Course Database

An interdisciplinary and intersectional approach to the study of disability and sexuality. Students will engage with historical, mainstream and critical discourses and explore complex issues and representations pertaining to disability, sexuality, sexual practices and desire. Draws from a range of writings and cultural texts in queer, crip and sexuality studies.

Prerequisite(s): SDS255H1/SDS256H1 (UNI255H1/UNI256H1) or NEW240Y1/CSE240H1/CSE241Y1
Exclusion: SDS455H1: Special Topics in Sexual Diversity: Sexuality & Disability (2015).

This is an interdisciplinary course examining the development of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer (LGBTQ) movement and its interaction with the state in the US and Canada. (Given by the Department of Political Science and the Sexual Diversity Studies Program)

Prerequisite(s): SDS255H1/ SDS256H1/ UNI255H1/ UNI256H1/ one full course on the politics of 20th century Europe, U.S., or Canada/one full course on gender or sexuality/permission of the instructor.
Exclusion: JPU315H1

This course explores Indigenous feminist and queer political thought. It surveys comparative political theories developed by scholars in the fields of Indigenous, gender, and feminist studies. Charting key developments in the field, the course investigates unique and innovative ideas about affect, decolonization, erotics, utopia, and much more.

Prerequisite(s): 1.0 credit in POL/ JPA/ JPF/ JPI/ JPR/ JPS/ JRA/ SDS, OR 0.5 in POL/ JPA/ JPF/ JPI/ JPR/ JPS/ JRA and 0.5 in SDS.

What role have sex and sexuality played in the formation of the modern nation state? How has the state regulated sex? This course explores these questions with a theoretical focus on biopolitics. We will proceed in two parts. First, we engage Foucault’s History of Sexuality and its reception by postcolonial theorists, focusing on questions of state building. The second part of the course shifts examination from state formation to contemporary forms of sexual regulation by the state. This includes maintenance of the public/private divide, citizenship law and nationalism, administrative violence and the prison industrial complex, and neoliberalism and BDSM. By the end of the course, students are able to apply core theoretical concepts and identify forms of contemporary sexual regulation in a variety of Western and non-Western contexts. (Given by the Department of Political Science and the Mark S Bonham Centre for Sexual Diversity Studies).

Prerequisite(s): A combined minimum of 1.0 credit from POL and/or SDS courses
Exclusion: POL378H1 (Topics in Comparative Politics II: Sex and the State), offered in Fall 2017 and Fall 2018; SDS375H1 (Special Topics in Sexual Diversity Studies A: Sex and the State), offered in Fall 2017 and Fall 2018.

This course will introduce students to key terms, theories, and debates in Queer and Religious Studies and to the history of queer identities as they are expressed within various religious traditions, texts, and communities. It asks how dominant heteronormative discourses on gender and sexuality are adhered to, legitimized, negotiated, and contested within various religious traditions. The course will also allow students to interrogate how power and power relationships are shaped by sex, gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, class, age, and ability in the world of religion.

Prerequisite(s): 4.0 FCE

A critical examination of the HIV/AIDS global pandemic from a multidisciplinary perspective and with an emphasis on sexuality. The course examines the basic biology of HIV/AIDS and then covers social, historical, political, cultural, gender, and public health aspects of HIV/AIDS. Attention is given to the distinct features of vulnerable and marginalized populations, prevention, treatment, drug development, and access to medicines.

This course focuses on Canadian literary and artistic productions that challenge prevailing notions of nationality and sexuality, exploring not only how artists struggle with that ongoing Canadian thematic of being and belonging, but also how they celebrate pleasure and desire as a way of imagining and articulating an alternative national politics.

Prerequisite(s): SDS255H1/ SDS256H1/ CDN267H1 (formerly UNI267H1)/ CDN268H1 (formerly UNI268H1).

This First-Year Foundations seminar will explore sexuality at the intersections of race, gender, class, disability, citizenship status, and geography, among other social relations and processes as a foundational practice in Sexual Diversity Studies. In an intimate seminar setting, students will develop reading, writing, and presentation skills necessary for engaging in Sexual Diversity Studies across a wide array of disciplinary traditions.

Exclusion: Restricted to first-year students. Not eligible for CR/NCR option.

What does sexuality have to do with digital technologies and cultures? What could queer theory tell us about digital archives, data infrastructure, and histories of technology? How do race and sexuality shape our experiences of digital cultures and what do the histories of colonialism have to do with digital design and networks? This course considers queer and feminist perspectives and approaches to the study of digital media including social networks, digital archives, data infrastructures, participatory media, and digital activism. Drawing from queer digital studies, feminist media studies, digital humanities, Indigenous and postcolonial data studies, this course asks how the politics of sexuality, race, and gender shape our digital lives in the 21st century.

An interdisciplinary examination of sexuality across cultures and periods. How are sexualities represented? How are they suppressed or celebrated? How and why are they labeled as straight, gay, lesbian, bisexual, queer, or perverse? How do sexualities change with race/ethnicity, class, gender, and geographies?