Fall 2019

Winter 2020

Course Descriptions:

GGR1105H – MA Geography Core Course

The course will feature 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.The main difference between GGR 1105H and GGR 1110H is in the reading load but also the contrast in specific goals. Specifically, GGR 1110H emphasizes critical reading and thinking drawing on contemporary texts by or relevant to geographers, discussion of readings and the role of theory and evidence in explanation, and perhaps also paying explicit attention to different writing styles. GGR 1105H is more of a wide ranging course but with some emphasis on practical survival tips for academic and related spheres of life. 

GGR1110H – PhD Geography Core Course

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

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.

GGR1217H – The Climate of the Arctic

High latitude environments are becoming the focus of increasing scientific attention because of their role in global environmental change. The implications of changes occurring to the sea ice and snow cover are far reaching and can have impacts on physical, biological and human systems both within and beyond the region. This course will provide a comprehensive examination of climates of high latitudes. Topics that will be covered include the Arctic energy budget and atmospheric circulation, the hydrologic cycle in the Arctic, the ocean-sea ice-climate interactions and feedbacks, modelling the Arctic climate system as well as an evaluation of recent climate variability and trends. Exclusion: GGR484H (UTM). 

GGR1408H – Carbon Free Energy

The course examines the options available for providing energy from carbon-free energy sources: solar, wind, biomass, hydro, oceanic, and geothermal energy, as well as through sequestration of carbon from fossil fuel sources. The hydrogen economy is also discussed. For each carbon-free energy source, the physical principles, physical or biophysical limits, efficiencies, and other constraining factors are discussed, as well as examples of current applications, current and projected future costs, and possible future scenarios. The course concludes by combining the main conclusions for JPG 1407H concerning the prospects for reducing energy demand through improved energy efficiency, with the conclusions drawn in this course concerning the feasibility of large-scale carbon-free energy, to generate scenarios of future greenhouse gas emissions, showing the range of possible consequences for global mean temperature, sea level rise, and ocean acidification. Exclusion: GGR1406H; GGR348H

GGR1916H – Remote Sensing of Vegetation Traits and Function

This course is offered in conjunction with GGR414H Advanced Remote Sensing. Building on GGR337H1 Environmental Remote Sensing (also offered as a graduate course GGR1911H), which covers the basic theories and techniques of optical and microwave remote sensing of the land surface, GGR1916H introduces advanced theories and techniques for land cover mapping, retrieval of vegetation structural and physiological traits, and remote sensing of vegetation light use efficiency and photosynthetic capacity. Diagnostic ecosystem models will also be introduced for terrestrial water and carbon cycle estimation using remote sensing data. Optical instruments for measuring vegetation structural parameters in the field will be demonstrated, and high-resolution remote sensing images acquired from a drone system will be used as part of the teaching material and lab assignments. For GGR1916H additional lectures will be offered on basic radiative transfer theories as applied to remote sensing of vegetation traits and function. Exclusion: GGR414H.

JGE1425H – Livelihood, Poverty & Development

The livelihoods of the rural (and in some cases the urban) poor in the developing world are closely connected to the environment. Hundreds of millions of people, including many indigenous and other traditional peoples, rely directly upon natural resources, at least in part, for their subsistence and often, also, for market income. For many of them, access to such resources is a matter of survival-of life or death, a way of life, or the hope for a better future for them or for their children. Although the livelihoods of these peoples are sometimes regarded as having a negative impact on the environment, more recently, many of them are being heralded as models for biodiversity conservation and sustainable resource. A better understanding of how the rural (and urban) poor make a living -their livelihoods- is considered key to addressing issues of poverty and sustainable resource use, and also for environmental change mitigation and adaptation. This course seeks to develop an understanding of livelihoods among the poor in developing countries, with a focus on how assets, social relations and institutions shape livelihood opportunities in the present and into the future. More broadly, attention will be paid to the ways in which livelihoods are connected to the environment, but also to economic and political processes, with an eye to gain insight on their potential for poverty alleviation, sustainable resource use, and environmental change mitigation/adaptation. The course will also explore emerging areas of inquiry in livelihoods research. 

