This course explores issues relating to the historical and contemporary experiences of Indigenous women in northern North America. It examines themes including Indigenous understandings of gender and kinship; the history of settler colonial policy and the regulation of Indigenous women; the law and criminalization; labour and informal economies; politics and activism; and motherhood and child welfare. This course also considers Indigenous feminist analyses and its relationship to understanding Indigenous women’s issues.

• Learn More

The seminar examines sexual assault in domestic and international criminal and civil law. Topics addressed include: 1) comparison of alternate theoretical conceptualizations and legal definitions of sexual assault; 2) interpretation of current substantive law: consent in the actus reus, consent and voluntariness, mens rea, mistakes of fact and law, the 'reasonable steps' provision; 3) administration of justice in relation to sexual assault: police and prosecutorial practices and policy, determinations of credibility and admissibility of evidence, questions of law and fact, the judicial role, jury instructions, sentencing; 4) civil actions; 5) criminal compensation boards; 6) the Charter and international human rights law, the UN Declaration of Human Rights, Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), 1979, Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women, 1993, Statute of the International Criminal Court (Rome Statute), 1998, including recognition of 'rape' and other forms of sexual violence of comparable gravity as 'war crimes' and 'crimes against humanity'.

• Learn More

This course examines topics that fall under the rubric of human sexuality (e.g., sexual and gender diversity, prostitution, and pornography). Particular emphasis is placed on how socio-cultural forces shape individuals' experiences as sexual beings and their interpretations of various sexual practices.

• Learn More

Examines various feminist methodologies and approaches to the formal construction of knowledge. A survey of the major methods of research in diverse fields is presented in the context of feminist critique and epistemology. Androcentric bias, feminist epistemology, ethics and subjectivity are central themes of the course.

• Learn More