Classes
(Academic timetable)
(Undergraduate calendar)
听
2025-26 SOSA Special Topics and Issues Course Offerings:
FALL:
SOSA 4012: Special Topics: Rethinking Kinship 鈥� Liesl Gambold听听听听听听听听听听
Wednesdays 8:35 a.m.-11:25 a.m.
This course considers the dynamics at work in the most primary of human interpersonal relationships鈥攌inship. While all cultures have a system for recognizing kin and non-kin and degrees of relatedness, the specifics of those systems have great variability. The purpose of this course is to examine the universal features of kinship and to acquire an understanding of kinship and kin relations in our own society. We will examine how kinship patterns vary throughout the world in order to serve, or maintain, existing social needs. Also, we will consider how people think about kin relations and how these thoughts affect their behavior. Some of the course material is challenging while some is conspicuously simple. Topics such as descent, lineage, incest taboo, the biological vs. social nature of kinship, marriage, and family life will be discussed. We will draw upon ethnographic case studies, folklore, film, government policy, and theoretical texts to examine some of the historical trends of kinship studies. By doing so we will be forced to reevaluate our notion of what constitutes marriage, family, and kinship. While this is an upper division undergraduate course and students are required to have a concrete foundation in Sociology and Social Anthropology to register, we will begin with basics since kinship is not regularly taught in SOSA courses.
SOSA 4001/5001: Quantitative Analysis in the Social Sciences I 鈥� Jonathan Amoyaw
Thursdays 11:35 a.m.-2:25 p.m.
SOSA 4/5001 will introduce students to elementary quantitative data analysis techniques. We will cover some of the most common statistical techniques employed in quantitative research, including tabular and graphical presentation of data, descriptive statistics, bivariate association, the logic of statistical inference, and simple linear regression. Students will learn how to apply these statistical techniques using secondary datasets and Stata. Stata is an integrated data analysis software used for data manipulation, visualization, and statistical analysis. Students will also learn how to evaluate and write quantitative research papers.
SOSA 4003/5003: Contemporary Perspectives in Ethnography 鈥� Liesl Gambold
Tuesdays 8:35 a.m.-11:25 a.m.
This course is not about 鈥渨hat鈥� so much as 鈥渉ow.鈥澨� We ask how ethnographers come to know their objects; which strategies they employ to learn about particular, often foreign, social realities; how they marry theory and method to illuminate specific social situations and processes; and, because ethnography refers not only to a methodology, but also to a way of writing, we ask how ethnographers communicate their knowledge.
Although one of many methodologies employed by contemporary socio-cultural anthropologists, ethnography remains at the center of the discipline.听 (It also has a long and illustrious history in sociology.)听 Taking ethnography as our object allows us to examine the interplay of theory, method and description in anthropological work.听 The way in which these three aspects are intertwined is one of the great strengths of ethnography, but it also makes ethnographies complex.听 The course, then, examines a varied selection of ethnographies, with contrasting theoretical approaches, geographical locations, and substantive problems.听 We consider how, in each, problems are constructed, investigated, analysed and explained.听 How do the authors define the object of study?听 How do they collect information about it?听 How do they use the work of others to help them understand the problems they consider?听 How are ethnographers personally positioned in these processes?听
SOSA 4004/5004: (Advanced) Issues in Economy, Work, and Development 鈥� Liz Fitting
TOPIC: Capitalism and its Discontents: From Dispossession to Re-Commoning
Wednesdays 11:35 a.m.-2:25 p.m.
This seminar explores several key critiques of capitalism found in social theory and social movements. We read and engage critical texts and case studies in anthropology, sociology, and other disciplines in order to unpack concepts connected to past and present configurations of capitalism. Such concepts include accumulation by dispossession, imperialism, neoliberalism, social reproduction, the commons, and different 鈥渇orms鈥� of capitalism, like racial and disaster. 听听Students take up insights, frameworks, and concepts discussed in the readings when writing a final paper on a topic of their choice related to the course content. This is an advanced seminar which means all students must read the assigned texts prior to class, come prepared with points for discussion and questions, and contribute to the discussion.
WINTER:
SOSA 4002/5002: Quantitative Analysis in the Social Sciences I 鈥� Jonathan Amoyaw
Thursdays 11:5 a.m.-2:25 p.m.
SOSA 4002/5002 will cover intermediate statistical methods. We will briefly review the basic statistics discussed in SOSA 4001/5001 and will focus on multiple linear regression, regression diagnostics, and methods that can be used when 鈥渘ormal鈥� assumptions are violated. Attention will also be given to methods for analyzing binary and non-binary categorical variables using Stata. This course is intended to help students engage contemporary social issues with these methods, teach them how to select appropriate methods to answer their own research questions, and prepare them to learn even more specialized techniques.
SOSA 4005/5005: (Advanced) Issues in Social Justice and Inequality 鈥� Martha Radice
TOPIC: Unsettling Whiteness: Racism, Anti-Racism, and Critical Whiteness Studies
Wednesdays 11:35 a.m.-2:25 p.m.
The field of Critical Whiteness Studies emerged to recognize that whiteness is embedded in systems of racialization as much as any other construction of 鈥榬ace鈥�. This seminar investigates the invention, evolution, and continuation of whiteness as a social category with real-world effects. We will explore historical and contemporary formations of whiteness, with an emphasis on relationality (whiteness in relation to other categories) and materiality (the material manifestations or consequences of whiteness) in the ongoing colonial conjuncture in Canada and elsewhere. We will discuss how whiteness is implicated in racism and racial capitalism, as well as projects and practices of anti-racism.
SOSA 4006/5006 鈥� (Advanced) Issues in Critical Health Studies 鈥� Fiona Martin
TOPIC: Systems of Care and Social Inequality
Wednesdays 2:35 p.m.-5:25 p.m.
That health is fundamentally shaped by income, education, working conditions and other socio-economic factors located outside the healthcare system is widely accepted and understood. But social inequalities also determine the 鈥渟ocial architecture鈥� 鈥� configurations of resources and cultures鈥� within health and related 鈥渟ystems of care.鈥� In this class, we will explore why this is the case, why existing social inequalities so often determine who gets what kind of care and when, even in public healthcare systems. The focus will be on the North American context, and on key areas of healthcare provision: obstetrics, palliative care, mental health and addiction treatment.
SOSA 4018: Special Topics: Criminal Justice Reform 鈥� Chris Giacomantonio
Wednesdays 11:35 a.m.-2:25 p.m.
In this course, we examine contemporary issues in Canadian criminal justice, such as policing, gendered violence, punishment, and drug use. We critically analyze the current state of public policy as well as alternative approaches to crime and harm prevention. We will investigate the principles and techniques of public policy development, implementation, and evaluation in the criminal justice system. The course will be based in interactive discussions and weekly debates on key policy challenges and will hone analytical and communication skills that SOSA majors are likely to use in their careers.
SOSA 4019: Special Topics: Global Readings in Queer and Trans Ethnography 鈥� Mathew Gagn茅
Mondays 2:35 a.m.-5:25 p.m.
In this course, students will engage with a series of ethnographic texts related to queerness and transness across cultural contexts. In doing so, we'll learn how scholars have tackled the important questions in queer and trans theory and social sciences while reading about the vastly different ways that queer and trans people around the world have forged socio-sexual life and community among challenging, marginalizing circumstances. By paying attention to the lived realities and the diverse social, economic, political, and cultural conditions queer and trans people face globally, we'll study both the diversity of sexual life around the world and how queer and trans people have faced challenges and grasped power while banding together to invent possibilities for living together within their respective worlds.听