Courses
Course offerings vary from year to year. Check Generate a Timetable for available course offerings.
SWAG 100 (3) Introduction to Women's and Gender Studies
This course focuses on the dynamic interdisciplinary field of women's and gender studies. Students will be introduced to the study of gender, racialization ("race"), ethnicity, sexuality, Indigenous experience, colonization, class, ability, and other markers of difference. SWAG 100 was formerly called WOST 100; credit will not be granted for both courses. (3:0:0)
Prerequisite: None.
SWAG 101 (3) Civil Discourse and Campus Life
Using social justice education tools, theory, civil discourse, and current laws, regulations and policies, students will examine their individual and collective responsibility in sustaining safer and more inclusive campus spaces for women and people from other equity-seeking groups. (3:0:0)
Prerequisite: None.
SWAG 102 (3) Social Justice Issues and Children
This course examines the critical relationship forged between feminism and parenting, and discusses social justice issues around gender, racialization ("race"), ethnicity, sexuality, Indigenous experience, colonization, class, ability, etc., in the contexts of living and/or working with children. (3:0:0)
Prerequisite: None.
SWAG 103 (3) Care of Self: Feminism and Wellbeing
While studying the critical relationship forged between feminist activism and self-care, students will explore various strategies for self-care, self-compassion, and harm reduction. (3:0:0)
Prerequisite: None.
SWAG 200 (3) Introduction to Feminisms
Students will read and respond to contemporary feminist theorists and activists. SWAG 200 was formerly called WOST 200; credit will not be granted for both courses. (3:0:0)
Prerequisite: None.
SWAG 201 (3) Introduction to Gender
This course focuses on the interdisciplinary field of gender studies. Students will examine cultural norms around gender as it is constructed and performed in a socio-political context. SWAG 201 was formerly called WOST 201; credit will not be granted for both courses. (3:0:0)
Prerequisite: None.
SWAG 210 (3) Introduction to Indigenous Feminisms
This course introduces students to Indigenous feminisms, lives, and experiences. Students will use the tools of Indigenous feminist inquiry to study the effects of tradition and colonialism, as realized in religion, education, social policy, and law, in the lives of Indigenous people. SWAG 210 was formerly called WOST 210; credit will not be granted for both courses. (3:0:0)
Prerequisite: None.
SWAG 211 (3) Introduction to Indigenous Gender
An introduction to Indigenous genders, lives, and experiences. Students will use the tools of Indigenous feminist inquiry to study the roles of Indigenous women, Indigenous men, and Two-Spirit people in Canada. Particular attention will be paid to gendered identities, histories, and spiritualities, including the effects of colonialism and religion. SWAG 211 was formerly called WOST 211; credit will not be granted for both courses. (3:0:0)
Prerequisite: None.
SWAG 300 (3) Studies in Masculinity
This course introduces students to studies in masculinity in the context of gender studies and theory. Students will study multiple ways that masculinities are constructed in relation to systems of power and to hierarchies within masculinities. (3:0:0)
Prerequisite: Third-year standing or permission of instructor
SWAG 301 (3) Discourses of Gender
This course explores how gender is continually shaped by language, medicine, and law. Particular emphasis will be paid to cisnormativity, and the experiences of transgender, non-binary, genderqueer, agender, and Two-Spirit people. (3:0:0)
Prerequisite: Third-year standing or permission of instructor.
SWAG 302 (3) Queer Theory
This course introduces students to the field of Queer Theory. Through the study of foundational texts in the discipline, students will develop capacities for challenging the normative construction of identity and social categories around gender, sexuality, and desire. (3:0:0)
Prerequisite: Third-year standing or permission of instructor.
SWAG 303 (3) Unruly Women: Mainstreaming Rebellion
This course focuses on the construction and subversion of popular tropes of deviant girlhood, womanhood, and femininity. (3:0:0)
Prerequisite: Third-year standing or permission of instructor.