JPG1400H – Advanced Quantitative Methods

Spatial Analysis consists of set of techniques used for statistical modeling and problem solving in Geography. As such, it plays an integral role in the detection of spatial processes and the identification of their causal factors. It is therefore a key component in one’s preparation for applied or theoretical quantitative work in GIScience, Geography, and other cognate disciplines. Space, of course, is treated explicitly in spatial analytical techniques, and the goal of many methods is to quantify the substantive impact of location and proximity on human and environmental processes in space.

JPG1426H – Natural Resources, Differences & Conflict

This course is concerned with the ways in which natural resource policies governing use, access, and control of resources are imbued with and reproduce conflict. Through a variety of case studies and theoretical engagements (feminist, postcolonial, anti-racist, Marxist, post-humanist), this course examines how natural resource conflicts are shaped by multiple kinds of power. In this course we discuss how such contests are more than political economic struggles. Through attention to the entanglements of environment, difference and struggle, a core aim of this seminar is to interrogate what is given and taken-for-granted within dominant narratives, instruments and institutions shaping land and territorial demarcation, water access and distribution, livelihood (in)security, oil and mineral extraction, biodiversity conservation, and struggles over urban citizenship. While this course looks to make visible how states and elites shape space through natural resource control, simultaneously, it attends to how people and their communities work to defend and remake their lives and livelihoods in the face of displacement and dispossession. 

JPG1511H – The Commons: Geography, Planning, Politics

Over the past two decades, “the commons” has increasingly become the subject of contestation in planning practices and conceptual framings. Approaches have alternately emphasized the need to privatization; regulation and collective management of public goods; to the commons as a co-production. Once thought to pertain exclusively to the purview of environmental planning and management of resources through common property regimes, discussions about the commons now inform a wide range of planning practices. Taken up equally by organizations such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund as a supplement to structural adjustment policies on the one hand, and the World Social Forum as a challenge to accumulation by dispossession, privatization and deregulation on the other, the idea of “commons”, “commoning” and the “commonwealth” frame discussions over the organization and control of collective resources now expanding well beyond historical origins in rural areas and their enclosure to a wide range of diverse practices in urban regions. Debates about the regulation – or destruction — of the commons extend from management of farmland, conservation of wilderness and water to planning of libraries, public urban spaces and intellectual property. The readings will first focus on a conceptual table setting across a spectrum of divergent frameworks from mainstream through critical political economy, anti-racist and indigenous scholarship. In the second section, we will explore normative assumptions including questions of property/territory; construction of subjectivity; ethical framings and regulatory practices. Finally, we will conclude with an exploration of examples of commoning in practice, from historical origins in feudal practices of commoning through conservation to emerging discourses on the urban commons.

JPG1516H – Declining Cities

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?

JPG1518H – Sustainability & Communities

This course focuses on sustainability and communities and neighbourhoods in cities in North America and Europe, with some exploration of examples of community-based sustainability in cities in the global south. The intention of this course is to examine academic and policy discussion on urban sustainability and the contemporary context and future of urban communities, and will address socio-political dimensions of urban sustainability found in human geography and urban planning literatures, rather than focusing on physical or technical applications of sustainability principles. 

JPG1525H – Urban, Regional and Community Economic Development

This course surveys urban, regional, and community economic development theories and planning practices, with a focus on North America in comparative perspective. Coverage includes orthodox and neoclassical theories from economic geography, urban economics, and political science/sociology, which provide the rationale for people-centric, place-based, and institutionally-oriented economic development plans and policies. Heterodox and community-oriented alternatives are also examined. Using real-life cases, we review cluster strategies, enterprise zones/districts, labour and capital  relocation incentives, regional and anchor institution strategies, workforce development systems, community benefit agreements, living wage policies, local hiring/procurement preferences, and community/cooperative ownership models. 

