This seminar course examines the First World War in its imperial and colonial context in Africa and Asia. Topics include forgotten fronts in Africa, the Middle East, Asia and the Pacific, colonial armies and civilians, imperial economies and resources, the collapse of empires and the remaking of the colonial world.

Same as AFSD53H3 and HISD53H3

This upper-level seminar will explore how water has shaped human experience. It will explore water landscapes, the representation of water in legal and political thought, slave narratives, and water management in urban development from the 16th century. Using case studies from South Asia and North America we will understand how affective, political and social relations to water bodies are made and remade over time.

Same as HISD54H3

This course explores the transnational connections and contexts that shaped ideas in modern Asia such as secularism, modernity, and pan Asianism. Through the intensive study of secondary sources and primary sources in translation, the course will introduce Asian thought during the long nineteenth-century in relation to the social, political, cultural, and technological changes. Using the methods of studying transnational history the course will explore inter-Asian connections in the world of ideas and their relation to the new connectivity afforded by steamships and the printing press. We will also explore how this method can help understand the history of modern Asia as a region of intellectual ferment rather than a passive recipient of European modernity.

Same as HISD55H3

'Coolie' labourers formed an imperial diaspora linking South Asia and China to the Caribbean, Africa, the Indian Ocean, South-east Asia, and North America. The long-lasting results of this history are evident in the cultural and ethnic diversity of today's Caribbean nations and Commonwealth countries such as Great Britain and Canada.
Same as HISD56H3

A study of major cultural trends, political practices, social customs, and economic developments in late imperial China (1400-1911) as well as their relevance to modern and contemporary China. Students will read the most recent literature and write a substantive research paper.
Same as HISD58H3

A seminar course on Chinese legal tradition and its role in shaping social, political, economic, and cultural developments, especially in late imperial and modern China. Topics include the foundations of legal culture, regulations on sexuality, women's property rights, crime fictions, private/state violence, laws of ethnicities, prison reforms and modernization.
Same as HISD59H3

Examines the central place of cuisine to families, societies, and cultures across Global Asian societies and their diasporas, using tastes, culinary work techniques, community-based research, oral histories, digital humanities and multi-media experiential learning, as well as critical reading and writing.

Globalization from the perspective of human geography. The course examines how the economic, social, political, and environmental changes that flow from the increasingly global scale of human activities affect spatial patterns and relationships, the character of regions and places, and the quality of life of those who live in them.

An introduction to the characteristics of modern cities and environmental issues, and their interconnections. Linkages between local and global processes are emphasized. Major topics include urban forms and systems, population change, the complexity of environmental issues such as climate change and water scarcity, planning for sustainable cities.

Students learn fundamental concepts concerning the structure and effective uses of geographical data and practical skills that will help them to find and apply geographical data appropriately in their studies. Hands-on exercises using a variety of software allow students to gain experience in finding, processing, documenting, and visualizing geographic data. Lecture topics introduce students to the opportunities and challenges of using geographical data as empirical evidence across a range of social science topics.

Scarborough is a place of rapidly changing social geographies, and now contains one of the world’s most extraordinary mixes of people. What do these changes mean, how can we understand and interpret them? This course introduces Human Geography as the study of people, place, and community through field trips, interviews, and guest lectures.

Many of today's key debates - for instance, on globalization, the environment, and cities - draw heavily from geographical thinking and what some have called the "spatial turn" in the social sciences. This course introduces the most important methodological and theoretical aspects of contemporary geographical and spatial thought, and serves as a foundation for other upper level courses in Geography.

This course aims to develop critical reading and writing skills of human geography students. Through a variety of analytical, reflexive, and descriptive writing assignments, students will practice how to draft, revise, and edit their writing on spatial concepts. Students will learn how to conduct research for literature reviews, organize materials, and produce scholarly papers. They will also learn to cultivate their writing voice by engaging in a range of writing styles and forms such as blog posts, critical commentaries, travelogues, field notes, and research briefs. The course emphasizes writing clearly, succinctly, and logically.

This course will develop understanding of the geographic nature of urban systems and the internal spatial patterns and activities in cities. Emphasis is placed on the North American experience with some examples from other regions of the world. The course will explore the major issues and problems facing contemporary urban society and the ways they are analysed.
Area of Focus: Urban Geography

The reciprocal relations between spatial structures and social identities. The course examines the role of social divisions such as class, 'race'/ethnicity, gender and sexuality in shaping the social geographies of cities and regions. Particular emphasis is placed on space as an arena for the construction of social relations and divisions.
Area of Focus: Social/Cultural Geography

Introduces students to the geography of Indigenous-Crown-Land relations in Canada. Beginning with pre-European contact and the historic Nation-to-Nation relationship, the course will survey major research inquiries from the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples to Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. Students will learn how ongoing land and treaty violations impact Indigenous peoples, settler society, and the land in Canada.

