Course Descriptions
The Archaeology of Migration: Modelling Movement and Displacement in Human History
Instructor:Megan Daniels
This course will introduce students to the study of migration and mobility in the archaeological record from a holistic perspective. Following an introduction concerning the place of migration and mobility in archaeological thought, it will then take two parts: the first will consist of investigations, through readings, discussions, and guest lectures, into various methodological approaches to studying human movements in the archaeological record, from genetics, to skeletal biochemistry, to artifacts. The second half will consist of case studies from the Mediterranean, western Asian, and European worlds, from the Neolithic period to Late Antiquity, which students will evaluate through the problems and methods introduced in the first half.
Ethnography of the Himalayas: Diversity and Development
Instructor: Sara Shneiderman
This course focuses on ethnographic engagement with lives of people in and from the Himalayan region: including parts of Bhutan, China, India, Nepal, Pakistan; Tibetan cultural zones traversing these countries; and diasporas.
Migration, Empire, and Social Movements
Instructor: Helena Zeweri
This graduate seminar will explore the connections between empire, displaced peoples, and political consciousness. Rather than view empire as a territorially fixed project, we will treat it as a geographically dispersed formation whose impact endures in the everyday lives, relationships, and identities of displaced peoples. Through ethnography, film, and visual art, we will explore how migrants encounter empire—how they get pulled into its grip, how they participate in it, resist it, and refuse it. Content will cover a range of contexts, including the Caribbean, the Indian Ocean region, Oceania, North America, and South West Asia.
Canada, Japan and the Pacific
Instructor: Ayaka Yoshimizu
This course offers students a mix of research expertise with faculty and graduate students from a range of Arts disciplines to critically approach the entangled relationships between Canada, Japan, and the pacific world. The first half of the course examines multiple cases of transnational migration and discusses how the experiences of migration are shaped by colonialism, race, gender, and sexuality in North America and Asia, and how migrants themselves have navigated their lives away from homeland. In the second half of the course, we learn about various environmental issues and how they intersect with colonialism and racism. We also study some examples of grassroots, transnational solidarity and alliance-building that promote environmental justice.
Contemporary Research in Critical Refugee Education
Instructor: Sofia Noori
This course will introduce students to the field of critical refugee studies and its connections to education. We will delve into critical analyses of how war, colonization, militarism, and humanitarianism manifest through the lens of refugee epistemologies. Witness firsthand how refugee narratives illuminate the constraints of nation-states, their institutions, and their engagement with human rights discourse. Focus will be placed on the diverse experiences of Vietnamese, Syrian, Somalian, Iranian, Palestinian, Ukrainian, and Afghan refugees, exploring how they navigate their status and narratives through cultural expression. Additionally, students will learn about innovative research methodologies shaping the emerging landscape of critical refugee education.
Prose Fiction: Narratives of Displacement
Instructor: John Culbert
This course focuses on principles, methods, and resources for reading the novel and the short story.
Geographies of Migration and Settlement
Instructor: Antje Ellermann
This course focuses on international regimes regulating migration, changes in global demographics, immigration policies of nation states, international migration patterns, settlement policies and outcomes.
Climate Change, Migration and Health
Instructor: Jemima Baada
The ongoing climate crisis will affect every facet of planetary life, and human population migration will be one of the major responses to some of the negative effects brought on by climate change. Climate change, migration and health are interdependent processes, and human health cannot be understood outside of planetary health. This course examines global and public health issues as influenced by climate change and im/mobilities, and vice versa.
Displacement, Exile, Flight and Migration
Instructor:Markus Hallensleben
This course aims to introduce to the current themes and historical settings of displacement, exile, flight and migration from a decolonial point of view. We will critically discuss topics such as diasporic and national belonging, asylum and integration politics, multiculturality and European cultural identity. We will not only look at the representation of refugees in literary texts, but also in mass media. All readings are in translation and focus on contemporary transnational German-language literature affected by migration. While the beginning of the course covers Jewish and political exile during National Socialism, the other parts deal with Germany as an immigration country since the fall of the wall in 1989, including its “Welcome Culture” as response to the global “refugee crisis” in 2015.
Selected Issues in German Culture : Narratives of Belonging
Instructor: Jemima Baada
This course focuses on narratives of belonging from a transdisciplinary cultural studies perspective. How do people relate to place? Does the question “Where are you from?” assume a linear narrative and sedentarist perspective of exclusion? How do we narratively create and perform belonging, cultural spaces, phenomenological borders, national and ethnic identities? With an emphasis on contemporary postmigrant narratives from German-language literature that have become central to Germany as a plural society, as well as to European social studies, we will investigate counter-narratives to Eurocentric, ethnically and nationally centred visions of identity and belonging. The course follows a hybrid structure of online instruction: All assignments for the online home study parts and all lecture notes (ppt) of the in-person lessons on Tuesday will be posted on Canvas.
Migration in the Americas
Instructor : Benjamin Bryce
This seminar explores several themes in the history of migration in and to the Americas. It focuses on methods, archival research, and historiographic debates. Our readings, discussions, and projects aim to teach students about the people who migrate and the responses of government officials, workers, politicians, and other migrant groups to new arrivals. Topics of the readings include diplomacy, government policies, gender, the construction of racial categories, and nationalism. The readings introduce a variety of methodological approaches used in social history and offer examples of transnational and global history. The assignments seek to strengthen students’ research skills using primary and secondary sources and give practical skills to develop public-facing research.
Immigration Law
Instructor: Asha Kaushal
This course focuses on admission of immigrants into Canada; refugee protection; practice and procedure before immigration tribunals and the courts.
Migration and Citizenship
Instructor: Antje Ellermann
Human mobility has become one of the most contested issues in contemporary politics. This seminar surveys key debates in the study of migration and citizenship in political science and cognate disciplines. We comparatively examine in historical and cross–national perspective the ways in which states and societies (particularly in the Global North) have responded to and have become transformed by immigration. The course covers a wide range of topics: theories of international migration, disciplinary approaches to migration studies, immigration and settler colonialism, the ethics of borders, state control of borders and mobility, public opinion on immigration, voting behaviour and populist radical right parties, the making of immigration policy, national identity and citizenship, and immigrant inclusion and belonging.
Global Population Dynamics
Instructor: Guy Stecklov
The course introduces some of the most important population changes that have occurred over many centuries, including the demographic transition, fertility declines and mortality crises, migration and urbanization, population ageing, and much more. Our focus will be very broad in geographic and historic terms but will also pay attention to Canada in past and present. We will spend considerable time on how to think about the future trajectory of populations. Students will learn to apply demographic measures to critically analyze changes in population size and composition and examine implications of population growth and composition on key social and policy questions.
Sociology of Migration
Instructor: Amanda Cheong
This course introduces students to major sociological theories and empirical debates within migration studies. We begin with an overview of major theoretical debates for understanding migration and displacement, followed by theories of the state. We then consider concepts and frameworks for understanding immigrant incorporation across various domains, including culture, the political sphere, and the labour market. The third part of the course investigates legal mechanisms of exclusion, namely citizenship and legal status. Theoretical discussions will be grounded in empirical examples both within and beyond the North American context.