DTS200H1 - Introduction to Diaspora and Transnational Studies
Fall 2025
Tuesdays, 1:00 - 3:00pm
What is the relationship between place and belonging, between territory and memory? How have the experiences of migration and dislocation challenged the modern assumption that the nation-state should be the limit of identification? What effect has the emergence of new media of communication had upon the coherence of cultural and political boundaries? All of these questions and many more form part of the subject matter of Diaspora and Transnational Studies. This introductory course ex-amines the historical and contemporary movements of peoples and the complex issues of identity and experience to which these processes give rise as well as the creative possibilities that flow from movement and being moved. The area of study is comparative and interdisciplinary, drawing from the social sciences, history, the arts and humanities. Accordingly, this course provides the background to the subject area from diverse perspectives and introduces students to a range of key debates in the field, with particular attention to questions of history, globalization, cultural production and the creative imagination.
Instructors: E. Sammons
Exclusion: DTS200Y1, DTS201H5 and DTS202H5
Breadth Requirements: Society and its Institutions (3)
DTS300H1 - Qualitative and Quantitative Reasoning
Winter 2026
Thursdays, 10:00am – 12:00pm
Focuses on research design and training in methods from history, geography, anthropology, literary and cultural studies, and other disciplines appropriate to Diaspora and Transnational Studies. Prepares students to undertake primary research required in senior seminars.
Instructor: P. Scanlan
Prerequisite: Completion of 9.0 credits
Recommended Preparation: DTS200H1/ DTS200Y1/ CJS200H1/ CJS201H1
Breadth Requirements: The Physical and Mathematical Universes (5)
DTS310H1 - Transnational Toronto
Fall 2025
Tuesdays, 12:00 – 2:00pm (TUT 2:00 - 4:00pm)
Toronto is a city that has always been configured through transnational connections and practices. It is a city defined by the scale at which its residents live their lives; a scale that is no longer (if it ever was) parochial but extends across time and space to connect people and practice across a multitude of locales. Contemporary understandings of Toronto can only be reached through adopting a transnational lens. This course will examine the processes that have produced Toronto as a transnational city over time, including the dynamics of immigration and mobility, experiences of alienation, the global extension of capitalism, and the (re)formation of communities grounded in the complex dynamics of identities produced in a space that is both ‘home’ and away’. We will also explore the specific practices, and connections that produce “Toronto” as a space that transcends its physical geographic boundaries and is continually reproduced in and through the flows of people, capital, objects, ideas, - and the many forces that reproduce and reconfigure these flows. The course is offered as a combined lecture and tutorial both of which are mandatory. While we will not use the full time each week, the tutorial provides the time to travel to and from the sites that constitute the basis of the course.
Instructor: K. MacDonald
Prerequisite: Completion of 9.0 credits
Recommended Preparation: DTS200H1/ DTS200Y1
Breadth Requirements: Society and its Institutions (3)
DTS311H1 - Fun in Diaspora
Winter 2026
Wednesdays, 10:00am - 12:00pm
From parkour to “Baby Shark” remixes, concepts and practices surrounding fun, entertainment, and pleasure transcend cultural boundaries, reveal the reach of globalization, and help facilitate the maintenance of transnational communities through shared activities. This course will examine these relationships with fun, and we will also assess cases where concepts of fun diverge and clash in intercultural contexts. Additionally, the class will consider the relationship between entertainment practices and politics, marketing, and social movements. Cases examined will include K-pop fandom, bucket challenges, social media memes, and global YouTube phenomena.
Instructor: A. Allen
Recommended Preparation: DTS200H1/ DTS200Y1
Breadth Requirements: Creative and Cultural Representations (1)
DTS314H1 - Citizenship and Multiculturalism
Winter 2026
Tuesdays, 1:00 - 3:00pm
This course examines approaches to belonging and distinction that accompany different models of citizenship. What are some historical and recent trends in the intersections of place, custom, and rights? How have governments related social diversity to social justice in theory and in practice? Areas of emphasis will vary, but may include topics such as authenticity and assimilation; ethno-nationalism; immigration and naturalization policy; indigeneity; insurgency; legacies of colonialism; mass media and popular culture; policing and surveillance; racial stratification; transnational markets; and xenophobia.
Instructor: E. Sammons
Recommended Preparation: DTS200H1/ DTS200Y1
Breadth Requirements: Society and its Institutions (3)
DTS315H1 - Marriage and Family across Nations, Diasporas, and Boundaries
Fall 2025
Thursdays, 1:00 - 3:00pm
How do migration and resettlement affect marriage and family life? This course will explore marital, familial, sexual, and other relational aspects of diaspora and migration, examining how marriage and family become tools for maintaining cultural traditions and gender hierarchies but are also areas of life where negotiation, creativity, and rebellion occur. Transnational in its scope, the course will investigate how marriage and family involve choices but also constraints imposed by communities, cultures, religions, and nation-states. A primary objective of this course will be to interrogate how marriage and family relations consist of choices and constraints that are experienced, celebrated, lamented, and resisted. The class will draw on interdisciplinary approaches and present case studies from a variety of diasporic communities in Canada and other migration contexts.
