2023-2024 Course Timetable

Please refer to the Faculty of Arts and Science timetable for course schedules

For details of program requirements, see the Faculty of Arts and Science calendar here.

For any inquiries about course offerings, please contact the SDS program office at sexual.diversity@utoronto.ca.

Jump to: SDS and Joint Courses| 100-Levels | 200-Levels | 300-Levels | 400-Levels | Electives |

SDS AND JOINT COURSES

Last updated: June 21st 2023

100-Levels

SDS199H1F
Sexuality at the Intersections (Instructor: Naveen Minai)

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.

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

200-Levels

JSU237H1S
Introduction to HIV/AIDS (Instructor: Scott Rayter)

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.

SDS255H1F
Histories of Sexuality (Instructor: Scott Rayter)

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?

Exclusion: UNI255H1

SDS246H1S
Queer Digital Media Studies (TBD)

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.

SDS256H1S
Methods in Queer and Trans Studies (Instructor: Naveen Minai)

This course examines a variety of methodological approaches used in humanities and humanist social sciences concerning sexuality and gendered diversity. Students will explore some of the popular methods in sexuality studies including ethnography, archival research, visual cultural studies, oral history, and media and discourse analysis.

Exclusion: UNI256H1

SDS279H1F
Queer Popular Culture (Instructor: Naveen Minai)

This introductory course examines the critical relationship between popular culture and queer sexualities in historical and contemporary contexts. The course will draw upon literature from performance studies, media studies, and queer of colour cultural productions. Students will engage with a range of queer public cultures and arts, including drag performance, queer musics, social media networks, and popular media.

Exclusion: SDS379H1, UNI379H1
Recommended Preparation: Introductory course in Sexual Diversity Studies, Women and Gender Studies, or Equity Studies.

300-Levels

JSR312H1
Queer Religion and Religiosities

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: 4.0 FCE

JPS315H1S
LGBTQ Politics (Instructor: Julie Moreau)

Not offered in 2023-24

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: 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

JPS316H1
Indigenous Feminist and Queer Theories

Not offered in 2023/24

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: 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.

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

SDS345H1F
Sex and the Epidemic (Instructor: David Brennan)

HIV has forever changed the way human beings understand sexuality. Through a social justice lens, this course examines the nature of community norms, laws, popular media, and the academy to explore how the epidemic has impacted the provision of social services in relation to the diversity of human sexuality.

Prerequisite: 0.5 credit in SDS
Exclusion: UNI345H1

Recommended preparation: JSU237H1

SDS355H1S
Theories of Sexuality (Instructor: TBD)

This course introduces students to key theories of sexuality and sexual diversity. The main goal is to create a framework for understanding sexuality at its intersections with race, gender, class, disability, citizenship status, and geography among other social relations and processes at an advanced level. Closely tracing sexuality’s intersections, course readings will draw upon critical race theory, postcolonial critique and decolonizing movements, women of colour feminisms, trans studies, and transnational sexuality and gender studies.

Prerequisite: 0.5 credit in SDS
Exclusion: UNI355H1
Recommended Preparation: Some coursework in intersectionality of gender or sexuality.

SDS365H1F
Sexuality and Law
Not offered in 2023/24

The course explores the legal regulation of sexuality. How does law understand, constitute and regulate sex, sexuality and sexual diversity? It will consider the role of different types of regulation, including criminal law, family law and constitutional law, and explore issues ranging from sex work and pornography to same sex marriage to transgender discrimination.

Prerequisite: 0.5 credit in SDS
Exclusion: UNI365H1

velopment Studies, and Queer and Feminist Studies to explore the cultural, social and political dimensions of ethics, health, and sexuality historically, and at the present moment.

Prerequisite: 1.0 credit in SDS/HST

Exclusion: SDS375H1 (Special Topics in Sexual Diversity Studies A: Sexuality & Health), offered in Winter 2018; SDS455H1 (Special Topics in Sexual Diversity Studies: Sexuality & Health), offered in Winter 2019.
Recommended Preparation: Some coursework in health, disability studies, and equity studies.

JNS450H1F
Sexuality & Disability (Instructor: TBD)

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

SDS3755H1
Special Topics in Sexual Diversity Studies 

Offered in Summer 2024

This seminar is intended to expose students in the Sexual Diversity Studies program to topics that may not be covered by permanent university courses. Topics vary from year to year. The description for this year is below:This course centers the Global South to think about alternative histories, theories, and formations of sexuality. It focuses on global south queer studies, postcolonial sexuality studies, and Third World feminisms, to think about what queerness means across different geopolitical sites at the intersections of race, ethnicity, caste, class, and religion. Through an interdisciplinary approach, we explore legal, cultural, economic, and political dimensions of sexuality as identification, lived experience, and a form of power. What might the history of indentureship tell us about the history of sexuality, diaspora, and empire? What are the sexual politics of postcolonial nationalism and citizenship? What role has the sacred played in the understanding of sexuality? The course seeks to 1) to challenge and unsettle Euro-American paradigms of sex, gender and sexuality, 2) to think through how sexuality is constructed and regulated at the intersections of postcolonial capital, new forms of empire, and transnational capital, and global flows of migration, and (3) to consider how hegemonic notions of gender, sex, and sexuality are resisted and transformed in the Global South.

