Faculty List

• H. Arik, B.A. (Bogazici University), M.A. (Central European University), Ph.D. (York), Assistant Professor
• G. Brauen, B.Sc (New Brunswick), M.C.S, Ph.D. (Carleton), Associate Professor, Teaching Stream
• M. Buckley, B.Sc., M.E.S. (York), Ph.D. (Oxford), Associate Professor
• M. F. Bunce, B.A. (Sheffield), Ph.D. (Sheffield), Associate Professor Emeritus
• S.C. Bunce, B.A. (Guelph), M.E.S. Pl. (York), Ph.D. (York), Associate Professor
• M. Ekers, B.Sc., (Lakehead), M.E.S. (York), Ph.D. (Oxford), Associate Professor
• S. Farber, B.A. (McGill), M.S.A (Ryerson), Ph.D. (McMaster), Associate Professor
• M. Hunter, B.A. (Sussex), M.A. (Univ. of Natal), Ph.D. (Univ. California Berkeley), Professor
• R. Goffe, B.Arch. (Temple University), Ph.D. (City University of New York), Assistant Professor
• C. Higgins, B.A. (Brock), M.A. (McMaster), Ph.D. (McMaster), Associate Professor
• T. Kepe, B.Agric. (Fort Hare), M.Sc. (Guelph), Ph.D. (Western Cape), Professor
• N. Latulippe, B.A. (Nipissing), M.A. (Guelph), Ph.D. (Toronto), Associate Professor
• K. MacDonald, B.A., M.A., Ph.D. (Waterloo), Associate Professor
• J. R. Miron, B.A. (Queen's), M.A. (Penn.), M.Sc. (pl.), Ph.D. (Toronto), Professor Emeritus
• S. Mollett, B.A., M.E.S. (York), Ph.D. (Toronto), Professor
• S. Montero, B.A. (Granada), M.A., Ph.D. (UC Berkeley), Associate Professor
• A. Mountz, B.A. (Dartmouth), M.A. (Hunter), Ph.D (University of British Columbia), Professor
• R. Narayanareddy, MESc. (Yale University), Ph.D. (University of Minnesota), Associate Professor
• N. Oswin, B.A. (Toronto), M.A. (Dalhousie), Ph.D. (University of British Columbia), Associate Professor
• E.C. Relph, B.A., M.Phil. (London), Ph.D. (Toronto), Professor Emeritus
• A. Sorensen, B.F.A. (Nova Scotia College of Art and Design), M.Sc., Ph.D. (London), Professor
• I. Szeman, B.A. (Queens), M.A. (Western), Ph.D. (Duke), Professor

Chair: M. Buckley
For curriculum inquiries please contact the Geography Program Advisor.
For more information, visit the Department of Human Geography website.

Geography is a broad-ranging subject. As a social science, it is concerned with the spatial patterns of human activity and the character of regions and places. It is a subject that is well placed to explore the complex relationships between society and the natural environment as well as the social and economic problems of human land use and settlement. It, therefore, complements other programs such as: City Studies, Environmental Science, Political Science, Sociology, Anthropology, Economics for Management Studies and International Development Studies. Geography courses are also listed as options in several UTSC programs including City Studies, Economics, Environmental Studies, Health Studies, International Development Studies, Public Policy and Women's and Gender Studies.

Combined Degree Programs, Honours Bachelor of Arts/ Master of Teaching

The Combined Degree Programs for UTSC Honours Bachelor of Science (HBSc)/ Honours Bachelor of Arts (HBA) with the Master of Teaching (MT) offered by the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education provide students with a direct pathway to the completion, in 6 years, of their Undergraduate degree, Ontario Teacher’s Certificate of Qualifications, and Master’s degree.​ These Combined Degree Programs allow students to complete 1.0 credit in courses that may be counted towards both degrees.

The Combined Degree Programs options are:

• Combined Degree Program: UTSC, Honours Bachelor of Arts, Specialist in Human Geography/ Master of Teaching
• Combined Degree Program: UTSC, Honours Bachelor of Arts, Major in Human Geography/ Master of Teaching

For more information, including Admission and Program requirements, see the Combined Degree Programs section of the Calendar.​

Program Combination Restrictions

The Specialist, Major and Minor programs in Human Geography cannot be combined.
 

Human Geography Areas of Concentration:

Nature, Society and Environmental Change

Environments, whether at a planetary or everyday level, are changing in dramatic ways, and quickly, and demand critical thinking and problem solving. This area of concentration explores some of the most pressing issues related to the environment, nature and society and:  

• Challenges students to think critically about what drives environmental change;  
• Envisions how to foster more sustainable and ecologically abundant futures;  
• Unpacks what is “nature", what is “land” and how people relate to both;  
• Investigates how matters of “race”, class, gender, sexuality, and more, shape experiences of environmental change and the pursuit of environmental justice.   

In the broadest sense, this area of concentration explores how politics, the economy, history, culture and social difference give meaning to, shape, and are shaped by, interactions with the environment. Research and teaching in environmental geography seek to move beyond the roles of government and interest groups in shaping environmental policies, to expand our understanding of politics in environmental discourses and knowledge, economic systems, natural resource extraction and use, and everyday struggles within and between communities, government and businesses as they shape human-nature relationships.  

