2020-21 Calendar
IMPORTANT NOTICE: The following DTS program requirements apply only to those students who enrolled in the program in or after September 2014. Students who enrolled before that date should fulfill the requirements listed in the A&S Calendar of the year in which they enrolled.
Diaspora & Transnational Studies Major
Completion Requirements:
(7 full courses or their equivalent, including at least two 300+ series courses)
Diaspora & Transnational Studies Minor
Completion Requirements:
(4 full courses or their equivalent, including at least one 300+ series course)
DTS course descriptions offered in 2020-21
DTS200Y1 Introduction to Diaspora and Transnational Studies I [48L]
Tuesdays 10am-12pm
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 examines 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: Prof. Kevin O’Neill, Prof. Sumayya Kassamali, and Prof. Ted Sammons
Exclusion: DTS201H1, DTS202H1
Distribution Requirement Status: Humanities, Social Science course
Breadth Requirement: Creative and Cultural Representations (1) + Society and its Institutions (3)
DTS300H1 Qualitative and Quantitative Reasoning [24L]
Winter 2021, Tuesdays 1-3pm
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: Prof. Kevin O’Neill
Prerequisite: DTS200Y1 or CJS200H1 or CJS201H1 or permission of course instructor
Distribution Requirement Status: Humanities, Social Science
Breadth Requirement: The Physical and Mathematical Universes (5)
DTS305H1 Topics in DTS: Diasporic Festivals [24L]
Fall 2020, Tuesdays 3-5pm
Celebrations, festivals, and parties serve many functions in diasporic communities. In this course, we will examine festivals as transnational phenomena that connect diasporic communities with their homelands, and with their cultural, racial, ethnic, and/or religious communities, among other groups of belonging. Our main objectives will be to: understand the role of celebration as well as “fun” in the context of community building for diasporic communities; discuss theoretical approaches in the analysis of festivals; and assess examples of the festival experiences of diasporic communities.
Instructor: Prof. Andrea S. Allen
Prerequisite: DTS200Y1 or permission of course instructor
Distribution Requirement: Humanities, Social Science
Breadth Requirement: Society and its Institutions (3)
DTS310H1 Transnational Toronto [24L]
Fall 2020, Mondays 2-4pm
Toronto is a city increasingly 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.
Instructor: Prof. Ken MacDonald
Prerequisite: DTS200Y1 or permission of course instructor
Distribution Requirement: Humanities, Social Science
Breadth Requirement: Society and its Institutions (3)
DTS390H1 Independent Study [TBA]
Fall 2020, Winter 2021
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: DTS200Y1
Distribution Requirement Status: Humanities, Social Science
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DTS390Y1 Independent Study [TBA]
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: DTS200Y1
Distribution Requirement Status: Humanities, Social Science
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DTS401H1 Advanced Topics in DTS: Symbols, Statues and Black Social Protest [24S]
Winter 2021, Tuesdays 10am-12pm
This course explores the symbols and meanings of black cultural life, from protest movements to LGBTQ parades to treaty withdrawals. The goal is to explore the way that meanings circulate and are taken up by various constituencies. From examples of African states and their threats of treaty withdrawal, to black nationalist and black power fist pump imagery, to black queer imagery and South African Student monument movements such as Rhodes Must Fall, to Caribbean dance hall, the course focuses on the spheres of portrayed symbols, people’s engagement with and contestations of them, as well as the affective and mediated expressions related to them. We will examine the challenges of symbols as they relate to particular black social movements and will consider the histories of symbols, the politics of monuments and the processes by which such black protest movements have claimed various political, aesthetic, legal tools to communicate new meanings. We will end the course by asking who gets to determine which symbols should occupy public space and through which means and considerations should that happen.
Instructor: Prof. Kamari Clarke
Prerequisite: 14 FCE, including DTS200Y1
Distribution Requirement Status: Humanities, Social Science
Breadth Requirement: Society and its Institutions (3)
DTS410H1 Diasporic Foodways [24S]
Winter 2021, Wednesdays 5-7pm
Food links people across space and time. As it spirals outward from parochial sites of origin to articulate with new sites, actors and scales, it assumes new substance and meaning in new locales. This movement of food gives rise to new ‘foodways’ t help us to understand the past in terms of temporally connected sites of intense interaction. Food also plays a strong role in shaping translocal identities. As peoples have moved in the world, food has played a central role in (re)defining who they are, reproducing myth and ritual, and bounding diasporic communities. This course seeks to address questions surrounding the dynamics of the food ‘we’ eat, the ways in which ‘we’ eat, the meaning ‘we’ give to eating, and the effect of eating in a transnational world. Recognizing that culinary culture is central to diasporic identifications, the focus is on the place of food in the enduring habits, rituals, and everyday practices that are collectively used to produce and sustain a shared sense of diasporic cultural identity.