Prerequisite: 0.5 credit in SDS

SDS377H1S
Lesbian Studies: Identity/Theory/Culture (Instructor: TBD)

This multidisciplinary course examines multiple lesbian identities that have varied in time and place. The course will pose such questions as: What does lesbian mean? Why have changes occurred in meaning? How has the identity of lesbian been culturally represented and politically expressed in various social and political contexts? It will also take up contemporary theoretical, cultural, and political understandings of lesbianism.

Prerequisite: 0.5 credit in SDS
Exclusion: UNI377H1

SDS378H1S
Queer Youth Studies in Education (Instructor: TBD)

Experiences of queer youth are explored in various education settings through academic research, personal essays, and visual and performing arts to investigate how queer youth define themselves, what they are learning, the curriculum and pedagogy used in the learning process and the possibilities of said learning for social change, individual and community well-being.

Prerequisite: 0.5 credit in SDS
Exclusion: UNI378H1; UNI376H1 (2013-2014 session)

JPS378H1S
Sex and the State

Not offered in 2023/24

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: 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.

SDS380H1S
Sexual Diversity in Transnational Perspective 

An exploration of LGBTQ rights and changes in social and cultural responses to sexual diversity in varied regional, national, and cultural contexts, potentially including Africa, Latin America, South and East Asia, and Eastern Europe. The role of transnational linkages and networks will also be considered in effecting change.

Prerequisite: 0.5 credit in SDS

SDS381H1F
Intro to Trans Studies (Instructor: LJ Slovin)

This course examines current and historical transgender issues by exploring legal and health care issues, politics, mainstream and other media representations (including films, interviews, and other genres), as well as current and historical advocacy and community work in relation to power structures such as the nation-state, race, disability, and sexuality.

Prerequisite: Completion of one 0.5 FCE from SDS, WGS or CSE courses.
Exclusion: SDS375H1F (Fall 2016).

SDS382H1S
Introduction to Queer of Colour Critique (Instructor: Naveen Minai)

This course examines the intersections between race, gender and sexuality through an exploration of the political theories, activisms and cultural forms of LGBTQ people of colour. It will study the emergence of queer of colour theory and critiques, examine its roots in women of colour feminism and investigate the ways in which the intersections of race, gender and sexuality figure in national, global, economic, and cultural structures.

Prerequisite: 0.5 credit in SDS.
Exclusion: SDS376H1F (Winter 2017)

SDS385H1S
Queer Indigenous Politics and Cultures (Instructor: TBD)

This upper level course introduces students to questions of gender, sexuality, two-spirit, and same-sex desire at the intersections of race, indigeneity, and the violences of settler colonialism. Students will engage with work by scholars, activists, and artists in the fields of indigenous and queer studies, decolonizing activism, and cultural production.

Prerequisite: 0.5 credit in SDS/INS
Exclusion: SDS375H1 (Special Topics in Sexual Diversity Studies A: Indigeneity & Sexuality), offered in Winter 2019.

400-Levels

SDS425H1
Sexuality & Health (Instructor: TBD)

How is the idea of “ethics” understood and deployed in research on sexuality and health? What are the ways that discourses of “risk,” “precarity,” and “cure” become regulative frameworks? How do racialization, colonialism and nation-­building participate in the biopolitics of sexuality and health? With these questions in mind, this interdisciplinary course will discuss various scholarly and activist literatures, including Youth Studies, Critical Disability Studies, Environmental Justice scholarship, Sex Education and Public Health Research, Critical Development Studies, and Queer and Feminist Studies to explore the cultural, social and political dimensions of ethics, health, and sexuality historically, and at the present moment.

Prerequisite: 1.0 credit in SDS/HST

Exclusion: SDS375H1 (Special Topics in Sexual Diversity Studies A: Sexuality & Health), offered in Winter 2018; SDS455H1 (Special Topics in Sexual Diversity Studies: Sexuality & Health), offered in Winter 2019.
Recommended Preparation: Some coursework in health, disability studies, and equity studies.

JNS450H1F
Sexuality & Disability (Instructor: TBD)

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

SDS455H1S
Special Topics in Sexual Diversity Studies 

Topics vary from year to year depending on instructor. This seminar is intended to expose students in the Sexual Diversity Studies program to topics that may not be covered by permanent university courses.

Prerequisite: 1.0 credit in SDS
Recommended Preparation: Coursework in SDS at the 300 level or higher

SDS458H1*
Research Essay in Sexual Diversity

A research essay under the supervision of a faculty member with knowledge of sexual diversity, the proposal and supervisor subject to the approval of the SDS Undergraduate Coordinator. This course is available to students enrolled in Sexual Diversity Studies programs (Specialists, Majors, and Minors). Not eligible for CR/NCR option.

