DTS200Y1 - Introduction to Diaspora and Transnational Studies I
Full Year 2024–25
Wednesdays, 10:00am - 12:00pm
What is the relationship between place and belonging, between territory and memory? How have the experiences of migration and dislocation challenged the modern assumption that the nation-state should be the limit of identification? What effect has the emergence of new media of communication had upon the coherence of cultural and political boundaries? All of these questions and many more form part of the subject matter of Diaspora and Transnational Studies. This introductory course ex-amines the historical and contemporary movements of peoples and the complex issues of identity and experience to which these processes give rise as well as the creative possibilities that flow from movement and being moved. The area of study is comparative and interdisciplinary, drawing from the social sciences, history, the arts and humanities. Accordingly, this course provides the background to the subject area from diverse perspectives and introduces students to a range of key debates in the field, with particular attention to questions of history, globalization, cultural production and the creative imagination.
Instructors: A. Shternshis, A. Allen
Exclusion: DTS201H1, DTS202H1
Distribution Requirements: Humanities, Social Science course
Breadth Requirements: Creative and Cultural Representations (1) + Society and its Institutions (3)
DTS300H1 - Qualitative and Quantitative Reasoning
Winter 2025
Tuesdays, 10:00am – 12:00pm
Focuses on research design and training in methods from history, geography, anthropology, literary and cultural studies, and other disciplines appropriate to Diaspora and Transnational Studies. Prepares students to undertake primary research required in senior seminars.
Instructor: A. González Jiménez
Prerequisite: Completion of 9.0 credits
Recommended Preparation: DTS200Y1/CJS200H1/CJS201H1
Distribution Requirements: Humanities, Social Science
Breadth Requirement: The Physical and Mathematical Universes (5)
DTS305H1 - Special Topics in DTS: Transnational Perspectives on Dirt, Garbage, and Impurity
Winter 2025
Thursdays, 2:00pm – 4:00pm
This class will draw on research from anthropology, religious studies, environmental studies, and other fields to examine transnational, cross-cultural, and diasporic perspectives on filth and dirt and how these concepts are deployed to create and reinforce social hierarchies in a multitude of global contexts. Discussions will address such topics as colonial encounters and otherization through ideas of cleanliness; the weaponization of filth in transnational practices of violence; the commercialization and exportation of trash from wealthy nations to the global south; migrants, cleaning/cleanliness, and dehumanization; and impurity, gender, and sexuality in diaspora communities.
Instructor: T. Lemos
Prerequisite: Completion of 9.0 Credits
Recommended Preparation: DTS200Y1
Distribution Requirements: Humanities, Social Science
Breadth Requirement: Society and its Institutions (3)
DTS311H1 - Fun in Diaspora
Fall 2024
Wednesdays, 1:00pm – 3:00pm
From parkour to “Baby Shark” remixes, concepts and practices surrounding fun, entertainment, and pleasure transcend cultural boundaries, reveal the reach of globalization, and help facilitate the maintenance of transnational communities through shared activities. This course will examine these relationships with fun, and we will also assess cases where concepts of fun diverge and clash in intercultural contexts. Additionally, the class will consider the relationship between entertainment practices and politics, marketing, and social movements. Cases examined will include K-pop fandom, bucket challenges, social media memes, and global YouTube phenomena.
Instructor: A. Allen
Prerequisite: DTS200Y1
Distribution Requirements: Humanities, Social Science
Breadth Requirement: Creative and Cultural Representations (1)
DTS390H1 - Independent Study
Fall 2024, Winter 2025
A scholarly project chosen by the student, approved by the Department, and supervised by one of its instructors. Consult with the Diaspora and Transnational Studies Program Office for more information. Not eligible for CR/NCR option.
Prerequisite: DTS200Y1
Distribution Requirements: Humanities, Social Science
DTS390 Independent Study From.pdf
DTS390Y1 - Independent Study
Full Year 2024–25
A scholarly project chosen by the student, approved by the Department, and supervised by one of its instructors. Consult with the Diaspora and Transnational Studies Program Office for more information. Not eligible for CR/NCR option.
Prerequisite: DTS200Y1
Distribution Requirements: Humanities, Social Science
DTS390 Independent Study From.pdf
DTS401H1 - Advanced Topics in DTS: Diaspora and Liberation
Fall 2024
Wednesdays, 2:00pm - 4:00pm
This senior seminar offers the opportunity to read some of the key texts of anti-colonial and liberation theory in the context of Diaspora Studies. The class begins with an overview of the social movements both inside and beyond the university that led to the formation of “Diaspora Studies" as a discipline. How might the loose genealogy of what we now call Diaspora Studies contribute to contemporary discussions of decolonization and anti-racism? When read in the context of our current political and historic moment, how might we (re)theorize the foundational commitments of diaspora theory? Specifically, how has the concept of diaspora been articulated in relation to diverse liberatory social and cultural commitments, particularly in the wake of histories of immigration and European colonization? This course will be reading and discussion-intensive, covering essential books emerging from anti-colonial and postcolonial theory written over the last 30 years. Students should have an existing commitment to anti-racist ethics and pedagogy in order to adequately engage with (as well as enjoy!) course material.
