Courses

The following courses can be taken to meet the course requirements of the specialization. Required courses are MER 9000 plus a total of two half courses from the list below: One half course from your home program, and one half course from an outside program. To register for a MER approved course outside of your home program please contact the course instructor for approval, complete and sign the Request Form, and return the form to your home program’s graduate assistant for course enrollment. Contact departments or instructors for further course details.

MER 9000 - Colloquium Series in Migration and Ethnic Relations

Credited or Non-credited requirement (as determined by home department)
Abada, Full Year | Thursdays "roughly every three weeks", 4:00 - 5:30 | 

Associated faculty, students, and guest speakers present their research. There will be at least eight colloquia per year, with some of the talks involving attendance at specific occasions in series organized by other groups. Besides the colloquia in which research is presented, there will be other scheduled meetings in which students will discuss professional issues, opportunities for collaboration, and other topics.

MER Specialization Courses 2026-2027

Please note that for all MER-related courses listed below, students must write their major paper for the course on a directly relevant MER topic.

GSWS 9310 - Transnational Sexualities 
Cornel Grey| Fall 2026

This graduate seminar examines sexuality as a transnational formation shaped through histories of empire, colonialism, racial capitalism, migration, medicine, kinship, media, and law. Across the term, we will consider the conditions through which sexual and gendered categories take shape, circulate, and become contested, as well as the forms of intimacy, mobility, survival, and political imagination that emerge within and against them. Readings draw from feminist, queer, trans, Indigenous, Black, postcolonial, and decolonial scholarship, bringing these intellectual traditions into conversation across different contexts. The course approaches sexuality as a way of reading broader relations of power and tracing the movement of ideas, identities, and political claims across different contexts. Students will develop research projects that connect theoretical questions to specific sites and contemporary debates, using course assignments to experiment with different forms of analysis and scholarly communication. In doing so, they will strengthen their ability to work across disciplinary traditions, make thoughtful methodological and ethical choices, and develop more precise and ambitious questions for their own research.

SP 9657 US/Canadian Latina/o, Latinx, Latine Literature and Culture
Felipe Quintanilla| Fall 2026

We will consider the "panic" in Hispanic, the Mexican" in Mexican American, the Chicana/o/x, the Boricua, the CubanAmerican, the Central-American American and Latina/o/x Canadians, as imagined in and around visual representation as well as in other forms of US/Canadian cultural production. From the zoot suiters of the 1940s, to the huelga fields of el movimiento; from migrant memories of resistance against dictatorships and massacres, to the streets of the gentrified barrio; from the blood-thirsty imaginaries of Manifest Destiny and the Monroe Doctrine, to the fantasies/nightmares about the future; we will critically engage with the ways in which the Latina/o, Latinx, Latine has been incorporated (or not) into the fold of the nation; and we will also study the ways in which Latin@/x/e writers and creators have been able to claim space from and across their respective experiences of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality and citizenship.

HISTORY 9409B Politics and Power in Europe
Marta Dyczok | Fall 2026

What is Europe? Where are its boundaries? How has this changed over time? Is Russia part of Europe? Why is this a relevant question today as Russia wages war against Ukraine? This course looks at ideas which have shaped modern European history and historical enquiry. It explores the power of ideologies such as imperialism, nationalism, and communism and how they shaped the history of the European continent. The key focus will be on examining how historical narratives were constructed, de-constructed, re-constructed, colonized, de-colonized and instrumentalized. Students will be encouraged to explore both theoretical and empirical dimensions of the changing historiography, the new themes and approaches.

Political Science 9566B Comparative Politics
Mathieu Turgeon | Winter 2027

This course offers a broad introduction to the field of comparative politics. Comparative politics, when taught in Canada, would encompass any study that is country specific but that is not Canada, or any study that compares two or more countries, including Canada or not. Comparativists explore a wide range of topics and adopt a variety of methodological (qualitative, quantitative or mixed methods) and theoretical approaches (e.g., rational choice theory, historical and sociological institutionalisms, cultural and psychological approaches, etc.). They are generally (although not exclusively) concerned with "big questions" shaping the world like democratization, democratic backsliding, group and racial inequalities, inter est groups and social movements, electoral andpartysystems, executive-legislative relations, public policies, and, more broadly, how institutions (rules and norms) affect economic and political actors and outcomes.

GSWS 9466 Gender and the Environment
Bipasha Baruah | Winter 2027

This course will focus on the linkages between gender, economy, environment, race, class, sexuality, environmental racism, and environmental justice. We will examine key contemporary environmental issues such as climate change, food security, the “green” economy, low-carbon development and degrowth; access to water, sanitation, and energy; pollution; and biodiversity conservation from feminist perspectives. Feminist and queer theory will also be used to question and destabilize binary categories such as natural/unnatural, nature/culture, normal/abnormal as they relate to our understandings of “the environment.” The course will explore how racism, sexism, classism, heterosexism, colonialism, imperialism, and other forms of oppression have shaped and continue to shape environmental discourses. We will also discuss emerging concepts such as solastalgia and ecological grief. Course materials will include academic and non-academic literature (including policy and journalistic literature), activist texts, case studies, fiction, and film.

Anthropology 9225 Language and Social Justice
Karen Pennesi | Winter 2027

With emphasis on critical analysis of real-world issues in global contexts, students learn how language shapes, reflects and challenges social inequalities. Students analyze the relationship between language and social justice in various settings, including education, media, law, workplaces, digital spaces, and everyday interactions. Students will explore how language operates within systems of power related to race, colonialism, capitalism, gender, disability, and migration.

Sociology 9373 Migration
Teresa Abada | Winter 2027

This course will examine issues regarding Migration in both less developed and more developed countries (for developed countries emphasis on Canada, US and some European countries). The specific topics will include economic integration of immigrants; ethnic communities and settlement patterns; second generation (children of immigrants); language, diversity and identity issues; gender and migration; economic development; family; models of vulnerabilities and refugees; immigration policies. This is a seminar course, therefore student participation is expected during classes. There will be no mid-term exam. Term grades will be determined on the basis of requirements: (1) class presentations; (2) class participation (3) term paper. The course will be conducted in a seminar format, with a focus on analysing the readings which seminar participants are expected to have read in advance of a given seminar.

 Sociology 9147 Stratification

Lora Phillips | Winter 2027