JPG1617H – Organization of Economies & Cities

This is a course about the urban economy. The emphasis is on understanding how agency (initiative) leads political actors in a state to make possible the conditions that give rise to an urban economy. I review and re-interpret fundamental models that explain how the operation of markets in equilibrium shapes the scale and organization of the commercial city in a mixed market economy within a liberal state. The course reviews classic models of the urban economy that are based on the work of Alonso, DiPasquale & Wheaton, Getz, Herbert & Stevens, Hurd, Lowry, Mills, Muth, Ripper & Varaiya, and Schlager, among others. The antecedents to these models can be traced back to the work of Andrews, Beckmann, Christaller, Clark, Cooley, Haig, Leontief, Polanyi, Power, Reilly, Thünen, Samuelson, and Tiebout. These models assume appurtenant property, contract, and civil rights. As befits the liberal state, such models also presume that individuals and firms are purposeful and have autonomy in these markets. These models raise questions about how and when does governance enable and facilitate markets, autonomy, and the urban economy in this way. Overall, the perspective of this course is that it is helpful to see governance (and hence the urban economy) as outcomes negotiated by political actors motivated by competing notions of commonwealth and aggrandizement. 

JPG1809H – Spaces of Work

This course will introduce students to Marxist, feminist, anticolonial and intersectional perspectives on ‘work’ in the twenty-first century. A key intention of this course is to prompt students to examine what forms of work – and also whose work – has been taken into account in geographical scholarship and to explore a number of prominent debates concerning labour, work and employment within geography over the last three decades. In doing so we will engage with foundational political economy texts on the relations of labour under capitalism, and texts within geography and sociology on work, labour, place and space. We will also examine a number of broad economic and cultural shifts in the nature of contemporary work and employment such as de-industrialization, the feminization of labour markets and service sector work, neoliberalization and the rise of the ‘precariat’. At the same time, students will be prompted to consider critiques of some of these ‘transformational’ narratives to probe the colonial, patriarchal, and capitalist continuities shaping the contours of contemporary work. In this sense this is not an exhaustive course on labour and work in geography, but rather a series of discrete introductions to key scholarly arguments about work, often followed by a range of responses to those arguments in the following week. The course will touch on a broad range of topics, including unfree labour, labour organizing, precarious employment and social reproductive work which are tied together by four overarching themes that run through the course – value, identity, agency and justice. Overall this course aims to give students the chance to explore not only how work has been conceptualized and studied in geography, but how it could be. 

JPG1906H – Geographic Information Systems

This course provides an intensive introduction to fundamental geographic information system (GIS) theory, as well as practical, hands-on experience with state-of-the-art software. The course is designed to accommodate students from a variety of research backgrounds, and with no previous GIS experience. The goal is to provide students with a theoretical understanding of spatial data and analysis concepts, and to introduce the practical tools needed to create and manage spatial data, perform spatial analysis, and communicate results including (but not limited to) the form of a well-designed map. Assignments require the use of the ArcInfo version of ESRI’s ArcGIS software and extensions, and are designed to encourage proper research design, independent analysis, and problem solving. By the end of the course, successful students should be able to apply what they have learned to their own research, to learn new functions on their own, and have the necessary preparation to continue in more advanced GIS courses should they wish to do so. Classes consist of a two hour lecture each week, which integrate live software demonstrations to illustrate the linkages between theory and practice. Exclusions: GGR272H, GGR273H, GGR373H, any previous GIS coursework. 

PG2150H – Special Topics: The Geography & Planning of Climate Action and Activism

UPDATED: In the face of growing concerns around the climate crisis and its immediate and long-term impacts on our planet, organizations focused on activism and action have mushroomed locally and globally – from the very local scale to the international scale. The course builds on an initial panel discussion featuring ten key organizations that are locally engaged in climate activism. The purpose of this course is to introduce students to range of tools critical to successful mobilization (both within and outside of the state). The course draws on a range of scholarly literature on effective strategies of social mobilization – from geography, planning and cognate disciplines — as well as a range resources from social movement organizations. Though focused on questions of climate activism in the Canadian context we often incorporate lessons learned from other kinds of social movements in other locales. Students will be encouraged to focus on context dependent appraisals of the challenges and opportunities afforded by different approaches to mobilization around the climate crisis. The course will kick off with a 3-hour panel on Friday Sept 13th from 3pm – 6pm at Innis College Town Hall. Ten climate organizations will present their strategies, success stories and upcoming challenges. Throughout the course students will be invited to reflect on insights from readings in relation to these and other local organizing efforts. 