Instructor: S. Kassamali
Prerequisite: 14 FCE, including DTS200Y1
Distribution Requirements: Humanities, Social Science
Breadth Requirement: Society and its Institutions (3)
DTS402H1 - Advanced Topics in DTS: Borders and Border Cities
Winter 2025
Thursdays, 10:00am - 12:00pm
In the era of rapid and massive transnational flows of commodities and capital, people’s mobility is forcefully constrained by heavily securitized borders. This course focuses on borders and their adjacent cities to examine current processes constituting neoliberal capitalism. Borders index geopolitical, symbolic, and legal boundaries. They simultaneously function as sites for gendering and racializing bodies and are a stage for violent encounters. Border cities are places where different forms of Otherness coalesce. By examining borders and processes of boundary-making in the Americas, Europe, and the Middle East, this course explores the ways race, class, gender, sexuality, and nationality intersect in shaping how people live (and die) along borders. While exploring ‘dehumanization’ as a mechanism that normalizes violence against Others, we will also discuss attempts to re-imagine a world without borders.
Instructor: A. González Jiménez
Prerequisite: 14 FCE, including DTS200Y1
Distribution Requirements: Humanities, Social Science
Breadth Requirement: Society and its Institutions (3)
DTS403H1 - Advanced Topics in DTS: Transnational Toronto
Fall 2024
Mondays, 1:00pm - 3:00pm
Toronto is a city increasingly configured through transnational connections and practices. It is a city defined by the scale at which its residents live their lives; a scale that is no longer (if it ever was) parochial, but extends across time and space to connect people and practice across a multitude of locales. Contemporary understandings of Toronto can only be reached through adopting a transnational lens. This course will examine the processes that have produced Toronto as a transnational city over time, including the dynamics of immigration and mobility, experiences of alienation, the global extension of capitalism, and the (re)formation of communities grounded in the complex dynamics of identities produced in a space that is both ‘home’ and away’. We will also explore the specific practices, and connections that produce “Toronto” as a space that transcends its physical geographic boundaries and is continually reproduced in and through the flows of people, capital, objects, ideas, - and the many forces that reproduce and reconfigure these flows.
Instructor: M. Mucha
Prerequisite: 14 FCE, including DTS200Y1
Distribution Requirements: Humanities, Social Science
Breadth Requirement: Society and its Institutions (3)
DTS404H1 - Advanced Topics in DTS: History and Counterstories in the Black Mediterranean
Fall 2024
Tuesdays, 10:00am - 12:00pm
This course explores colonial histories and counter- stories of resistance in the Black Mediterranean. Intended not only as a physical space but also as a symbolic site, the Black Mediterranean can be seen as a new theoretical approach useful to understand the racialized production of bodies and borders, and to highlight forms of resistance. The course will focus on Italy and its (post)colonial ties with Libya, Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia. Going from the Italian invasion of Eritrea in 1890 to the current so-called “refugee crisis”; the case of Italy illustrates the intersections and resignification of race, bodies and borders in the Mediterranean region, as well as the presence of important histories of resistance and alternative conceptualisations of belonging.
Instructor: A. Pesarini
Prerequisite: 14 FCE, including DTS200Y1
Distribution Requirements: Humanities, Social Science
Breadth Requirement: Society and its Institutions (3)
DTS405H1 - Advanced Topics in DTS: Human Trafficking and/in Diaspora
Fall 2024
Thursdays, 1:00pm - 3:00pm
This course presents a thorough investigation into adult and child trafficking for labour and sexual exploitation. It introduces students to diverse conceptual frameworks shaping the discourse, including human security, national security, public health, radical and liberal feminist, and labor economics analytical approaches. Legal texts are examined alongside case studies, while an interdisciplinary lens explores human trafficking as it relates to diaspora, migration, economics, politics, and security. Through readings, guest lectures, and discussions, students engage in various topics including the operationalization of human trafficking definitions and the migration-trafficking nexus while focusing on human trafficking within diaspora networks.
Instructor: A. Arhin
Prerequisite: 14 FCE, including DTS200Y1
Distribution Requirements: Humanities, Social Science
Breadth Requirement: Society and its Institutions (3)
DTS406H1 - Advanced Topics in DTS: Trauma, Memory & Literature: A Transnational Perspective
Winter 2025
Wednesdays, 2:00pm - 4:00pm
This course delves into the intricate interplay between trauma, memory, and literature from a transnational perspective. By exploring diverse literary works, students will examine how authors across different cultures and historical contexts depict and process various forms of trauma. The course will address critical themes such as the representation of war, genocide, exile, and the lasting impacts of (neo)imperial and postcolonial experiences. Students will engage with narratives that reveal the complex ways in which individual and collective memories of traumatic events are constructed, remembered, and articulated in literature to grasp its importance as a medium for expressing the unspeakable and mapping the diasporic and transnational landscapes of trauma.
Instructor: M. Mucha
Prerequisite: 14 FCE, including DTS200Y1
Distribution Requirements: Humanities, Social Science
Breadth Requirement: Society and its Institutions (3)
Regarding Diaspora and Transnational Studies Courses
University of Toronto Mississauga courses that can be applied to the program
Please visit the UTM Diaspora & Transnational Studies page.