SWAG 305 (3) Foundations of Feminist Thought, the Body and Representation
This course will survey a broad arc of texts focusing on gender as a category of difference, and primarily women's responses to it: from past to present. SWAG 305 was formerly called WOST 305; credit will not be granted for both courses. (3:0:0)
Prerequisite: Third-year standing or permission of instructor.
SWAG 306 (3) Foundations of Feminist Thought, Work and Society
This course will investigate gender and gender differences as sites for activism. SWAG 306 was formerly called WOST 306; credit will not be granted for both courses. (3:0:0)
Prerequisite: Third-year standing or permission of instructor.
SWAG 307 (3) Women and Autobiography
Students will read a variety of autobiographical texts in many forms, from the essay to the comic. How do the stories we tell about ourselves shape not just our narratives, but our bodies and identities? How do culturally available models of the gendered self shape the stories we tell? SWAG 307 was formerly called WOST 310; credit will not be granted for both courses. (3:0:0)
Prerequisite: Third-year standing or permission of instructor.
SWAG 310 (3) Unsettling Canada: Indigenous Women's Activism
Students will examine the activism of Indigenous women nationally and globally. Particular emphasis is placed on Indigenous women in Canada as local, provincial, and national role models. (3:0:0)
Prerequisite: Third-year standing or permission of instructor.
SWAG 311 (3) Healing Words: Indigenous Women's Storytelling
An exploration of Indigenous women's writing, storytelling, and arts in Canada as viewed through a feminist lens. (3:0:0)
Prerequisite: Third-year standing or permission of instructor.
SWAG 330 (3) Women and Gender in Digital Spaces
This course engages with feminist, queer, trans, and critical race scholarship related to digital spaces and technologies. SWAG 330 was formerly called WOST 330; credit will not be granted for both courses. (3:0:0)
Prerequisite: Third-year standing or permission of instructor.
SWAG 340 (3) Indigenous Feminisms and Indigenous Law
An interdisciplinary investigation of legal issues concerning Indigenous Women in Canada, this course emphasizes an intersectional approach to Indigenous Law, environmental decision-making, Indigenous feminism, and narrative case studies. SWAG 340 was formerly called WOST 340; credit will not be granted for both courses. (3:0:0)
Prerequisite: Third-year standing or permission of instructor.
SWAG 341 (3) Women and the Law
This course engages in an interdisciplinary investigation of legal issues concerning women in Canada. An intersectional analysis will be employed to understand women's overlapping sites of oppression and examines the relationship between women and the law by exploring ways that women have been defined as legal subjects. (3:0:0)
Prerequisite: Third-year standing or permission of instructor.
SWAG 380 (3) Topics in Women and Gender
Students will engage in an intensive study of selected aspects of gender, racialization ("race"), ethnicity, sexuality, Indigenous experience, colonization, class, ability, etc. This course may be taken more than once, in different topics. SWAG 380 was formerly called WOST 380; credit will not be granted for both courses. (3:0:0)
Prerequisite: Third-year standing or permission of instructor.
SWAG 400 (3) Special Topics Feminist Theory
Students will pursue an interdisciplinary review of significant issues in feminist theory. SWAG 400 was formerly called WOST 400; credit will not be granted for both courses. (3:0:0)
Prerequisite: Minimum of three SWAG upper-level credits or permission of instructor.
SWAG 401 (3) Feminist Research Methodologies
An exploration of feminist research methodologies. Each student completes a significant piece of research in the form of a senior project, the topic of which will be determined in consultation with the instructor, and provides regular updates of the progress of their work in the seminar component of the course. SWAG 401 was formerly called WOST 401; credit will not be granted for both courses. (0:3:0)
Prerequisite: Minimum of three SWAG upper-level credits or permission of instructor.
SWAG 490 (3) Directed Studies
Students will undertake a focused course of study with a faculty supervisor. Available only to students who are majoring or minoring in Studies in Women and Gender. SWAG 490 was formerly called WOST 490; credit will not be granted for both courses. (0:3:0)
Prerequisite: Minimum of three SWAG upper-level credits or permission of instructor.