JPG1812Y – Planning for Change

Planning for Change is a year-long course (Y) comprised of seminars, readings, films, discussion, writing, reflection and the completion of a major project designed by and for a community organization. Students will have the opportunity to gain an in-depth, reflective experience in the field of community development. The course is based on successful models of service-learning courses at other institutions. Service learning, as a pedagogical practice, aims to unite what often appear to be divisive realms of theory and practice by providing analytical tools to connect academic and community development work. Service-learning aims to create an educational space where work is done for community organizations with students based on the self-identified needs of the community. Students are challenged to reflect on the work they are doing and the context in which service is provided. Planning/Geography education and service-learning are in many ways an ideal partnership. A service-learning course in the graduate program at the University of Toronto opens a way for students to gain hands-on experience in the field of community development.

EES1119H – Quantitative Environmental Analysis

This course provides an introduction to the field of ecological statistics. Students will become familiar with several methods of statistical analysis of categorical and multivariate environmental data. The course will provide a comprehensive presentation of the methods: analysis of variance, regression analysis, structural equation modeling, ordination (principal component & factor analysis) and classification (cluster & discriminant analysis) methods, and basic concepts of Bayesian analysis. Emphasis will be placed on how these methods can be used to identify significant cause-effect relationships, detect spatiotemporal trends, and assist environment management by elucidating ecological patterns (e.g., classification of aquatic ecosystems based on their trophic status, assessment of climate variability signature on ecological time series, landscape analysis). The course will consist of 2 hr-lectures/tutorials where the students will be introduced to the basic concepts of the statistical methods and 2-hr lab exercises where the students will have the opportunity to get hands-on experience in statistical analysis of environmental data. Enrollment in this course is managed by the Department of Physical & Environmental Sciences.

EES1128H – Biophysical Interactions in Managed Environments

This course will focus on biophysical interactions at the advanced level, incorporating specialized concepts on plant-soil relationships, biogeochemical cycles, and ecosystem functioning in managed forests and agriculture. Students will be provided the opportunity to engage with course topics in seminar, field and laboratory format. Sampling and analytical techniques covered are in-situ soil and leaf-level gas exchange analysis, soil sampling, preparation and elemental analysis, and quantification of plant metrics. By the end of this course, students will have an understanding of the complexities and dynamics in managed environments, specifically ecosystem structure and function, soil fluxes including decomposition and mineralization processes, plant growth and nutrition, and production-diversity relationships. Enrollment in this course is managed by the Department of Physical & Environmental Sciences.

ENV1103H – The U of T Campus as a Living Lab of Sustainability

Sustainability is a growing priority for universities all over the world. Many are developing strong operational sustainability goals and targets, and are giving increasing emphasis to teaching and research on sustainability issues. Yet few have committed at the executive level to integrating academic and operational sustainability in the context of treating their campus as a living laboratory of sustainable practice, research and teaching. Such living lab approaches offer a large potential for universities to play a significant role in the sustainability transition. This course will explore and apply the living lab concept, in the context of operational sustainability at the University of Toronto. We will begin by looking briefly at the literature on university sustainability and the living lab concept. The bulk of the course will involve undertaking an applied research project on some aspect of campus sustainability, working in close partnership with operational staff at the University of Toronto. Students will develop the skills needed to work across disciplines and fields of study, and with non-academic partners. Enrollment in this course is managed by the School for the Environment.

GGR1216H – Advanced Biogemochemical 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 GGR406H5. 