Instructor: T. Lemos
Recommended Preparation: DTS200H1/ DTS200Y1
Breadth Requirements: Society and its Institutions (3)
DTS390H1 - Independent Study
Fall 2025, Winter 2026
A scholarly project chosen by the student, approved by the Department, and supervised by one of its instructors. Consult with the Diaspora and Transnational Studies Program Office for more information. Not eligible for CR/NCR option.
Prerequisite: DTS200H1/ DTS200Y1
DTS390 Independent Study From.pdf
DTS390Y1 - Independent Study
Full Year 2025–26
A scholarly project chosen by the student, approved by the Department, and supervised by one of its instructors. Consult with the Diaspora and Transnational Studies Program Office for more information. Not eligible for CR/NCR option.
Prerequisite: DTS200H1/ DTS200Y1
DTS390 Independent Study From.pdf
DTS401H1 - Advanced Topics in DTS: Diaspora and Liberation
Fall 2025
Mondays, 2:00pm - 4:00pm
This senior seminar offers the opportunity to read some of the key texts of anti-colonial and liberation theory in the context of Diaspora Studies. The class begins with an overview of the social movements both inside and beyond the university that led to the formation of “Diaspora Studies" as a discipline. How might the loose genealogy of what we now call Diaspora Studies contribute to contemporary discussions of decolonization and anti-racism? When read in the context of our current political and historic moment, how might we (re)theorize the foundational commitments of diaspora theory? Specifically, how has the concept of diaspora been articulated in relation to diverse liberatory social and cultural commitments, particularly in the wake of histories of immigration and European colonization? This course will be reading and discussion-intensive, covering essential books emerging from anti-colonial and postcolonial theory written over the last 30 years. Students should have an existing commitment to anti-racist ethics and pedagogy in order to adequately engage with (as well as enjoy!) course material.
Instructor: S. Kassamali
Prerequisite: 14.0 credits including DTS200H1/ DTS200Y1
Breadth Requirements: Society and its Institutions (3)
DTS402H1 - Advanced Topics in DTS: Borders
Winter 2026
Tuesdays, 10:00am - 12:00pm
In the era of rapid and massive transnational flows of commodities and capital, people’s mobility is forcefully constrained by heavily securitized borders. This course focuses on borders and their adjacent cities to examine current processes constituting neoliberal capitalism. Borders index geopolitical, symbolic, and legal boundaries. They simultaneously function as sites for gendering and racializing bodies and are a stage for violent encounters. Border cities are places where different forms of Otherness coalesce. By examining borders and processes of boundary-making in the Americas, Europe, and the Middle East, this course explores the ways race, class, gender, sexuality, and nationality intersect in shaping how people live (and die) along borders. While exploring ‘dehumanization’ as a mechanism that normalizes violence against Others, we will also discuss attempts to re-imagine a world without borders.
Instructor: A. González Jiménez
Prerequisite: 14 FCE, including DTS200H1/ DTS200Y1
Breadth Requirement: Society and its Institutions (3)
DTS414H1 - Money on the Move
Fall 2025
Thursdays, 10:00am - 12:00pm
In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, industry and finance matured together, pushing people into motion around the world. The instruments of long-distance trade, like insurance, credit and debt, connected cities and continents in new and sometimes unsettling ways. The free movement of goods and cash was mirrored by restrictions on migration to some parts of the world and by forced or coerced migration to others. This course explores the history of the rise of global capitalism at a human scale, exploring how financialization, industrialization and imperialism overlapped and intertwined, and how the remaking of the world in the image of capital weighed on human lives.
Instructor: P. Scanlan
Prerequisite: 14 FCE, including DTS200H1/ DTS200Y1
Breadth Requirement: Society and its Institutions (3)
DTS418H1 - Violence and Memory: Transnational Approaches
Winter 2026
Wednesdays, 1:00 - 3:00pm
Nation-states not only perpetrate mass violence regularly but also pivotally shape how that violence is remembered and memorialized. In doing this, they shape how communities heal or do not heal from violence. Memorializing violence is also tied to how states both make violence endemic and draw upon violence that may already be endemic within particular social contexts. This class will examine these phenomena in transnational and transhistorical perspective, focusing on case studies spanning different historical eras and various continents. These comparisons will reveal differences and linkages between the formation, utilization, and weaponization of memory in widely divergent contexts.
Instructor: T. Lemos
Prerequisite: 14 FCE, including DTS200H1/ DTS200Y1
Breadth Requirement: Society and its Institutions (3)
DTS419H1 - History and Counterstories in the Black Mediterranean
Fall 2025
Tuesdays, 2:00 - 4:00pm
This course explores colonial histories and counter- stories of resistance in the Black Mediterranean. Intended not only as a physical space but also as a symbolic site, the Black Mediterranean can be seen as a new theoretical approach useful to understand the racialized production of bodies and borders, and to highlight forms of resistance. The course will focus on Italy and its (post)colonial ties with Libya, Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia. Going from the Italian invasion of Eritrea in 1890 to the current so-called “refugee crisis”; the case of Italy illustrates the intersections and resignification of race, bodies and borders in the Mediterranean region, as well as the presence of important histories of resistance and alternative conceptualisations of belonging.
Instructor: A. Pesarini
Prerequisite: 14 FCE, including DTS200H1/ DTS200Y1
Breadth Requirement: Society and its Institutions (3)
Regarding Diaspora and Transnational Studies Courses
University of Toronto Mississauga courses that can be applied to the program
Please visit the UTM Diaspora & Transnational Studies page.