Fall

CQ601 Cultural Analysis and Social Theory
Dr. William Sweeler, Wednesdays 1:30-4:20

This course reviews important issues in cultural analysis and social theory, such as the politics and practices of representation, the relationship between knowledge and power (both within and between cultures), the relationship between race, class and gender, discourse and the production of alterity and difference, ethnographic authority, instrumental reason and modernity, relativism versus  universalism, hegemonic and counter-hegemonic forces in both the mass media and everyday life.

HI696R Making of the Modern Middle East (History)
Dr. Gavin Brocket, Wednesdays 2:30-5:20

The goal of this seminar is to provide students with a comprehensive understanding of the modern Middle East that will be useful to them whatever path they follow after completing the MA. We will discuss the main themes in the region’s twentieth century history, and try to make sense of the multiple conflicting interpretations and arguments. Ultimately students will be equipped to engage and explain current events in light of recent history. We will explore the resources available to students so that they can undertake meaningful research even though they do not read Middle Eastern languages. Students will have the opportunity to craft a research project that suits their interests and that might become the foundation for the required Major Research Project.

SK644 Aboriginal Kinship & Social Work
(Three lectures to pick from)

The community is the fundamental reference point for an Aboriginal person. It is a source of identity development, for validation, for learning of culture (language, dance, ceremony, etc.), and for construction of the whole person (mental-spiritual-emotional-physical). Practice in the community setting is made up of understanding kinship structures, community solidarity, community action and community nurturing for the present generation and for future generations. This course enables students to examine the phenomenon of community in the lives of Aboriginal populations, and how interventions into these contexts are an expression of healing processes.

TH640E Christian Identity in Modern Society (Theology)
Dr. Robert Kelly, Thursdays 1:00-3:50, room TBA

This course is designed to enable the student to consider various aspects of contemporary North American Christian identity and the connection of Christian Faith to phenomena of modern society such as consumerism, globalization, pluralism, poverty, liberation movements, racism, and the degradation of the natural environment.

TH641J Theology, Pluralism and Canadian Contexts (Theology)
Dr. Allen Jorgenson, Mondays 4:00-6:50pm, room TBA

This course considers how religious and cultural pluralism informs theology in Canadian contexts.

RS700 Religious Diversity in North America (required PhD course)
Dr. Jeff Wilson, Wednesdays 1:00-3:50 at U. of W.

Winter

CQ610 Race, Gender and Imperialism (Cultural Analysis)
Dr. Jasmin Zine, Thursdays 2:00-4:50

This course critically examines the historical and discursive practices through which racialization developed within colonial relations and contestations with particular attention to the intersection of gender and racialization in various literary, visual and ethnographic colonial and post-colonial narratives. Using an anti-colonial framework, this course also examines how race and gender are constituted within contemporary imperialist practices such globalization and the current “war on terror.”

CQ631 Cultural Studies in Theory and Practice
Dr. Herbert Pimlott, Wednesdays 2:30-5:20 in DAWB 4-106

Cultural studies has been the most contentious field of study in the late 20th century because its subject matter and approaches challenge the academy's traditional disciplinary and institutional modi operandi, and because its proponents also see it as a form of political engagement. This course combines an introduction and overview of cultural studies during its formative period, 1950s-1990s, highlighting key innovations and ruptures in its development as a form of knowledge production and of politics, of its institutional locations and social formations, and of cultural studies practices.

EN 692n: Medicine, Saints, and Romance - Female Readership and the Medieval Book
Dr. James Weldon,   Thursdays 9:30 - 12:20 in P3027

Unlike our post-print culture, manuscript or pre-print culture frequently organized books uniquely. Medieval narratives were often designed to be read within the manuscript context, the “manuscript matrix.” In this class, students will read a medieval book, that is, a collection of medieval texts contained in a manuscript oriented towards a female audience. The collection consists of medical recipes, romances, and a saint’s life, and thus offers a rare glimpse of vernacular women’s reading culture in the late Middle Ages. Central topics of the course include: narrative voice and agency, gendered and genred spaces, the memes of romance, the function of women in romance, the regimes of reading among medieval audiences, the nature of pre-print culture, adaptation of past narratives, and reading through the medieval matrix.

 
SK632W Human Rights in a Glocalizing World
Dr. Martha Kuwee Kumsa, Wednesdays 9:00-11:50, room TBA

This interdisciplinary course critically examines human rights in the contemporary flux of a glocalizing world where global and local processes are inseparably interwoven. Particular emphasis is placed on the mutual constitution and mutual transformation of the local and the global, the individual and the collective. Drawing on theories from various disciplines, the course examines human rights and social justice within social work practice with individuals, families, groups, communities, Organizations, and nations. It extends the concept of border-crossing beyond its narrow limits of crossing national borders and critically examines the crossing of multiple identity boundaries. It facilitates the development of the “glocal self” as a hands-on strategy for human rights praxis. This course is for students in all streams of the social work program.

SK665 Aboriginal Issues
Dr. Malcolm Saulis, Mondays 1:30-4:20

This course provides students with the conceptual tools and knowledge for understanding the nature of First Nations historical/structural problems; the role and operation of social services in Aboriginal contexts; alternative (culture based and healing focussed) methods of intervention; and present day Aboriginal concerns and issues including concepts of Aboriginal title.

RS 705 History of Religion in North America (PhD course)
Wednesdays, 11am-1:50pm, at U. of Waterloo, Instructor is Jeff Wilson.

RS 730 Sociology of Religion (PhD course)
Wednesdays, 2:30-5:20pm, at U. of Waterloo, Instructor is Doug Cowan.

Spring

RE710 Approaches to the Study of Religion in North America (PhD course)
Dr. Paul Freston, TBA