GGR1218H – Open Source Methods in Physical Geography

Quantitative research in physical geography and the earth sciences has increasingly relied on custom, open-source coding solutions in programming languages such as R and MATLAB in order to efficiently mine large datasets and analyse and visualise spatiotemporal phenomena. This course provides hands-on, workshop-based training in two of the most widely used programming languages in the geosciences, R and MATLAB. The workshops will focus on applications of data mining, exploration and management; working with self-describing, multi-dimensional data formats (e.g., NetCDF); publication-quality figures and data visualisation; statistical analysis; linear regression modelling; time-series and signal processing; and mapping. Students will complete four assignments to hone their coding and problem-solving skills, and a final project that applies these skills to their research. This course is specifically aimed at students with little to no coding experience. Students interested in taking this course are strongly encouraged to contact the professor before the start of the semester to discuss your motivations in taking the course and research interests so that lessons can be customised to the broad interests of the class as much as possible.

GGR1411H – Nature and Justice in the Anthropocene

The current ecological crisis is calling into question our ways of being human and of relating to the rest of the world. The course addresses the challenge of rethinking nature-society relations and issues of justice in the Anthropocene. It asks whether the concept of the Anthropocene and its variants, helps power (or not) emancipatory politics and visions for future that socially just and ecologically abundant. We will draw from Indigenous ontologies, Environmental Justice movements, transition discourses, and aspirations for “living well” as well as contemporary theories of affect, more-than-human geographies and new materialism to query and reimagine nature-society entanglements. Topics covered include: environmental thought and activism, Environmental and Climate Justice movements, post-capitalist economic imaginaries and transition discourses.

GGR1422H – The Geography of Urban Air Pollution

This course will examine current local to global issues of urban air pollution. Topics covered will include understanding sources of air pollution, human health effects and study designs, stages of urban development and air pollution, mitigation approaches, global challenges and current air pollution issues by region. Measurement technologies and their applications, including low-cost sensors and regulatory grade instrumentation will be explored. Students will apply tools for spatial and temporal modelling of urban air pollution including dispersion modelling, spatial interpolation, remote sensing and land use regression modelling.

JPG1111H – Research Practice in Geography

This course provides students with an opportunity to develop or advance their understanding of social research methods through in-depth examination of research approaches, design, ethics, rigour, and a range of qualitative and some quantitative methods. Specific methods covered in the course include on-one-one interviews, focus groups, surveys, as well as emerging methods (e.g., photo voice, go-along interviews). The course also covers cross-cultural and Indigenous approaches to research. The goals of the course will be to provide students with the knowledge needed to effectively evaluate research, understand the process of research design, formulate research questions, and develop a research proposal. 

JPG1120H – Advanced Qualitative Research

This course arises out of the interest of doctoral students in Planning and Geography who desire to acquire rigorous qualitative research skills that would complement their research interests, assist in developing their dissertation proposals, and contribute to preparation for a career as educators and scholars in academia and beyond. The primary concern is to develop a deep understanding of a range of qualitative research methods and their epistemological foundations, with an emphasis on ethnographic approaches. Readings and discussions will be oriented to developing a philosophical understanding of the epistemology and ontology of knowledge so that students can develop a critical approach to research design. Readings reflect an understanding that doctoral planning and geography students commonly conduct ethnographic research in international settings, which requires an ability to read and interpret complex meanings, as well as attend to the politics of knowledge production and representation. The course will also address basic qualitative research methods, such as interviews and discourse analysis, and approaches to analysis (including the use of qualitative analysis software) – with a focus on critical approaches to knowledge production and researchers’ positionality. The course is organized as a seminar with a heavy emphasis on collective analysis of course materials, and each student’s involvement in writing reflections and classroom discussions on a weekly basis. 

JPG1428H – Managing Urban Ecosystems

This reading seminar focuses on the different ways people interact with and manage urban ecosystems. The course begins by exploring the characterization of cities as ecosystems. We will then examine the socio-ecological research and management goals that draw on and build from an urban ecosystem perspective. Management of urban climates, hydrology, and vegetation will be explored. The role of municipal policy, built form, residents and other key actors will be examined in-depth. Throughout the course, issues associated with bridging knowledge gaps between the social and natural sciences, unique characteristics of urban ecosystems, and the role of individual decision-makers will be considered. This course is taught at UTM campus with a video link to STG campus. 

