Fall 2023 Graduate Geography Timetable

The below timetable is subject to change.  

Courses marked with an asterisk (*) are offered through affiliated departments. Please contact the host department for enrolment instructions.  

Geography & Planning students have priority enrolment for geography, courses are available online via ACORN starting on August 2, 2023. Course enrolment for students from other departments is available online via ACORN on August 25, 2023.

The department does not require any forms from students outside the department – if space is available students are welcome to enroll using ACORN. If space is not available, students can add themselves to a waitlist (if there is no waitlist in ACORN it means the course is not open to students outside Geography & Planning).   

Students can access course materials on Quercus.  

Building locations for STG can be found on the STG campus map. 

Fall session courses begin on September 11, 2023 and end on December 8, 2023.

Course Descriptions 

GGR1105H - MA Core Course  

This course will feature a discussion of a number of issues pertaining to what life is like as an academic and some of the related skills and experiences that go along with it (e.g., the tenure process, journal peer review processes, tips on how to publish journal articles, research collaboration, conference presentations, teaching, the academic job market, relationship between academia and the wider world, public intellectualism, theoretical versus applied work, etc.). In addition, it will include engagement with non-academic career trajectories, including how skills and experiences from graduate school can contribute to (or hinder?) success in policy deliberations, activism, government and non-profit work, etc. It will also encompass an overview of non-profit work, major debates in the field, and of theory and explanation in geography. The course incorporates a workshop on proposal writing or research statement element for MA students. 

GGR1110H - PhD Core Course: Geographic Thought and Practice 

How do geographers go about addressing the challenges and problems of the world? How does the wider context (social, institutional, environmental….geographical!) shape the kinds of issues geographers examine, how these issues are framed, and how they are addressed? How do broad intellectual currents influence the work that is done in geography (and vice versa), and how do we understand the relationships between the broad intellectual currents and the “world out there”? Consistent with current emphasis in critical geography, all geographers, whether explicit or not, are using both theory and so politics in their work, along with some implicit or explicit problem statement in framing what they look at and what are they trying to explain. Even the choice of phenomena to examine is a political choice. Thinking carefully about these issues helps to understand the relationship between scholarship (geographical or otherwise) and the “real world”, while at the same time facilitating reflexive and careful consideration of research topics and approaches. This is, in our view, preferable to relying uncritically on policy or academic discourses and their prevailing theories, debates, questions, and approaches. 

GGR1200H - Physical Geography Core Course 

This is a mandatory core course for all first year physical geography (MSc and PhD) graduate students. The main objective is to introduce students to successful approaches in graduate school and for conducting scientific research. Specifically, topics will include: fellowship application, literature review, experimental design, presentation skills, proposal preparation, and disseminating scientific research. It also will provide an overview of physical geography as a discipline and include guest presentations by members of each of the four newly established physical geography research clusters. The course will foster intellectual interactions and build support within student cohorts and include mandatory attendance at departmental and university seminar series. Doctoral students who completed their Master’s in Physical Geography in this department and who took this course as a Master’s student are exempted from taking this course as part of their doctoral course work. Following discussion between student, supervisor, and the Associate Chair, Graduate, exemption from this course may also be granted to certain PhD students who have taken an equivalent course as part of their MSc program. 

GGR1216H - Advanced Biogeochemical Processes 

Biogeochemistry explores the intersection of biological, chemical, and geological processes that shape the environment. In an era of unprecedented human-induced environmental and climate change, research in this field is advancing rapidly. This seminar course explores the biogeochemical cycles of major and trace elements including carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, sulfur and mercury, and examines how humans alter these cycles resulting in many of the environmental issues we are faced with today, such as eutrophication, climate change, ocean acidification and pollution by toxic contaminants. Additionally, the course focuses on the mechanisms controlling biogeochemical processes at local to global scales, including interactions between abiotic and biotic factors, such as climate, redox conditions, microbial metabolism and ecology. Topics covered include biogeochemical processes in the atmosphere (e.g., aerosols-ecosystems productivity interactions, black carbon), aquatic ecosystems (e.g., redox controls on sediment P release in eutrophic lakes) and terrestrial environments (e.g., soil respiration of legacy carbon in thawing permafrost), as well as some of the emerging techniques (e.g., stable-isotopes, -omics, paleo-proxies) used in biogeochemistry. Exclusion: GGR406H (UTM). 

