Fall 2024
DTS1000HF - Comparative Research Methods in DTS
Thursdays, 3:00pm-5:00pm
K. MacDonald
This seminar will introduce students to a range of theories to do with diaspora and transnationalism from the humanities and the social sciences. Core questions will include the methodological differences between diaspora and its many synonyms, such as migrant communities, exile, refugee, etc. The different emphases and overlaps between Migration Studies, Urban Studies, and Diaspora and Transnational Studies will also be pursued.
Winter 2025
DTS2001HS - Grad Topics in DTS: (Post)Colonial Intimacies
Wednesdays, 4:00pm-6:00pm
A. Pesarini
This course aims to explore the (post)colonial discourse on race, gender and intimacy by using and expanding on the idea of the Archive. The course material will focus on a selected number of authors who have been pivotal in this field, and we’ll explore how their theorizations help us to engage with the Archive considered both as a metaphysical location of power and a reservoir of counter-stories. In the course students will be invited to read archival colonial sources “against the grain” while focusing on the gaps, the silences, and the unwritten. In this regard, oral histories and personal narratives will be a central component of the course as these will be used to unveil hidden dynamics of power embedded within ideas of knowledge rooted in colonial paradigms. Students will also conduct visits to Toronto archives and conduct decolonial reflexive walks.
DTS2002HS - Grad Topics in DTS: Rethinking Diaspora: Cultures, Futures, Homes
Mondays, 2:00pm - 4:00pm
S. Kassamali
This graduate-level class offers an advanced introduction to the interdisciplinary field known as Diaspora Studies. The class is split into two halves: the first half offers a foundational overview of the field, situating the emergence of Diaspora Studies in relation to a series of intellectual and political movements that reshaped the academy in North America and the UK during the 1980s onwards. Themes covered include colonization and postcolonial immigration, culture and identity, and exile and embodiment. The second half of the class considers the meaning of "diaspora" in the 21st century. What has happened to earlier divisions between place of origin and place of arrival in the context of ever-faster media technologies, shifts in national demographics due to increased migration and displacement, and new political calls to reckon with diversity and representation? Sitting in Toronto, how can we think together about the collapsing of space and time, nation and difference, arrival and departure, origin and identity? This part of the class seeks to build conceptual vocabularies to rethink "diaspora" beyond an earlier paradigm focused on hyphenated identity, multiculturalism, and intergenerational conflict. We will engage as many genres of cultural production as is possible in a short semester - alongside academic writing, we will read novels and essays, watch films, listen to podcasts, and more. Students will be expected to approach all genres with the same generosity and rigour they would bring to academic texts. Some prior familiarity with "diaspora" and "transnationalism" as both analytic and experiential categories is required.
If you are a graduate student outside the DTS program and would like to take one of these courses, please fill out the form below and send it to cdts@utoronto.ca.