JPG1429H – Political Ecology of Food and Agriculture

Agrifood systems, connecting production and consumption, markets and various types of agrarian labour, are undergoing profound social and ecological change. Among these developments are large-scale land grabs, the financialization of food and farming, challenges to settler agriculture and the resurgence of indigenous food systems, the emergence of robust ‘urban’ and ‘rural’ alternatives to industrial and colonial agriculture. In trying to make sense of these changes, and the various social movements that have emerged in their wake, this course deploys the related paradigms of agrarian political economy and political ecology to analyze the forces and social relations that define land-based and food-focused transformations, both historically and in the contemporary moment. The course examines the often forgotten roots of contemporary debates in political ecology and food, that is, the enduring agrarian question. The agrarian question examines the extent to which capital has transformed agricultural production and the degrees to which producers have been able to resist dispossession and the industrialization and capitalization of agriculture. The course starts with foundational perspectives on the agrarian question from the early 20th century before discussing the renaissance of these debates in the 1970s and 1980s and the emergence during this time of political ecology as a critical approach to the study of food and land-based practices. Updating these earlier debates the course tackles a number of defining contemporary developments, as noted above, that are reshaping the meaning and character of land and food. 

JPG1502H – Cities of Global South

In this course we will critically examine “global urbanism” while paying explicit attention to how cities of global South have been studied, understood and depicted in global urban research. In the past two decades, influential policymakers have promulgated the “global cities” paradigm, which frames 21st century urbanism in global terms. According to the “global cities” paradigm “global” cities of the North, such as New York, London and Tokyo are at the pinnacle of globalization. In contrast, cities of the global South are consistently portrayed as “mega” cities that are disorderly, polluted, chaotic, ungovernable, and marked by infrastructure collapse. In short, cities of the global South are mega cities with mega problems. In this course we will begin by examining policy-oriented as well as academic literature in order to understand how the global cities paradigm was given coherence and propagated across the world.

JPG1503H – Space, Time, Revolution

This graduate seminar examines the relations between critical spatio-temporal and socio-spatial thought and new conceptions of radical politics. Its references are twofold: on the one hand, it surveys the recent attempts of such thinkers as Alain Badiou, Slavoj Zizek, Daniel Bensaïd, Jacques Rancière, Giorgio Agamben, Bruno Bosteels and Peter Hallward to re-theorize revolution in the face of global liberaldemocratic hegemony; on the other hand, it interrogates their conceptions of ‘event’, ‘situation’, ‘dissensus’, ‘exception’ and ‘communism’ in the historical court of actual revolutionary experiences produced by anti-colonial and socialist politics, especially at such moments as 1789, 1791-1803, 1848, 1871, 1917, 1949, 1968. The readings for this course will therefore draw on both contemporary theoretical texts and classic accounts of revolutionary subjectivity that highlight its spatio-temporal and socio-spatial dimensions, in the vein of Kristin Ross’s The Emergence of Social Space: Rimbaud and the Paris Commune as much as Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth.

JPG1504H – Institutionalism & Cities

This course focuses on the role of institutions in shaping processes of urban change, governance and planning. The premise of the course is that cities are extraordinarily densely institutionalized spaces, and that the formal study of institutions, and processes of institutional continuity and change will be productive for both planners and urban geographers. The course reviews the New Institutionalist literature in Political Science, Sociology, Economic Geography, and Planning Studies, with a focus on Historical Institutionalist concepts, and develops a conceptual framework for the application of institutionalist theory to urban space. The claim is that an understanding of institutions is revealing of power dynamics in urban governance, is valuable for understanding urban governance and planning in international comparative perspective, and provides a valuable perspective on urban property systems.

JPG1506H – State/Space/Difference

With the global rise of right-wing populism, many nations in the west are witnessing a resurgence of the constitution of difference as alterity, manifest in heightened racism, sexism, anti-immigrant sentiment and other oppressive constructions as populist governments and movements promote a hardening of borders, and a construction of a sense of ‘a people’ mobilized against difference. In this course we investigate the re-emerge of right-wing populism with a particular focus on its normalization of difference as alterity, and the mobilization of alterity in the constitution of a body politic. But populism is a contested concept. Is populism an ideology, discourse, a political logic, or a style? Is the contemporary rise in right wing populism different from its antecedents? What is its relationship to totalitarianism? In this course we will investigate different conceptual framings of populism (and its sister concepts) as articulated through the lens of key theorists (Arendt, Laclau and Mouffe, Taggart, Gramsci, Deleuze and Guattari, Butler and others); its relationship to authoritarianism and fascism; its particular geographies, and some of its histories, expressed in varied contemporary dynamics in the United States and Europe; and modes of contestation.