Students in the Nature, Society and Environmental Change concentration will take courses that include:  

• GGRA02H3: Introduction to Human Geography: Imagining Better Worlds    
• GGRA03H3: Cities and Environments: Urban Life, Livelihoods & Landscapes 
• GGRB21H3: Political Ecology: Nature, Society and Environmental Change  
• GGRB18H3: Whose Land? Indigenous-Canada-Land Relations  
• GGRC21H3: Current Topics in Nature, Society and Environment Change    
• GGRC24H3: Socio-Natures and the Cultural Politics of 'The Environment'  
• GGRC25H3: Land Reform and Development  
• GGRC26H3: Geographies of Environmental Governance  
• GGRC28H3: Centering Indigenous Ecology and Justice     
• GGRC44H3: Environmental Conservation and Sustainable Development  
• GGRD08H3: Local Geographies of the Urban Environment
• GGRD49H3: Land & Land Conflicts in the Americas   

People, Place and Power

In a world of abundant resources, why do so many people and places lack what they need to survive and thrive? At present, our global community faces seemingly insurmountable crises. For example, mass incarceration, rising rates of homelessness, concentration of wealth, climate catastrophe, and resurgent fascism and authoritarianism. The benefits and costs of these crises are borne out unequally along the lines of race, class, gender, nationality, ability, sexuality, and other categories of social difference. For our bodies are microcosms of global and historical processes like colonialism and settler colonialism, heteropatriarchy, and racial capitalism.   

Thinking spatially gives us tools we need to understand the roots of the multiple crises we face. It opens up analytical and political possibilities for understanding foundational violences and their enduring legacies across scales. In this concentration, students learn to denaturalize place-based hierarchies and modes of dispossession through engagement with anti-racist, Black, Indigenous, materialist, feminist, and queer and trans geographical scholarship. We explore together how our mutual survival involves being actively entangled with others and working collectively to refuse the inequitable status quo and create livable lives.  

Students in the People, Place and Power concentration will take courses that include: 

• GGRA02H3: Introduction to Human Geography: Imagining Better Worlds   
• GGRB02H3: Geographic Thought: Critical Perspectives on Key Concepts in Human Geography    
• GGRB03H3: Writing Worlds  
• GGRB13H3: Social Geography: Life and Death, Place and Power  
• GGRB18H3: Whose Land? Indigenous-Canada-Land Relations  
• GGRB28H3: Geographies of Disease: Beyond Epidemiology  
• GGRB55H3: Cultural Geography  
• GGRC02H3: Population Geography
• GGRC09H3: Current Topics in People, Place and Power  
• GGRC13H3: Urban Political Geography  
• GGRC24H3: Socio-Natures and the Cultural Politics of 'The Environment'  
• GGRC28H3: Centering Indigenous Ecology and Justice
• GGRC31H3: Qualitative Geographical Methods: Place and Ethnography
• GGRC48H3: Geographies of Urban Poverty
• GGRC50H3: Geographies of Education
• GGRD09H3: Feminist Geographies  
• GGRD10H3: Health and Sexuality  
• GGRD15H3: Queer Geographies  
• GGRD49H3: Land and Land Conflicts in the Americas   

Urban Sustainability

We live in an urban world. Today more than half of the world’s population are urban dwellers. By 2050 it is projected that the world’s urban population will be nearly 70 percent. Cities already account for 80 percent of the world’s GDP, dominate economic, social, and cultural life and have consequential impacts on climate change and sustainability. Urban geography, a subfield of human geography, is well positioned to make sense of the urban transformations of the 21st century and envision sustainability through the challenge of building ecologically sustainable, economically equitable and socially just cities. Students in the Urban Sustainability area of concentration will: 

• Explore the world of cities from a global perspective and learn new and exciting ways of thinking about the city and urban life,
• Gain expertise in the urban dimensions of many of today’s most pressing questions relating to environmental sustainability, socioeconomic vulnerability, resilience and resistance,  
• Examine topics including climate change and the city; housing systems and housing access, gender rights and urban life; global urbanization processes, fair and sustainable employment; urban transportation and mobility; possession and dispossession.

Students enrolled in the Urban Sustainability concentration will take courses that include:  

• GGRA03H3: Cities and Environments: Urban Life, Livelihoods & Landscapes 
• GGRB05H3: Urban Geography  
• GGRC10H3: Urbanization and Development  
• GGRC11H3: Current Topics in Urban Sustainability
• GGRC12H3: Transportation Geography  
• GGRC27H3: Location and Spatial Development  
• GGRC33H3: The Toronto Region  
• GGRC40H3: Megacities and Global Urbanization  
• GGRC48H3: Geographies of Urban Poverty  
• GGRD08H3: Local Geographies of the Urban Environment
• GGRD09H3: Feminist Geographies  
• GGRD14H3: Social Justice and the City  
• GGRD16H3: Work and Livelihoods in the GTA  
• GGRD25H3: Research Seminar in Urban Spaces 

Experiential Learning and Outreach

For a community-based experiential learning opportunity in your academic field of interest, consider the course CTLB03H3, which can be found in the Teaching and Learning section of the Calendar.