Instructor: Prof. Ken MacDonald
Prerequisite: 14 FCE, including DTS200Y1
Distribution Requirement Status: Humanities, Social Science
Breadth Requirement: Society and its Institutions (3)
DTS411H1 Transnational Justice [24S]
Fall 2020, Tuesdays 10am-12pm
This course explores the intersection between local conceptions of justice and their transnational and institutional circulations. It interrogates competing meanings of justice and examines the varied practices of actors engaged in justice making domains. From international human rights, to transitional justice and truth and reconciliation, to international legal and traditional justice formulations, the course offers students an opportunity to learn about and critically reflect on the processes and purposes through which justice conceptions are structured, implemented and being contested in the contemporary period. Topics include: theories of transnationalism, transnational justice, social injustice, law and culture, universalism, racism and social inequality.
Instructor: Prof. Kamari Clarke
Prerequisite: 14 FCE, including DTS200Y1
Distribution Requirement Status: Humanities, Social Science
Breadth Requirement: Society and its Institutions (3)
DTS412H1 The Diasporic Imagination [24S]
Winter 2021, Wednesdays 2-4pm
This course focuses on echoes of diasporic and transnational life in artistic work, and on the significance of aesthetic production to the formation of diasporic and transnational worlds. How have practices, producers, and works of art illuminated the particularities of diasporic life? How do conventions of genre, performance, and tradition shape experiences of borders and crossings? Areas of emphasis will vary but may spotlight particular historical and geographic contexts, and may foreground one or more form, including film, poetry, fiction, music, and dance.
Instructor: Prof. Ted Sammons
Prerequisite: 14 FCE, including DTS200Y1
Distribution Requirement Status: Humanities, Social Science
Breadth Requirement: Creative and Cultural Representations (1)
DTS413H1 Global Sexualities [24S]
Fall 2020, Mondays 11am-1pm
Sexuality is a complex interplay of desires, attractions, interests, and modes of behavior and has diverse meanings in different societies and cultures. In this course, we will examine the notion of sexuality as well as gender identity and expression from an interdisciplinary perspective that is rooted in ethnography. A cross-cultural study of sexuality and gender identity within global and transnational contexts will provide students with an understanding of how the intersections of culture, community, as well as social and political factors affect individuals’ sexual choices and understandings of gender. A particular focus in this course will be experiences of sexuality and gender within diasporic communities.
Instructor: Prof. Andrea S. Allen
Prerequisite: 14 FCE, including DTS200Y1 or SDS380H1
Distribution Requirement Status: Humanities, Social Science
Breadth Requirement: Society and its Institutions (3)
DTS414H1 Money on the Move [24S]
Winter 2021, Thursdays 10am-12pm
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: Prof. Padraic Scanlan
Prerequisite: 14 FCE, including DTS200Y1
Distribution Requirement Status: Humanities, Social Science
Breadth Requirement: Society and its Institutions (3)
DTS416H1 Wars, Diaspora and Music [24S]
Fall 2020, Wednesdays 2-4pm
The course explores how composers, performers, songwriters and audiences made sense of traumatic and violent events that they experienced, such as ethnic conflicts, wars, exile and displacement, through music. We will also look at how government ideologies employ music during wars. The case studies will include stories of Jewish, Palestinian, Afghan, Romani, Korean, Rwandan and other diasporas severely affected by wars and violence.
Instructor: Prof. Anna Shternshis
Prerequisite: 14 FCE, including DTS200Y1
Distribution Requirement Status: Humanities, Social Science
Breadth Requirement: Society and its Institutions (3)
Cross-listed Courses
Group A (Humanities) Courses
Students are responsible for checking the co- and prerequisites for all courses in Groups A and B. Note: Course = One full course or the equivalent in half courses.
