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 

GGR1111H - Social Research Methods

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 onone-one interviews, focus groups, surveys, as well as emerging methods (e.g., photovoice, remote/virtual interviews). The course also covers cross-cultural 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.

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. 

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.

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 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. 

JPG1512H - Place, Politics and the Urban

The course examines the relationship between urban geography, planning and politics. In particular, it seeks to interrogate the theoretical importance of place, space and urban form in the production of political and social values, practices, strategies, and discourses, and in turn, analyze the implications of the place-politics nexus for understanding shifts in the direction and form of urban policy, governance, identity and citizenship. The course begins with a broad examination of the theoretical bases for linking place and politics, particularly as this relates to the construction of urban and non-urban places, with literature drawn from a number of sources, including geography, urban studies, political science, and planning theory. The course then examines a number of specific cases, including but limited to: the politics of automobility, gentrification as a political practice, the politics of community and neighbourhood aesthetics, the politics of homelessness and anti-panhandling legislation, the politics of suburbanization, the privatization of public space, the right to the city… topics that inform and challenge our understanding of the relationship between place and political praxis, and the political construction of the city. 

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.

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 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 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. You will spend time in the field exploring the issue of rights, justice, accessibility standards, and compliance. Guest speakers are invited to discuss 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.

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.