DTS200H1 - Introduction to Diaspora and Transnational Studies
Fall 2026
Tuesdays, 1:00 - 3:00pm
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: E. Sammons
Exclusion: DTS200Y1, DTS201H5 and DTS202H5
Breadth Requirements: Society and its Institutions (3)
DTS300H1 - Qualitative and Quantitative Reasoning
Winter 2027
Thursdays, 11:00am – 1:00pm
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: P. Scanlan
Prerequisite: Completion of 9.0 credits
Recommended Preparation: DTS200H1/ DTS200Y1/ CJS200H1/ CJS201H1
Breadth Requirements: The Physical and Mathematical Universes (5)
DTS305H1 - Special Topics in Diaspora and Transnational Studies: Home
Fall 2026
Wednesdays, 6:00 – 8:00pm
Where is home? Is it a house with walls and windows, a country with borders and flags, a language spoken effortlessly, or a feeling that flickers when we recognize ourselves in others? In a political moment marked by migration, displacement, and rising levels of nationalism, the meaning of home feels at once intimate and contested. This course, in response, explores how the home has come to be imagined among citizens and strangers, families and foreigners, insiders and outsiders. Readings will include social theorists interested in how the language of domestic life travels into national and imperial projects as well as histories of homes built, defended, lost, and remade. In asking what it means to be at home, this course examines the architecture of belonging itself.
Instructor: K. O'Neill
Prerequisite: Completion of 9.0 credits
Recommended Preparation: DTS200H1/ DTS200Y1
Breadth Requirements: Society and its Institutions (3)
DTS310H1 - Transnational Toronto
Fall 2026
Mondays, 1:00 – 3:00pm (TUT 3:00 - 5:00pm)
Toronto is a city that has always been 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. The course is offered as a combined lecture and tutorial both of which are mandatory. While we will not use the full time each week, the tutorial provides the time to travel to and from the sites that constitute the basis of the course.
Instructor: K. MacDonald
Prerequisite: Completion of 9.0 credits
Recommended Preparation: DTS200H1/ DTS200Y1
Breadth Requirements: Society and its Institutions (3)
DTS314H1 - Citizenship and Multiculturalism
Winter 2027
Tuesdays, 1:00 - 3:00pm
This course examines approaches to belonging and distinction that accompany different models of citizenship. What are some historical and recent trends in the intersections of place, custom, and rights? How have governments related social diversity to social justice in theory and in practice? Areas of emphasis will vary, but may include topics such as authenticity and assimilation; ethno-nationalism; immigration and naturalization policy; indigeneity; insurgency; legacies of colonialism; mass media and popular culture; policing and surveillance; racial stratification; transnational markets; and xenophobia.
Instructor: E. Sammons
Recommended Preparation: DTS200H1/ DTS200Y1
Breadth Requirements: Society and its Institutions (3)
DTS315H1 - Marriage and Family across Nations, Diasporas, and Boundaries
Winter 2027
Wednesdays, 11:00am - 1:00pm
How do migration and resettlement affect marriage and family life? This course will explore marital, familial, sexual, and other relational aspects of diaspora and migration, examining how marriage and family become tools for maintaining cultural traditions and gender hierarchies but are also areas of life where negotiation, creativity, and rebellion occur. Transnational in its scope, the course will investigate how marriage and family involve choices but also constraints imposed by communities, cultures, religions, and nation-states. A primary objective of this course will be to interrogate how marriage and family relations consist of choices and constraints that are experienced, celebrated, lamented, and resisted. The class will draw on interdisciplinary approaches and present case studies from a variety of diasporic communities in Canada and other migration contexts.
Instructor: T. Lemos
Recommended Preparation: DTS200H1/ DTS200Y1
Breadth Requirements: Society and its Institutions (3)
DTS316H1 - Filth: Dirt and Dehumanization in Transnational Perspective
Fall 2026
Thursdays, 11:00am - 1:00pm
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
Recommended Preparation: DTS200H1/ DTS200Y1
Breadth Requirements: Society and its Institutions (3)
DTS390H1 - Independent Study
Fall 2026, Winter 2027
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: DTS200H1/ DTS200Y1
DTS390 Independent Study From.pdf
DTS390Y1 - Independent Study
Full Year 2026–27
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: DTS200H1/ DTS200Y1
DTS390 Independent Study From.pdf
DTS402H1 - Advanced Topics in DTS: Borders
Fall 2026
Wednesdays, 11:00am - 1:00pm
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 DTS200H1/ DTS200Y1
Breadth Requirement: Society and its Institutions (3)
DTS403H1 - Advanced Topics in DTS: Palestine
Fall 2026
Thursdays, 1:00 - 3:00pm
TBD
Instructor: TBD
Prerequisite: 14 FCE, including DTS200H1/ DTS200Y1
Breadth Requirement: Society and its Institutions (3)
DTS410H1 - Diasporic Foodways
Winter 2027
Wednesdays, 3:00 - 5:00pm
Food links people across space and time. As it spirals outward from parochial sites of origin to articulate with new sites, actors and scales, it assumes new substance and meaning in new locales. This movement of food gives rise to new ‘foodways’ to help us to understand the past in terms of temporally connected sites of intense interaction. Food also plays a strong role in shaping translocal identities. As peoples have moved in the world, food has played a central role in (re)defining who they are, reproducing myth and ritual, and bounding diasporic communities. This course seeks to address questions surrounding the dynamics of the food ‘we’ eat, the ways in which ‘we’ eat, the meaning ‘we’ give to eating, and the effect of eating in a transnational world. Recognizing that culinary culture is central to diasporic identifications, the focus is on the place of food in the enduring habits, rituals, and everyday practices that are collectively used to produce and sustain a shared sense of diasporic cultural identity.
Instructor: K. MacDonald
Prerequisite: 14 FCE, including DTS200H1/ DTS200Y1
Breadth Requirement: Society and its Institutions (3)
DTS413H1 - Global Sexualities
Winter 2027
Tuesdays, 11:00am - 1:00pm
Sexuality is a complex interplay of desires, attractions, interests, and modes of behavior and has diverse meanings in different societies and cultures. In this course, we will examine the notion of sexuality as well as gender identity and expression from an interdisciplinary perspective that is rooted in ethnography. A cross-cultural study of sexuality and gender identity within global and transnational contexts will provide students with an understanding of how the intersections of culture, community, as well as social and political factors affect individuals’ sexual choices and understandings of gender. A particular focus in this course will be experiences of sexuality and gender within diasporic communities.
Instructor: A. Allen
Prerequisite: 14 FCE, including DTS200H1/ DTS200Y1/SDS380H1
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.