Courses

Course: ANTH 389: Topics in Anthropology | Anthropological Approaches to Multilinguism
Term: Spring/Summer 2026
Section: OP01
Instructor: Dr. Jenanne Ferguson

What is life like in multiple languages, for an individual? For a whole community? In this course, multilingualism—from the personal to the societal—is considered through both anthropological and sociolinguistic approaches. We begin by looking at multilingual language acquisition and socialization before moving on to understanding the sociopolitical dynamics of speaking multiple languages in a community, as well as within the modern nation-state and beyond. We examine code-mixing practices and how those can lead to the eventual creolization and the formation of mixed languages while looking at how language ideologies impact the processes of language contact and change. Topics such as urban multilingualism and linguistic landscapes as well as linguistic spread and evolution via popular media online are approached both ethnographically and theoretically to illuminate processes of linguistic creativity and change.

Prerequisites: A minimum grade of C- in one of ANTH 206, ANTH 207, ANTH 208, or ANTH 209. A minimum grade of C- in ANTH 208 is recommended.

Permission Required: No

Course: POLS 390: Topics in Political Science | Ethics, Crisis, Conflict, and War
Term: Spring/Summer 2026
Section: OP01
Instructor: Luke Sandle

This course is an exercise in international ethics. It focuses in particular on themes of war, obligation and responsibility. It builds from the idea that the question of the ethical is more pronounced, and more in need of articulation during periods of conflict. While global politics in general may pose questions such as: what do we owe to those who are distant to us; should borders be open or closed; or how do we navigate dilemmas of cultural difference—times of conflict heighten the stakes, asking us to consider whether or on what terms we can have a global community, what is permitted during emergency and how do we judge the behaviour of political actors acting in the tumult of often tragic, traumatic or urgent events? This course thus asks students to form ethical judgements from a historically situated position. More broadly, it asks students to be attentive to the particular manifestations of long-standing concerns in international ethics such as the tensions between order and justice, necessity and the good.

Prerequisites: A minimum grade of C- in a 200-level course in Political Science. A minimum grade of C- in POLS 264 is recommended.

Permission Required: No

Course: ANTH 497: Topics in Anthropology | The Anthropocene: Past and Present Human Interactions with the Environment
Term: Fall 2026
Section: AS01
Instructor: Dr. Cynthia Zutter

For millennia, humans have evolved and interacted with their environments. Students investigate how humans interrogate their world in the past and today. Topics include connections between human evolution and environmental change, domestication and human cultural evolution, and perceptions of the environment as humans define the Anthropocene.

Prerequisites: Minimum grades of C- in any 300-level ANTH course and one of ANTH 206, ANTH 207, ANTH 208 or ANTH 209

Permission Required: No

Course: POLS 349: Topics in Global Politics | North American Politics in a Global Perspective
Term: Fall 2026
Section: AS01
Instructor: Dr. Daniel Troup

This course examines contemporary US politics, US-Canada relations and global perceptions of North American affairs. It concentrates on the role of electoral competition, ideological rhetoric and media narratives in shaping regional politics. The course prioritizes ongoing political events and examines the applicability of various concepts and theories to them. Accordingly, it aims to further students’ knowledge in the areas of election studies, public opinion analysis, political communication, global media studies and contemporary political thought.

Prerequisites: A minimum grade of C- in POLS 264

Permission Required: No

Course: POLS 390: Topics in Political Science | Justice, Law and Policy
Term: Fall 2026
Section: AS01
Instructor: Dr. Mackenzie Common

This course examines the successes and failures of the law in addressing the most pressing challenges of our time. Anchored in a Canadian context but with global comparisons, it explores how legal institutions structure power, allocate responsibility and pursue justice in complex, pluralistic societies. Rather than treating law as a static body of doctrine, the course approaches law as a problem of institutional design and as a contested site of political struggle and resistance. Students examine the evolution of the common law tradition, the rise of international and regional legal regimes and the development of modern human rights law. Through case studies in emerging technology, corporate accountability, reconciliation and reparations, and climate governance, the course investigates how legal frameworks can both entrench and transform existing power relations.

Prerequisites: Minimum grade of C- in a 200-level course in political science

Permission Required: No

Course: POLS 424: Advanced Topics in Canadian Politics | Here Be Dragons: The Politics of Mega-Constitutionalism
Term: Fall 2026
Section: AS01
Instructor: Dr. Ryan McKinnell

For long stretches of the country’s history, constitutional debates have become entangled with day-to-day politics. In the pre-1960 period, these issues primarily involved the evolution of Canadian federalism, the search for a constitutional amending formula and a concern with rights and freedoms. The introduction of the Charter and Amending Formula broadened the field of salient constitutive actors, yet did little to quell fundamental concerns around competing visions of the purposes of the constitution on both procedural and substantive grounds.

In particular, the Quebec Government’s refusal to sign the Constitution Act, 1982, motivated intensifying attempts at mega-constitutional change, which preoccupied the country for the last decades of the twentieth century. Ultimately, this led to the failure of the Meech Lake and Charlottetown Accords, the fracturing of the federal Progressive Conservative Party and the near breakup of the country with the 1995 Quebec Referendum.

