Graduate Courses

The following graduate courses are offered by the Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice for the 2020-21 Winter Session. Scroll down for course descriptions.

Winter 2020-21

GRSJ 500 GRSJ 500 (3): Intersectional Issues in Social Justice and Equality Studies Term 1-2 A two-term seminar organized around the bi-weekly Wednesday Lecture Series, readings, discussions and faculty seminars. Required for first year MA and PhD students. Instructor: Dr. JP Catungal	GRSJ 501 GRSJ 501 (3): Issues in Decolonizing and Feminist Methodologies Term 2 This graduate course is designed to explore debates in, and approaches to, qualitative methodologies employed by Indigenous, anti-colonial, feminist, and queer researchers. We are centrally concerned with the politics and ethics of knowledge production and circulation on the ancestral, unceded, and stolen territory of the sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), sel̓íl̓witulh (Tsleil-Waututh), and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) nations. We interrogate debates about ‘objectivity’, standpoint epistemology, reflexivity, reciprocity, relevance, respect, and responsibility. As well, we grapple with practices of Indigenous methods and ways of knowing, as well as archival practices of research designed to historicize contemporary social phenomena. Themes include the presences and silences that pervade the settler colonial archive, the politics of memory, and the limits and possibilities of case files. We delve into in-depth interviewing, focus groups, and Participant Action Research (PAR), including photovoice. Ethical dilemmas of power differentials, voice, appropriation, collaboration, and dissemination of research feature centrally, as does the creation of transformative knowledge for anti-colonial feminist and queer social justice. Students will co-facilitate a seminar presentation, and prepare several written assignments, including an in-depth original research proposal. Required for first year MA and PhD students. Instructor: Dr. Becki Ross	GRSJ 502 GRSJ 502 (3): Issues in Gender, Sexuality and Critical Race Theories Term 1 Introduces students to key issues at the intersection of Queer, Trans, Feminist and Critical Race Theories. We will examine a variety of cultural texts (eg, fiction, film) and new models of academic and cultural engagement with a radical democratic politics. Required for first year MA and PhD students. Instructor: Dr. Denise Ferreira da Silva
GRSJ 515A GRSJ 515A (3): Critical and Creative Social Justice Studies Seminars Term 1 The potential of creative work to disrupt ingrained ideas and representations by appealing to the senses. Study and engage with academics, artists, and activists interested in how art contributes to critical and engaged social justice work. Instructor: Dr. Minelle Mahtani	CSIS 500 CSIS 500(3): Critical Studies in Sexuality - Queer(ing) Theory: Foundations, Interventions, Art Term 2 This course will offer an overview of queer theory by tracing three historical stages that have become visible from our current horizon. Part one will explore the foundational works of what has come to be called queer theory (Michelle Foucault, Susan Sontag, Judith Butler, Eve Sedgwick); part two will explore responses and innovations by queer people of color (Roderick Ferguson, José Esteban Muñoz, David Eng, Chandan Reddy); and part three will focus on recent ideas in trans* theory (Jack Halberstam, micha cárdenas), the erotics of the body (Amber Jamilla Musser, Ariane Cruz), and "crip" (queer and disability) theory (Jasbir Puar, Jina B. Kim). While exploring these works, we will also employ their frameworks to understand "queering" as a verb that characterizes artistic and community practices. Each week, queer theoretical readings will be paired with aesthetic objects, such as films (Paris is Burning), community projects (Love Intersections), performance art (Kiam Marcelo Junio), literature (Rolling the R's), non-fiction (The Argonauts), and interactive media (Butterfly Soup). This juxtaposition of theory and art is not to ask how art emerges from (or aligns with) theory, but to understand how artistic practices inform, intervene in, and sometimes refuse the insights of queer theory scholars, compelling us to imagine otherwise. Instructor: Dr. Chris Patterson	GRSJ Directed Readings GRSJ 505A (3): Directed Reading Sec 002, Term 1 Sec 003, Term 2 Undertaken with the supervision of a faculty member selected by the student, with the approval of the GRSJ Graduate Chair. For form/instructions contact e-mail the GRSJ Office or phone 604-822-9171. Restricted to students in GRSJ graduate programs. GRSJ 505B (6): Directed Reading Sec 001, Term 1-2 Undertaken with the supervision of a faculty member selected by the student, with the approval of the GRSJ Graduate Chair. For form/instructions contact e-mail the GRSJ Office or phone 604-822-9171. Restricted to students in GRSJ graduate programs.