Fall 2025 Graduate Geography Timetable

The DRAFT Timetable below is subject to change ahead of the Aug 1st, 2025 registration schedule. 

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 1, 2025. Course enrolment for students from other departments is available online via ACORN on August 22, 2025.

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 2, 2025 and end on December 2, 2025.

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. 

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. 

GGR1110: Geographic Thought and Practice

How do geographers go about framing and addressing the problems of the world? What does it mean to think, speak, write and research ‘geographically’? Consistent with current emphasis in critical geography, all geographers, whether explicit or not, are using both theory and 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 both a political and theoretical 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 not a survey course that will exhaustively introduce you to all ‘key debates’, past and present, in the discipline. Rather, drawing on a range of diverse approaches spanning cultural, political, urban, and economic geography and beyond, this course will introduce students to a diverse range of questions geographers have posed and how they have sought to answer them by combining geographical theory, methods and praxis. Students will also engage with the discipline’s uneasy relationships with state power and systems of oppression, including work in geography that has confronted the discipline’s institutionalized and normative relationships with imperialism and (neo)colonialism, heteropatriarchy, and white supremacy. 

GGR1408H - Carbon Free Energy

The course examines the options available for providing energy from the major carbon-free energy sources: solar, wind, biomass, geothermal and hydropower, and briefly touches upon nuclear energy and sequestration of carbon from fossil fuel sources. For each carbon-free energy source covered, 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 with selected studies for various regions of the world of scenarios for achieving 100% renewable energy supply systems by 2050, in line with requirements needed to (hopefully) limit global mean warming to no more than 2-3 degrees Celsius.

GGR1822H - Queer Geographies

Queer, as described by anthropologist Martin Manalansan, "is about messing things up, creating disorder, and disruptive commotion within the normative arrangements of bodies, things, spaces and institutions" (2015: 567). And in the words of poet Cameron Awkward-Rich, "transness, at minimum, is the insistence on the human capacity for once unimaginable change" (2020). In this course, we will explore queer and trans in this manner — as mess makers, disruptive forces, and sanctuaries for social difference. We will explore queer, and 2 trans thought as spatial thought, especially via their 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 and gender identity politics, and how queer and trans theory and social movements build frameworks for social and spatial justice.

GGR1912H - Advanced Remote Sensing

This is an advanced remote sensing course emphasizing the quantitative approaches for the analysis of satellite remote sensing data. Examples of topics that may be covered include preprocessing of remote sensing data, biophysical parameter extraction, linear feature extraction, conventional and object-oriented image classification, mapping uncertainty assessment, spatial statistical methods, change detection, and spatial-temporal modelling. For each of these topics, focus will be on the algorithms and technical details on how these image processing capabilities are implemented. After taking this class students will be able to actually implement the advanced remote sensing techniques to their own research, rather than just understanding the fundamentals.

GGR1610H: Geography of Finance and Financial Crisis

The ruptures in the global economy following, first, the Global Financial Crisis, and second, the COVID-19 pandemic, brought to mainstream attention the important role played by finance, as well as the vulnerable ways that the global economy is linked together through financial instruments. This course seeks to understand the world of financial flows, intermediaries, and instruments, and how these may be related to the uneven geography of mortgage finance and foreclosures, real estate inflation and deflation, bank bailouts, and government austerity programs. It explores how this geography of finance might be related to the production of financial crises, and how the global geography of international finance relates to the finances of nations and municipalities, pension and hedge funds, and individual investors. The course begins by exploring the meaning of financialization, and the history and geography of financial crises, then moves to consider the different theories of financial crisis emanating from disparate political-economic-geographical perspectives, as well as the divergent policy implications that flow from such theories. It then examines the workings of international finance, and the literature on the geography of financialization and the globalization of finance. The course then explores the localized effects of the geography of finance, from the financialization of home ownership, the financialization of rental housing, toll roads, and infrastructure; from the financial geographies of world money, micro-credit in developing nations, and the geography of credit card debt, bankruptcies and defaults. The course ends by considering some of the solutions to financialization.

JPG1170H - Statistical Testing and Analysis

This course aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of statistical methods for graduate students required to i) quantify relations and dependencies between variables and ii) conduct statistical tests in a variety of applications related to the Canadian urban system. The topics of the course include probability distributions, statistical testing and inference, as well as linear and some non-linear, simple and multiple regression and correlation techniques. The application of these methods through the use of statistical software (primarily SPSS) — both menu- and code-based — will also be part of the course. Students are required to have some background knowledge of research design, basic descriptive statistics, testing and regression analysis at the undergraduate level.

JPG1507H -  Housing Policy and Planning

This course examines how public policies help shape the housing affordability landscape in North American cities. The course will introduce students to housing concepts and provide an overview of the evolution of housing policy in Canada and the impacts of current landlord-tenant regimes. We will examine ‘wicked’ housing issues, such as the affordability crisis, gentrification and evictions, and the financialization of housing. We will also explore equitable development approaches, such as inclusionary zoning and community land trusts. When possible, experiential learning may be incorporated into the course and students will get the opportunity to work on a real-world housing research project.