JPG1507H – Housing Markets & 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. 

JPG1520H – Contested Geographies of Class-Race Formation

How are spatial, racial, and class inequalities produced and contested in mutually constituted ways? Why are class inequalities always spatial and racial inequalities? We begin with two theorists who have had an enormous influence on writings on class: Karl Marx and Pierre Bourdieu (a third, Antonio Gramsci, will be considered through Stuart Hall). We follow this with key writings in the geographical traditions by Ruthie Gilmore, David Harvey, and Doreen Massey. I give priority to the race-class-power nexus through the work of Stuart Hall, Frantz Fanon, C L R James, Cedric Robinson, W E B Du Bois, and a number of exciting and relevant monographs.

JPG1554H – Transportation & Urban Form

The need to reduce automobile dependence and congestion has been argued widely in recent years, and urban form has been identified as a major aspect influencing choice of travel mode. The combined imperatives of sustainability, healthier cities, and worsening congestion has prompted an increasingly rich body of research on the relationships between urban form, transport infrastructure, and travel patterns, and an array of new methodological approaches to research them. This course critically examines this research and examines planning strategies that seek to influence travel through coordinated transport investment and land use and design control. Both regional and neighbourhood scale issues and strategies will be addressed. The geographic focus of the course will largely be metropolitan regions in Canada and the United States, but there will be opportunity to examine other national contexts. 

JPG1558H – The History and Geography of Cycles and Cycling

The presence of cycling in cities has, for some, become the hallmark for the progressive city; progressive from a transport perspective. But how did we get to this point in the history of urban transportation and city life? Has it always been like this? Is more cycling a desirable outcome for everyone? Who cycles and who doesn’t, and for what reasons? In one sense, this course addresses these very questions, while exploring several points of complex intersection between cycles and cycling and a range of social, economic, and political constructs/forces/processes that often operate at a range of scales. Adopting an historical and geographical lens, we will also consider the uneven way in which cycling seems to have fallen into and out of favour, locally, nationally, and globally over time.
This course will explore cycling’s past and present using a range of resources and experiences (including some actual cycling in the city!) using a mixture of lectures, student lead seminars and presentations, and fieldwork. The course begins in the City of Toronto, with a focus on infrastructure planning and injury. The course will make use of cycle planning documents and reports available through the City of Toronto. Students will use fieldwork to identify and trouble infrastructure implementation and use. The history of cycling technologies, planning and infrastructure then comes into view, followed by an examination of points of intersection between cycles, cycling and identity(s) scaled from the body to the nation. Study of cycling and active transport more broadly then shifts toward the Global South.

JPG1615H – Planning the Social Economy

What would it take to build a ‘social economy,’ an economy rooted in the principles of social justice, democratic governance and local self-reliance? What are the progressive and regressive implications of such an undertaking? JPG 1615 will explore these questions both theoretically and practically. Theoretically, with recourse to some canonical and more recent writings about the interface between ‘society’ and ‘economy’. Practically, the course will look at what role municipal governments could and do play in building the social economy. The case of social housing in the GTA serves as an example—as well as a context for learning about key tools in local economic development. The course will also consider how communities and neighbourhoods are growing increasingly active in developing alternative economic institutions, such as cooperatives, participatory budgets and community development financial institutions in order to institutionalize the social economy at the local scale.