In the aftermath, political actors at the federal and provincial levels concluded it was more optimal to pursue reform on an ad hoc and informal basis. However, the Alberta Government’s intention to submit to a referendum a series of questions on constitutional issues ranging from the Canadian Senate to provincial jurisdiction over immigration and judicial appointments to the public in the fall 2026 heralds the return of mega-constitutionalism to Canadian politics.

In this seminar, we situate and contextualize the key political conflicts and turning points that contributed to shaping the mega-constitutionalism of the previous century and to grasp the historical development, principal ideas and primary debates that form the bases of the Canadian constitutional framework. Our goal is to understand why mega-constitutionalism failed, what lessons can be learned and whether contemporary political actors who seek a constitutional terra incognita risk discovering monsters instead.

Prerequisites: A minimum grade of C- in POLS 225

Permission Required: No

Course: POLS 470: Selected Topics in Comparative Politics | Politics of AI
Term: Fall 2026
Section: AS01
Instructor: Dr. Chong Su Kim

This advanced seminar critically examines artificial intelligence (AI) as a profound political and social force, moving beyond purely technical narratives. We begin by tracing the genealogy and materiality of AI from its cybernetic origins to its role in establishing cloud sovereignty and reinforcing systems of whiteness and imperial aims. The course interrogates the architecture of power, analyzing how AI is central to surveillance capitalism and algorithmic governmentality and how its application accelerates the crisis of democracy.

We critically explore the implications of AI across various domains: its deployment in warfare, focusing on lethal autonomous weapons (LAWS) and techno-biopolitical regimes; the shifting nature of labour, analyzing algorithmic exploitation and precarity in the context of ghost work and capital; and the entrenchment of global inequalities through digital colonialism and the encoding of hegemonic worldviews. We also consider AI’s implications for knowledge production and the university itself. Finally, we turn to practices of reimagination and reorientation, asking whether AI can be remapped toward critical technical practice, rejecting both techno-utopian determinism and fatalism. The core inquiry remains: how does AI fundamentally reshape the concepts of the human, the social and the political?

Prerequisites: A minimum grade of C- in POLS 200

Permission Required: No

Course: POLS 490: Advanced Political Science | Global Environmental Politics
Term: Fall 2026
Section: AS01
Instructor: Dr. Michaela Pedersen-MacNab

The race to solve existential challenges like climate change and biodiversity loss defines this century’s politics. Curiously, progress to solve these global challenges remains slow, incremental and contested. In this course, we investigate how and why global environmental governance evolved from a system focused exclusively on multilateralism to a diverse, complex and multi-level arrangement of institutions, norms and actors; why some global environmental issues have received more attention than others; how various actors have historically defined and apportioned responsibility for global environmental harm; why some international institutions and regimes have proved more effective than others; and ethical trade-offs associated with investing in radical governance and technological solutions to global environmental challenges.

Prerequisites: A minimum grade of C- in POLS 200, POLS 214, POLS 215, POLS 224, POLS 225, POLS 264 and either POLS 244 or POLS 265, or consent of the department

Permission Required: No

Course: ANTH 389: Topics in Anthropology | The Anthropology of Marginalized Groups
Term: Winter 2027
Section: AS01
Instructor: Dr. Franca Boag

This course investigates how anthropology has contributed to research at the margins of society, often described as activist anthropology or public anthropology, that is, studies of people who are systematically excluded from social, economic and political power. Topics explored include ethnographic studies of urban spatial inequalities, of migrant labourers, of "illegal" or undocumented migrants, of houseless people, of those suffering from addiction and of the mentally ill—people in a state of social abandonment.

Prerequisites: A minimum grade of C- in one of ANTH 206, ANTH 207, ANTH 208, or ANTH 209; of these, ANTH 207 is recommended.

Permission Required: No

Course: ANTH 497: Topics in Anthropology | Skeletal Evidence and Social Worlds: Contemporary Bioarchaeology
Term: Winter 2027
Section: AS01
Instructor: Dr. Hugh McKenzie

Bioarchaeology is the field of study that investigates human skeletal remains from archaeological contexts to aid in the reconstruction of past lifeways. So unlike ANTH 390: Human Osteology, which focuses on individual skeletal anatomy, or ANTH 486: Archaeology of Death, which examines cultural practices surrounding death, this course focuses on the excavation and analysis of human skeletal remains to gain insights into past lifeways. We survey contemporary topics in bioarchaeology including but not limited to the following:

• techniques and ethical obligations for the excavation of human skeletal remains
• interpersonal violence, injury and trauma
• social identity and the cultural modification of bodies
• social stratification and organization
• health, disease, diet and nutrition through differential diagnosis and epidemiology
• diet and mobility patterns through the analysis of bone chemistry
• habitual activity patterns
• paleodemography, kinship and biological ancestry

Such topics are considered within both evolutionary and biocultural theoretical frameworks, and we explore the potential of human skeletal remains for investigating larger issues such as the origins of agriculture and social complexity; the effects of urbanization and industrialization; migration and cultural contact; war and conflict; and childhood and social identity.