Centre for Jewish Studies
CJS200H1 Introduction to Jewish Thought
CJS201H1 Introduction to Jewish Culture
CJS220H1 The Holocaust in Fiction
CJS230H1 God, Nation, and Self Transformed: The Secularization of the Jewish Experience
CJS389H1 Jewish Secularism and Messianic Thought: From Spinoza to Derrida
CJS401H1 Community & Identity
East-Asian Studies
EAS105H1 Modern East-Asian History
EAS247H1 History of Capitalism in Modern Japan
EAS251H1 Aesthetics and Politics in 20th Century Korea
EAS271H1 20th Century Korean History
EAS289Y1 Environment and East Asia
EAS314H1 Culture and World After Hiroshuima and Nagasaki
EAS315H1 The “Yellow Peril”: Past & Present
EAS333H1 Modernism and Colonial Korea
EAS374H1 Modern Japan and Colonialism
EAS420H1 Travels, Travelers and Travel Accounts in Asia
EAS439H1 The Global Bildungsroman: Narratives of Development, Time and Colonialism
EAS474H1 U.S. & Canada’s Wars in Asia
English
ENG270H1 Colonial and Postcolonial Writing
ENG285H1 The English Language in the World
ENG355Y1 Transnational Indigenous Literatures
ENG366H1 Caribbean Literature
ENG367H1 African Literatures in English
ENG368H1 Asian North American Literature
ENG369H1 South Asian Literatures in English
ENG370Y1 Postcolonial and Transnational Discourses
Finnish
FIN320H1 The Finnish Canadian Immigrant Experience
French
FRE438H1 Advanced Topics in Francophone Literatures
FRE332H1 Francophone Literatures
FRE334H1 Francophone Cinema
FRE336H1 Postcolonialism: Francophone Literatures
German
GER361H1 Yiddish Literature and Culture in Translation
GER367H1 Topics in Yiddish or German Jewish Literature and Culture
History
HIS106Y1 Natives, Settlers and Slaves: Colonizing the Americas
HIS202H1 Gender, Race and Science
HIS208Y1 History of the Jewish People
HIS282Y1 History of South Asia
HIS283Y1 Southeast Asian Crossroads
HIS291H1 Latin America: The Colonial Period
HIS295Y1 African History and Historical Methodology
HIS303H1 The Mediterranean, 600-1300: Crusade, Colonialism, Diaspora
HIS312H1 Immigration to Canada
HIS330H1 Germany from Frederick the Great to the First World War
HIS336H1 Medieval Spain
HIS338H1 The Holocaust, to 1942
HIS346H1 Rice and Spice in Southeast Asia: A Regional Food History
HIS359H1 Regional Politics and Radical Movements in the 20th Century Caribbean
HIS360H1 African-Canadian History, 1606-Present
HIS361H1 The Holocaust, from 1942
HIS366H1 Aboriginal Peoples of the Great Lakes from 1830 tot he Present
HIS369H1 Aboriginal Peoples of the Great Lakes from 1500 to 1830
HIS382H1 China from the Mongols to the Last Emperor
HIS384H1 The Baltic Sea Region from the Vikings to the Age of Nationalisms
JHA384H1 Japan in the World, mid-16th to mid-20th Century
HIS385H1 The History of Hong Kong
HIS391Y1 Black Freedom in the Atlantic World
HIS392Y1 Screening Freedom
HIS402H1 Canada and Decolonization
HIS403H1 Jews and Christians in Medieval and Renaissance Europe
HIS413H1 Slave Emancipation in the Atlantic World
HIS415Y1 Nationalism and Memory in Modern Europe
HIS429H1 Canada and Empire in the Twentieth Century
HIS433H1 Polish Jews Since the Partition of Poland
HIS439H1 Russia’s Empire
HIS444H1 Topics in Jewish History
HIS445H1 Nationalism
HIS446H1 Gender and Slavery in the Atlantic World
HIS467H1 French Colonial Indochina: History, Cultures, Texts, Film
HIS472H1 Indigenous-Newcomer Relations in Canadian History
HIS474H1 Emancipate from Mental Slavery? Historical Narratives of Caribbean Decolonization
HIS480H1 Modernity and its Others: History and Postcolonial Critique
HIS494H1 Gandhi’s Global Conversations
Italian Studies
ITA233H1 Italian-Canadian Literature
ITA345H1 Cinema of the Italian Diasporas
Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations
NMC252H1 Hebrew Bible