Students must submit a supplemental application one month prior to the start of term: August 01 for courses starting in the Fall term, December 01 for courses starting in the Winter term, and April 01 for courses in the Summer term. The application must describe the student’s planned independent research project, supervisor, prospective readings, timeline, and method(s) of assessment. Students are responsible for finding their own supervisor. Both the supervisor and SDS Undergraduate Coordinator or Director must approve the application. Applications will be reviewed to assess the intended research plan and timeline, and the suitability of the project for SDS credit.

Prerequisite: SDS255H1, SDS256H1, and a minimum of 4.0 additional credits from SDS, JPS, JSU, or JNS courses.

SDS459Y1 
Honours Essay In Sexual Diversity

A major research essay under the supervision of a faculty member with knowledge of sexual diversity, the proposal and supervisor subject to the approval of the SDS Undergraduate Coordinator. This course is available to students enrolled in Sexual Diversity Studies programs (Specialists, Majors, and Minors). Not eligible for CR/NCR option.

Students must submit a supplemental application one month prior to the start of term: August 01 for courses starting in the Fall term, December 01 for courses starting in the Winter term, and April 01 for courses in the Summer term. The application must describe the student’s planned independent research project, supervisor, prospective readings, timeline, and method(s) of assessment. Students are responsible for finding their own supervisor. Both the supervisor and SDS Undergraduate Coordinator or Director must approve the application. Applications will be reviewed to assess the intended research plan and timeline, and the suitability of the project for SDS credit.

Prerequisite: SDS255H1, SDS256H1, and a minimum of 4.0 additional credits from SDS, JPS, JSU, or JNS courses.

SDS460Y1
Advanced Research In Sexual Diversity Studies (Instructor: TBD)

A capstone for SDS specialists (and majors) who will work closely with SDS faculty in developing their own research project while participating in this seminar and learning about key debates, methodologies, and ethical issues in conducting research in SDS. Students will learn to write proposals, ethics reviews, grants and other relevant documents. Not eligible for CR/NCR option.

Prerequisite: 1.0 credit in SDS, 0.5 of which needs to be a 300+ level SDS course.
Exclusion: UNI460H1

SDS465H1F
Queer Migrations and Refugee Politics (Instructor: Naveen Minai)

This interdisciplinary course will explore the politics of migration and border-crossing from queer, feminist, and trans perspectives. Drawing upon contemporary North American and transnational research, students will engage with critical literatures on citizenship and the state, mobility, belonging, and kinship and how these processes intersect with sexuality in the context of immigration and refugee systems.

Prerequisite: 1.0 credit in SDS/DTS
Exclusion: SDS455H1 (Special Topics in Sexual Diversity Studies: Queer Migrations and Refugee Politics), offered in Fall 2018.

SDS470H1S
Sexual Representations: Critical Approaches in Porn Studies 

Not offered in 2023/24

This course is a critical study of the historical, aesthetic, and cultural formation of the concept of pornography. The course explores the relationship between sexual representation and sex work; works through debates about artistic merit and censorship and how they relate to larger issues of power, capitalism, and technology; and theorizes the relationship between sex and commerce. Readings will include work from feminist, queer, people of colour, and trans theorists in the cutting-edge field of porn studies.

Prerequisite: 1.0 credit in SDS
Exclusion: UNI470H1; UNI475H1, Special Topics: Porn Studies
Recommended Preparation: SDS365H1
Distribution Requirements: Humanities
Breadth Requirements: Creative and Cultural Representations (1)

SDS478H1F
Queer Musics

Not offered in 2023/24

This course explores, through queer of colour critique, feminist and queer theories, how sexuality, gender, and race are performed and heard in several popular music styles/genres. Sampling the field with readings, music videos and audio recordings, we examine sexuality, gender and race in music performance and reception currently and historically.

Prerequisite: 1.0 credit in SDS
Exclusion: UNI478H1

SDS485H1
Advanced Seminar in Queer Theory

Not offered in 2023/24

This course will provide an advanced exploration of the historical and contemporary formations and debates of queer theory. The specific theme of the seminar changes per year.

Prerequisite: 4.0 credits

Recommended Preparation: Some coursework in queer theory

SDS490Y1
Engaging Our Communities (Instructor: TBD)

A service learning course with student placements in various LGBT community organizations alongside regular classroom seminars to look at the politics of engagement, active citizenship, mobilization, archiving community histories, accessibility, belonging, activism, and philanthropy.

Prerequisite: SDS255H1/ SDS256H1 and at least 1 FCE in SDS at the third-year level or permission of the instructor.
Exclusion: SDS456Y1: Special Topics: Engaging our Communities (2015-16)

Important Note: Placement selection and matching will occur over the summer; students are encouraged to inform the instructor of their intention to enrol in this course by the end of June. We cannot guarantee a placement for students who enrol in late summer or after the term has started.

ELECTIVES

ENG273Y1
Queer Writing

Introducing a lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, and queer tradition in literature and theory, this course explores classical, modern, postmodern, and contemporary literature, criticism, art, film, music, and popular culture. (Offered by the Department of English).

Prerequisite: 1.0 ENG FCE or any 4.0 FCE.

ITA315H1
Sex and Gender in Contemporary Italy
Not offered in 2022/23