Prerequisites: A minimum grade of C- in any 300-level ANTH course and one of ANTH 206 or ANTH 209;  ANTH 390 is recommended.

Permission Required: No

Course: ECON 357: Topics in Applied Economics | Introduction to Blockchain Economics
Term: Winter 2027
Section: AS01
Instructor: Emre Inan

This course provides an introduction to blockchain and cryptocurrencies. It explores what blockchain is, how it works, the different types of cryptocurrencies and the principles of distributed ledger technology (DLT). The course examines the economic implications of cryptocurrencies including long-standing issues related to money, payments, trust and financial intermediation as well as regulatory considerations. Students gain insight into how digital currencies are shaping financial markets and payment systems and learn about the advantages of DLT over traditional finance. Emphasis is placed on descriptive analysis, real-world examples and critical evaluation.

Prerequisites: A minimum grade of C- in ECON 101; ECON 281 is recommended.

Permission Required: No

Course: POLS 410: Topics in Political Philosophy | Language and Authority: Technology and Education in a World Without Words
Term: Winter 2027
Section: AS01
Instructor: Dr. Gaelan Murphy

We are living at a time that Hans Jonas described as the “loss of the cosmos” or what George Steiner described as living in a “post-culture.”  This involves, amongst other things, a loss of language. We speak, obviously, but do these words mean anything? And if they don’t—if our words are not our words, but merely my truth, if they don’t say anything about culture, if culture is just a fancy words for entertainment—what does this say about the tie between words and deeds?

This course explores these questions, their relationship to the phenomenon of education, the challenge to education by adoption of technological thinking and the effect this has on our ability to distinguish good from bad.

Authors to be discussed include Hannah Arendt, George Steiner, Walker Percy, Josef Pieper, Jacob Klein, Hans-georg Gadamer, George Grant and Neil Postman. 

Prerequisites: A minimum grade of C- in POLS 214 and POLS 215, or consent of the department.

Permission Required: No

Course: POLS 461: Topics in International Politics | Critical Political Economy
Term: Winter 2027
Section: AS01
Instructor: Dr. Daniel Troup

This course examines economic theories as they relate to the study of power and inequality. It applies and expands upon foundational concepts in political economy in order to deepen students’ understanding of the application of economic theories in commerce and public policy. The course introduces competing perspectives about how economic thought is constructed, challenged, preserved and reformed. It devotes substantial attention to the long-standing effort by critical political economists to simultaneously critique and explain economic affairs. The course primarily aims to introduce students to the advanced application of political economic frameworks mentioned in introductory courses.

Prerequisites: A minimum grade of C- in POLS 264

Permission Required: No

Course: POLS 490: Advanced Political Science | Weaponization of Information
Term: Winter 2027
Section: AS01
Instructor: Dr. Jeffrey Rice

This course examines the politics of knowledge and information in the context of national and international security. Although disinformation campaigns and fake news have garnered significant attention in recent years, especially when used by foreign powers, the act of using information as a tool (or weapon) is not new. In order to better understand the present-day concerns surrounding information and disinformation, this course examines the politicization and weaponization of information in contemporary and historical settings. Some of the core topics covered in the course include the history of state-sponsored propaganda, the role of mass communications in conflict, disinformation campaigns and their impact on electoral integrity, the rise of fake news and conspiracy theories, and seemingly more benign, but no less consequential, topics such as the politics of education and the role of popular culture in creating and perpetuating ideas.

Prerequisites: A minimum grade of C- in POLS 200, POLS 214, POLS 215, POLS 224, POLS 225, POLS 264 and either POLS 244 or POLS 265, or consent of the department.

Permission Required: No

Course: POLS 490: Advanced Political Science | Politics of Memory
Term: Winter 2027
Section: AS02
Instructor: Dr. Chong Su Kim

“Learning from history” or “what the past can teach us” presupposes both a solid line separating the past from the present and the out-there history assuring the stable past with archived lessons waiting to be excavated. While history served as a key architect for nation-state building since the Enlightenment, memories have emerged as a key building-block of post-colonial, -modern, and -truth eras. In recent decades, the politics of memory has been deeply embedded into key political and historical events such as the Holocaust, apartheid, democratic transitions and the war in Ukraine. Politics of memory unearths the past and buries the future while it looks backward to move forward.

This course explores how the politics of memory intervenes in the present and remembers the future and how critical memory reclaims and negotiates the past. This course examines key dimensions of collective memory and its relationship with politics. It visits various mnemonic sites to understand the politics of memory such as commemoration, forgetting, nostalgia, forgiveness, resentment, postmemory, digital memory and multidirectional memory. In this course, students learn how closely politics are intertwined with the mnemonic practices of remembering, forgetting, mourning and commemorating. This course also explores the recent development of the politics of memory in the transnational and digital era.

Prerequisites: A minimum grade of C- in POLS 200, POLS 214, POLS 215, POLS 224, POLS 225, POLS 264 and either POLS 244 or POLS 265, or consent of the department.

Permission Required: No