JPG1516H - Urban Problems

This course explores urban spaces that are viewed as problems. Cities, or at least parts of cities, have long been framed as a problem, particularly in large sprawling federalist societies like the United States and Canada. Exactly what those problems are, who they affect, and what should be done (or not done) about them vary over time and space. This is a seminar on the social construction of urban problems. We will explore the tension between on-the-ground challenges such as deprivation, crime, and depopulation, on the one hand, and the way that these problems are deployed by political and economic elites to motivate (or in some cases avoid) change, on the other.

JPG1518H - Sustainability and Urban 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.

JPG1522H - Production of Space

This seminar investigates articulations of aesthetic, technological and political forces in the production of space — understood as the triad of 'conceived space’, 'perceived space' and 'lived space,' following Henri Lefebvre's influential theorization in The Production of Space. With reference to intellectual resources drawn from several strands of critical theory, space figures here as something radically contested, and dialectically related to social relations. The work of artists, architects, planners, geographers, scientists, technocrats and politicians, along with influential conceptions such as 'modernism,' 'avant-garde,' 'culture industry,' 'spectacle,' 'alienation,' 'governmentality,' 'subjectivity,' 'ideology,' 'decolonization,' 'utopia,' and 'revolution' will feature prominently in this course, in order to theorize how space and society are co-produced, and why various political projects — capitalist, nationalist, fascist, colonial, socialist, feminist — are also spatial projects. As such, the prime objective of this course will be to develop critical-theoretical as well as conjunctural awareness of aesthetic, technological and political mediations of the socio-spatial dialectic — with special attention to the work of architects, urban designers, planners, and geographers in the context of subaltern citizens pursuing their 'right to the city.'

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. 

JPG1805H - Transnationalism, Diaspora and Gender

This seminar focuses on the politics of contemporary global migration processes with particular attention to the gender dimensions. It examines the geographic literature on transnationalism and diaspora to develop insight into the theoretical ramifications of critical political-economy, post-colonialism, post-structuralism, and feminism.

JPG1812Y - Planning for Change: Community Development in Practice

Planning for Change is a full-year service-learning course that facilitates practical experience in community-engaged planning. Service-learning is a reciprocal work placement between students and community partners. Students are placed with a public or non-profit sector organization for one day per week, on average, from early October to late March to work in community development and planning. Placement organizations practice a range of planning-related work, including housing, transportation, social planning, and environmental initiatives. We meet as a class in a seminar format to support the students’ work, reflect on theory and practice, and to learn from one another’s experiences.  This is a challenging course that applies theory to practice (praxis). This works well when students are matched with placements by skills and interests and are open to learning and contributing. It is also important that community partners be able to offer enough guidance and structure to support the work while allowing the student(s) to develop their skills and experience. Our community partners value your work, and we maintain ongoing relationships with them. This placement can fulfill MSc Pl students’ internship requirement.

JPG1830H - Utopia/Dystopia

The term "Utopia" is a combination of the Greek words Eutopia (meaning 'good place') and Outopia (meaning 'no place'). This course explores classic and contemporary Utopian thought — in theory, literature, and practice — and will discuss the perils and pitfalls associated with the development of utopias (both imagined and "actually existing"). Our exploration of this topic will involve reading scholarly work within and outside geography, as well as examples of Utopian and dystopian literature. Key themes include how issues of social relation, ecological sustainability, governance, planning, and participation are addressed in Utopia(s).

JPG1909H - Advanced Space-time Data Analysis and Visualization

This course is designed for graduate students in a workshop format with a focus on both theories and applications of space-time data analysis and visualization. Topics may include space-time data collection, processing, analysis, and visualization, as well as theories and applications of up-to-date GIS analysis methods and the newly developed data mining techniques. Gaining practical experience using real-world datasets, students will learn the necessary knowledge and various tools for space-time data analysis and visualization. The course encompasses theoretical instruction and practical training in GIS programming and software with the use of multiple space-time datasets that may include GPS trajectory data, Geotagged social media data, and others.

JGE1425H: Livelihoods, Poverty and Environment in the Developing Countries

The livelihoods of the rural poor in the Global South are closely connected to the environment. In this course, attention will be paid to the ways in which livelihoods are connected to the environment, but also to economic and political processes, in order to gain insight on their potential for poverty alleviation, sustainable resource use, and environmental change mitigation/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. The course will also explore emerging areas of inquiry in livelihoods research.

PLA2000H - Advanced Planning Theory

In this course we collaboratively map the territory of planning theory, exploring and describing those areas of the theoretical landscape that resonate with your research and practice. We draw on interdisciplinary literature and philosophies, grounded in case studies. The role of the planning academic and our responsibility to urban issues are discussed. Themes of transformation, policy and power, representation and culture, displacement and inequity, public space and urban form, mobility and movement are woven throughout.

PLA2001H - Planning Colloquium

This is a CR/NCR seminar series in which faculty members, students and invited speakers will present and discuss the findings of their current research.