tactics of corporate “product defense,” and the challenges of policy response.
This course focuses on the origins, structure and role of modern colonialisms, empires, and slavery in the constitution of global modernity. Topics covered include the major debates about the legacy and ongoing effects of the various forms and types of colonialisms, empires, and slavery for the modern world.
This is a seminar course where students engage in an independent research project supervised by a faculty member in Sociology. Students develop a research proposal, conduct independent research, analyze data and present findings. Admission by academic merit. Preference given to eligible Sociology Specialists.