Area of Focus: Environmental Geography
Same as ESTB02H3

This foundational course explores different conceptions of 'the environment' as they have changed through space and time. It also analyzes the emergence of different variants of environmentalism and their contemporary role in shaping environmental policy and practice.
Area of Focus: Environmental Geography

Examines the geographical distribution of disease and the spatial processes in which diseases are embedded. Themes include spatial theories of health and disease and uneven development and health. Special attention will be given to the geographical dimension of the HIV pandemic.
Area of Focus: Social/Cultural Geography

This course provides a practical introduction to digital mapping and spatial analysis using a geographic information system (GIS). The course is designed to provide hands-on experience using GIS to analyse spatial data, and create maps that effectively communicate data meanings. Students are instructed in GIS methods and approaches that are relevant not only to Geography but also to many other disciplines. In the lectures, we discuss mapping and analysis concepts and how you can apply them using GIS software. In the practice exercises and assignments, you then learn how to do your own data analysis and mapping, gaining hands-on experience with ArcGIS software, the most widely used GIS software.

This course builds on GGRB30 Fundamentals of GIS, continuing the examination of theoretical and analytical components of GIS and spatial analysis, and their application through lab assignments. The course covers digitizing, topology, vector data models, remote sensing and raster data models and analysis, geoprocessing, map design and cartography, data acquisition, metadata, and data management, and web mapping.

The course introduces core concepts in cultural geography such as race and ethnicity, identity and difference, public and private, landscape and environment, faith and community, language and tradition, and mobilities and social change. Emphasis will be on cross-disciplinary, critical engagement with current events, pop culture, and visual texts including comics, photos, and maps.
Area of Focus: Social/Cultural Geography

An independent supervised reading course open only to students in the Major Program in Human Geography. An independent literature review research project will be carried out under the supervision of an individual faculty member.

An examination of the geographical dimension to human population through the social dynamics of fertility, mortality and migration. Themes include disease epidemics, international migration, reproductive technologies, and changing family structure.
Area of focus: Social/Cultural Geography

Examination and discussion of current trends and issues in social geography, with particular emphasis on recent developments in concepts and methods. This course is an unique opportunity to explore a particular topic in-depth, the specific content will vary from year to year.
Area of focus: Social/Cultural Geography

Examines global urbanization processes and the associated transformation of governance, social, economic, and environmental structures particularly in the global south. Themes include theories of development, migration, transnational flows, socio-spatial polarization, postcolonial geographies of urbanization.
Area of focus: Urban Geography

Examination and discussion of current trends and issues in urban geography, with particular emphasis on recent developments in concepts and methods. This course is an unique opportunity to explore a particular topic in-depth, the specific content will vary from year to year.
Area of focus: Urban Geography

Transportation systems play a fundamental role in shaping social, economic and environmental outcomes in a region. This course explores geographical perspectives on the development and functioning of transportation systems, interactions between transportation and land use, and costs and benefits associated with transportation systems including: mobility, accessibility, congestion, pollution, and livability.
Area of focus: Urban Geography

Geographical approach to the politics of contemporary cities with emphasis on theories and structures of urban political processes and practices. Includes nature of local government, political powers of the property industry, big business and community organizations and how these shape the geography of cities.
Area of focus: Urban Geography

Given the importance of the management of data within geographic information modelling, this course provides students with the opportunity to develop skills for creating, administering and applying spatial databases. Overview of relational database management systems, focusing on spatial data, relationships and operations and practice creating and using spatial databases. Structured Query Language (SQL) and extensions to model spatial data and spatial relationships. Topics are introduced through a selection of spatial data applications to contextualize, explain, and practice applying spatial databases to achieve application objectives: creating data from scanned maps; proximity and spatial relations; vehicle routing; elementary web services for spatial data. Students will complete a term project applying spatial data to study or model a topic of their choosing.

Examination and discussion of current trends and issues in environmental geography, with particular emphasis on recent developments in concepts and methods. This course is an unique opportunity to explore a particular topic in-depth, the specific content will vary from year to year.
Area of focus: Environmental Geography