NMC351H1 Dead Sea Scrolls
NMC274H1 Steppe Frontier in Islamic History
NMC275H1 The Mongol Empire and the World It Made
NMC284H1 Judaism And Feminism
NMC370Y1 Ancient Israel
NMC384H1 Life Cycle and Personal Status in Judeism
NMC473H1 Intellectuals of the Modern Arab World
NMC475H1 Orientalism and Occidentalism
New College – African Studies
NEW250Y1 Africa in the 21st Century: Challenges and Opportunities
NEW351Y1 African Systems of Thought
JQR360H1 The Canadian Census: Populations, Migrations and Demographics
New College – Caribbean Studies
NEW324H1 The Contemporary Caribbean in a Global Context
NEW325H1 Caribbean Women Thinkers
NEW328H1 Caribbean Indentureship and its Legacies
NEW429H1 Caribbean Diaspora in Canada
New College – Equity Studies
NEW341H1 Theorizing Settler Colonialism, Capitalism and Race
NEW428H1 Caribbean Migrations and Diasporas
NEW449H1 Contemporary Theories in Critical Disability Studies
Religion
RLG202H1 The Jewish Religious Tradition
RLG280Y1 World Religions: A Comparative Study
RLG319H1 Reconception of Biblical Figures in Early Jewish and Christian Sources
RLG326H1 Judaism and the Roots of Christianity
RLG341H1 Dreaming of Zion: Exile and Return in Jewish Thought
RLG345H1 Social Ecology and Judaism
RLG346H1 Time and Place in Judaism
RLG434H1 Modern Jewish Thought
RLG453H1 Christianity and Judaism in Colonial Context
Slavic Languages and Literature
SLA202H1 Jewish Communities in Slavic Countries
SLA222H1 Forging Identities: The Roms of Central and Eastern Europe
SLA238H1 Literature of the Ukrainian-Canadian Experience
SLA302H1 The Imaginary Jew
SLA303H1 Literary Imagination and Jewish Identity in Modern Europe
SLA312H1 Nabokov
SLA318H1 City of Saints and Sinners: Kyiv through the Centuries
SLA357H1 Literature of Exile and Immigration
SLA380H1 Language, Politics and Identity
South Asian Studies
SAS114H1 Introduction to South Asian Studies
SAS318H1 Colonialism and Tradition
St. Michael’s College
SMC413H1 The Irish in Canada
SMC416H1 Irish Nationalism in Canada
Spanish
SPA258H1 Introduction to Hispanic Literary Studies
SPA259H1 Introduction to Hispanic Cultural Studies
SPA375H1 Latin American Cinema
SPA385H1 Literature and Social Change in Spanish America
SPA467H1 Topics in Spanish-American Culture
SPA480H1 Icons and Iconography in Latin American Culture
SPA488H1 Central America Postwar Narrative
University College – Canadian Studies
UNI101H1 Citizenship in the Canadian City
UNI103H1 Gradients of Health in an Urban Mosaic
Victoria College
VIC350Y1 Creative Writing: A Multicultural Approach
Women and Gender Studies
WGS369H1 Studies in Post-Colonialism
WGS420H1 Asian/North American Feminist Issues
WGS426H1 Gender and Globalization: Transnational Perspectives
Group B (Social Sciences) courses
Anthropology
ANT204H1 Anthropology of the Contemporary World
ANT318H1 The Preindustrial City and Urban Social Theory
ANT324H1 Tourism & Globalization
ANT340H1 Anthropology of Latin America
ANT341H1 China in Transition
ANT345H1 Global Health: Anthropological Perspectives
ANT346H1 Anthropology of Food
ANT347Y1 Metropolis: Global Cities
ANT348H1 Anthropology of Health
ANT349H1 Anthropology and New Technologies
ANT356H1 Anthropology of Religion
ANT358H1 Medical Anthropology and Social Justice
ANT364H1 Environment & Globalization (formerly ANT364Y1)
ANT366H1 Anthropology of Social Movements: Theory and Method
ANT370H1 Introduction to Social Anthropological Theory
ANT372H1 Cultural Property
ANT426H1 Western Views of the Non-West
ANT440H1 Society in Transition
ANT450H1 Nature, Culture and the City
ANT456H1 Queer Ethnography
ANT458H1 Settler-Colonialism and Indigenous Health in Canada
ANT460H1 Global Perspectives on Womens Health