JPG1706H – Violence & Security

This course explores the shifting spatiality of organized violence, as well as changing theories of war and in/security. From the historical nationalization of legitimate war as a project of ‘internal’ and ‘external’ colonialism, to the disciplining of labouring bodies as part of the rise of geo- and bio-political forms, to the contemporary securitization of everyday urban life and the blurring of the borders of military and civilian, war and peace, and ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ state space, this seminar tracks the geographies of the political through the logistics of collective conflict. The course will examine perpetual, urban, and privatized forms of war that trespass modern legal, political, ontological, and geographical borders. Finally, we will explore problems of war ‘at home’. How does the practice of war within the nation and the productive nature of war for domestic politics trouble our assumptions about the nation state, citizenship and ‘normal’ political space and time?

JPG1814H – Cities and Immigrants

Globalization processes and changes in immigration laws in recent decades have led to an upsurge in cross-border movement of people and ushered in sequential waves of immigration from various regions of the world to Canada and the U.S. Cities and their adjoining metropolitan areas are the biggest beneficiaries of these changing dynamics where immigrants are important contributors to economic growth and social reinvigoration. This course will examine the dynamics and changing patterns of immigrant integration in cities and urban locations. Topics of focus will include theories of immigrant integration, socio-spatial patterns of immigrant settlements in cities, labour market participation, socio-cultural identity formation and transnational engagements. The course will rely on contemporary examples and case studies to provide a deeper understanding of how immigrants are shaping dynamics within cities.

JPG2150H – Special Topics: Geographies of Decolonization and Liberation

Increasingly, Indigenous, Black and other racialized peoples are coming into dialogue, relationship and solidarity to resist against colonial and racial forms of dispossession and violence, while also envisioning and practicing radical traditions of decolonization, resurgence and liberation. This course examines the interconnected geographies of settler colonialism, racial capitalism and white supremacy, as well as those of decolonization, liberation and self-determination. Specifically, the course will examine how core geographic concepts such as space, place, territory, land, and the scale of the intimate are sites of colonial and racial dispossession and violence, as well as sites for decolonial thought and practice. We will engage with scholarship within the discipline of geography as well as geographically-focused works primarily by Indigenous, Black and other racialized scholars, activists and artists.

JSE1708H – The Development of Sustainability Thought

This course will examine how attitudes towards human nature and non-human nature have changed over the period from Mesolithic times until the present in Western society. By reading and discussing historical arguments and contemporary documents we will attempt to uncover the underlying assumptions about the world that were characteristic of different periods in the history of Western culture. The underlying question is whether contemporary concerns about sustainability require fundamental changes in the way we conceive of ourselves and our environment. Enrolment in this course is managed by the Master of Global Affairs Program.

ENV1444H – Capitalist Nature

This course will draw on a range of theoretical and empirical research materials in order to examine the particularities of what might be referred to as “capitalist nature”. Specifically, the course is concerned with three central questions: (i) what are the unique political, ecological, and geographical dynamics of environmental change propelled by capital accumulation and the dynamics of specifically capitalist forms of “commodification”? (ii) how and why is nature commodified in a capitalist political economy, and what are the associated problems and contradictions? (iii) how can we understand the main currents of policy and regulatory responses to these dynamics? Enrollment in this course is managed by the School for the Environment. 

EES1118H – Fundamentals of Ecological Modelling

This course provides an introduction to the rapidly growing field of ecological and environmental modelling. Students will become familiar with most of the basic equations used to represent ecological processes. The course will also provide a comprehensive overview of the population and dynamic biogeochemical models; prey-predator, resource competition and eutrophication models will be used as illustrations. Emphasis will be placed on the rational model development, objective model evaluation and validation, extraction of the optimal complexity from complicated/intertwined ecological processes, explicit acknowledgment of the uncertainty in ecological forecasting and its implications for environmental management. Enrollment in this course is managed by the Department of Physical & Environmental Sciences.

EES1126H – Hydrology and Watershed Management

This course focuses on advanced processes in watershed hydrology for furthering our understanding of complex environmental problems, ranging from the characterization of freshwater resources to contaminant transport in aquatic systems. Course topics will include aquantitative understanding of how water moves on, and below, the earth’s surface, how tracer studies can be coupled with physical measurements to understand complex problems in hydrology and water quality, land use change impacts, and approaches to watershed management. Students will participate in discussions on current and benchmark scientific literature. Enrollment in this course is managed by the Department of Physical & Environmental Sciences.