GGR1822H - Queer Geographies 

Queer “is about messing things up, creating disorder and disruptive commotion within the normative arrangements of bodies, things, spaces and institutions” (Manalansan, 2015: 567). In this course, we will explore queer in this manner – as mess maker, disruptive force, and sanctuary for social difference. Though formal legal equality for LGBT people has been achieved in some countries around the world, homophobia and transphobia persist everywhere. So do heteronormativity (the privileging of certain heterosexual or ‘straight’ subjects over others) and homonormativity (the privileging of some homosexual or ‘queer’ subjects over others). We will explore queer thought as spatial thought, especially via its connections to postcolonial, critical race, and feminist theories. We will consider how dynamics of race, gender, class, colonialism, and geopolitics are central to expressions of sexual politics, and how queer theory and social movements build frameworks for social and spatial justice.   

GGR1911H - Remote Sensing 

This graduate course is offered to graduate students of diverse backgrounds, and therefore it does not require prior training in remote sensing. Similar to GGR337, the emphasis of this course is on the basic concepts and skills in using remote sensing data. However, graduate students are expected to learn additional skills in using remote sensing imagery for environmental research, as a way to encourage you to use remote sensing techniques for your graduate research. Environmental remote sensing has been an increasingly exciting subject as many new satellite sensors have been successfully launched and many are still forthcoming. The unprecedented abundance of earth observation data will allow us to address many pressing environmental issues. This course will cover the basics of using remote sensing data for environmental studies. In addition to learning the basic concepts, terminology, and theories of remote sensing science and applications, students will have the opportunity to acquire hand-on experience in digital image processing using the image analysis system ArcGIS. A series of laboratory works are designed with detailed instructions to lead the students through the key steps in processing satellite images and in extracting quantitative information about the Earth’s surface. Exclusion: GGR337H (STG), GGR437H (UTM), GGR1912H. 

JPG1507H - Housing Markets and Housing Policy Analysis 

The objective of this course is to provide an opportunity for in-depth analyses of housing, as both product and process, and to apply these analyses to concrete housing situations and current policy and planning problems. Two principal themes are emphasized: 1) assessments of changes in the structural and spatial dimensions of housing demand and supply, and alternative modes of housing provision; and 2) evaluations of housing policies and programs and their relationships to social and economic policies and urban planning. The latter will be undertaken primarily through the discussion of case studies of specific problems and policy issues, the former through a review of basic concepts on housing in the first few weeks of class. 

JPG1516H - Urban Problems 

Much of planning and urban thought more generally is implicitly or explicitly oriented around the idea of growth—growth allows cities to be managerial, gives them room for error, salves intra-constituency squabbles, etc. In the face of decline, the most common planning or urban theoretical response is to engage in economic development (that is, to reignite growth). But what about those cities (or sections of otherwise growing cities) that have declined in population or resources and remained healthy, pleasant, places to live? Can we learn something from their experience that allows us to rethink the way that cities decline, or what the professional response to it should be? What about those cities, conversely which retain an infrastructure footprint that was intended for a much larger city? Can they be downsized in a planned way? If so, what would such an effort (mobilizing the state to sponsor planned decline) mean for the bulk of urban theory that suggests that it is the state’s role to reignite growth?   

JPG1616H - The Cultural Economy 

This course examines the so-called “cultural turn” in economic geography, often referred to as “the new economic geography”. We will begin by considering various ways of theorizing the relationship between culture and economy. After reflecting upon the historical antecedents of contemporary understandings of this relationship, we will explore selected themes in the cultural economy literature such as cultural industries, consumption, economic discourse, work cultures, governmentality and commodity chains/actor networks. 

JPG1820H - Disability, Ableism and Place

 What is disability? What is ableism? What is everyday life like for disabled people (and why haven’t I used the phrase “persons with disability” here)? What does it mean to think about disability intersectionally (what is intersectional ableism)? What is the relationship between disability rights and justice? Where and how do “place” and “time” enter this conversation? How have disability and ableism been produced and sustained by geography and planning (scholarship, education and practice)? These are just some of the questions we will engage in this course. We will begin by working through the ontological and epistemological debates about disability and ableism. From there, we move closer to the everyday lives of persons with disabilities (why am I using “persons with disability” now?). We will spend time considering what it means to “decolonize” disability studies. We will make use of published academic works, and other forms of media including documentary film, podcasts, legacy print media. You will spend time in the field exploring the issue of rights, justice, accessibility standards and compliance. Guest speakers, situated within a diverse set of fields, academic, and practice-based settings, will join us to talk about their research, and their relationship to disability, ableism, and place. You will be challenged to critically consider what disability and ableism are, the ways in which regions, cities and institutions disable, and how you relate to disability and ableism in your everyday life.