ANT472H1 Japan in Global Context: Anthropological Perspectives (formerly ANT354Y1 and ANT354H1)
ANT475H1 Reading Ethnography: Contemporary Ethnographies
ANT477H1 Transnational Korea in and outside the Peninsula (formerly ANT377H1)
Geography
GGR112H1 Geographies of Globalization, Development and Inequality
JGI216H1 Globalization & Urban Change
GGR241H1 Historical Geographies of Urban Exclusion and Segregation
GGR246H1 Geography of Canada
GGR320H1 Geographies of Transnationalism, Migration, and Gender
JGE321H1 Multicultural perspectives on Environmental Management
GGR326H1 Remaking the Global Economy
GGR336H1 Urban Historical Geography of North America
GGR339H1 Urban Geography, Planning and Political Processes
GGR341H1 Changing Geography of Latin America
GGR342H1 The Changing Geography of Southeast Asia
GGR343H1 The Changing Geography of China
JGI346H1 The Urban Planning Process
GGR360H1 Culture, History, and Landscape
GGR363H1 Critical Geographies: An Introduction to Radical Ideas on Space, Society and Culture
GGR430H1 Geographies of Markets
GGR452H1 Space, Power, Geography: Understanding Spatiality
GGR457H1 The Post-War Suburbs
NUS251H0 Southeast Asia
NUS252H0 Rice, Spice & Trees: Peasants in Southeast Asia
NUS253H0 Economy and Space
NUS254H0 Geographies of Social Life
NUS255H0 Cities and Urgan Life in Southeast Asia
NUS256H0 Changing Landscape of Singapore
NUS351Y0 Field Studies in Geography: SE Asia
NUS352H0 East Asia
NUS353H0 Globalization and Asian Cities
Innis College – Urban Studies
JGI216H1 Globalization and Urban Change
New College – Equity Studies
NEW342H1 Theory and Praxis in Food Security
New College – Caribbean Studies
JLN327H1 Regional Perspectives on the Hispanic Caribbean
Political Science
POL201H1 Politics of Development: Issues and Controversies
POL224Y1 Canada in Comparative Perspective
POL301Y1 Government and Politics in Africa
POL305Y1 Politics and Society in Latin America
POL321Y1 Ethnic Politics in Comparative Perspective
POL324H1 European Union: Politics, Institutions and Society
JPR364Y1 Religion and Politics
JPR374H1 Religion and Power in the Postcolony
POL409H1 Political Economy of Technology: From the Auto-Industrial to the Information Age
POL413H1 Global Environmental Politics
POL417Y1 Global South in International Politics
JPR419H1 Secularism and Religion
POL421H1 Maimonides and His Modern Interpreters
POL430Y1 Comparative Studies in Jewish and non-Jewish Political Thought
POL442H1 Topics in Latin American Politics
JPF455Y1 Cities
POL467H1 The Politics of Immigration and Multiculturalism in Canada
POL480H1 Studies in Comparative Political Theory
Sociology
SOC210H1 Sociology of Race and Ethnicity
SOC214H1 Sociology of the Family
SOC218H1 Asian Communities in Canada
SOC220H1 Social Stratification
SOC246H1 Sociology of Aging
SOC250Y1 Sociology of Religion
SOC256H1 Lives and Societies
SOC304H1 Status and Class Mobility
SOC315H1 Domestic Violence
SOC336H1 Transnational Asia
SOC364H1 Urban Health
SOC367H1 Race, Class, and Gender
SOC381Y1 Culture and Social Structure
SOC383H1 The Sociology of Women and International Migration
SOC388H1 Sociology of Everyday Life
SOC465H1 Advanced Studies in Gender
SOC479H1 Advanced Studies in Social Movements
SOC481H1 Culture and Social Networks
SOC484H1 Sociology of Immigrant Offspring
University College – Canadian Studies
UNI101H1 Citizenship in the Canadian City
UNI103H1 Gradients of Health in an Urban Mosaic
Victoria College
VIC183H1 Individuals and the Public Sphere: Shaping Memory
VIC184H1 Individuals and the Public Sphere: History, Historiography and Making Cultural Memory
VIC304H1 Praxis and Performance
Women and Gender Studies
WGS450H1 Black Diasporic Feminisms: Modernity, Freedom, Citizenship
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.
