Graduate Programme in Social & Political Thought

General Information

Faculty Members Appointed to Social & Political Thought

Courses Offered

M.A. Requirements

Ph.D. Requirements

Financial Aid for Major Research Papers and Dissertations

M.A. and Ph.D. Major Research Papers

Guidelines Concerning Completion of Coursework and Petitions

Guidelines for Ph.D. Comprehensive Examinations

The Preparation of Dissertation Proposals

Dissertation Supervisory Committee

Dissertation Defense

Final Note from the SPT Director

Questions and comments about the Graduate Programme in Social & Political Thought may be addressed to: Judith Hawley, Programme Assistant jhawley@Yorku.ca, and to Brian Singer, Programme Director bsinger@Yorku.ca.

To this year's Recruitment Brochure.
To last year's Programme Handbook.

I. General Information

1. This Supplementary Calendar consists of regulations and information which are supplementary to the Faculty of Graduate Studies Calendar 1998-2000 (hereafter designated as the Main Calendar). Please read carefully the "Faculty Regulations" and the "Programme Regulations" to be found in the Main Calendar.

2. The Programme offices are located in the South Tower of the Ross Building. Correspondence, messages, appointments, and general enquiries should normally be routed through the Programme Secretary, room S714A Ross, phone 736-5320. The Director's office is S714 Ross. The students' lounge is S716 Ross. Two offices for use, S722A and S722B, contain two computers, a photocopier and study carrels. These offices, and the lounge, are accessed by codes which will be disclosed to students when they register. In the interest of security please do not circulate these combinations.

3. Committees:

• The Programme is administered by the Director in conjunction with the Executive Committee. That Committee is comprised of six faculty members representing, in equal proportions, the three areas of study (History of Social and Political Thought, Society and Economy, and Consciousness and Society), the Director and three representatives of the student body.
• A Programme Curriculum Committee is responsible for curriculum review and the vetting of new course proposals.
• A Programme Advisory Committee is responsible for vetting dissertation proposals.

4. Competence in a language other than English is required when the nature of the thesis demands it. In general the greater the importance placed on the interpretation of texts, the greater the linguistic competence required. A special course designed to help students gain reading facility in German is offered through the Faculty of Arts, usually in the fall and winter terms.

5. Students are advised to adhere to the guidelines set out in the FGS Calendar under Faculty Regulations 13 and 14, governing full-time and part-time studies. As well, students doing course work are required to take no less than one-and-a-half courses in a given year to maintain full-time status. Failure to maintain the norms for full-time status may jeopardize eligibility for graduate and teaching assistantships. Queries in this regard should be addressed to the Director or programme assistant.

6. Students are advised to be on campus early in September to meet faculty, fellow students, and the Director.

7. Students are advised to observe the Programme's registration dates of which they will be advised in August. The deadline for registration is 15 September. Students who register after that date will have to pay a late registration fee of $60.00.

8. University courses begin on Tuesday, 8 September, but students are responsible for ascertaining the precise date of the first class meeting of courses in which they enrol. (This is especially important for courses given in Programmes other than Social & Political Thought.)

9. Faculty may not hold classes off campus in any but very unusual circumstances. Students have repeatedly complained about the trouble and possible danger of getting to downtown locations and back to the campus late at night.

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10. Each new student is required to meet with the Director in either mid-to-late August or early in September in order to discuss courses and have their registration approved.

11. The attention of all students is drawn to the regulations concerning completion of course work, p. 32.

12. The deadlines for the Ontario Graduate Scholarships and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Doctoral Fellowships are, respectively, the last week of October and the third week of November. Students will receive more detailed information concerning application deadlines when they register in September. Students wishing to apply for these scholarships are requested to order transcripts as least 4 weeks prior to deadlines. Reference letters should also be requested early, as faculty members frequently have a number of requests from students, and therefore as much notice as possible should be given to faculty.

Since the Director must give a comparative assessment of all applicants, it is essential that students not wait until the last possible moment before submitting their applications. Applications which are missing transcripts or letters of reference may be disadvantaged due to lack of information.

13. The Graduate Development Fund helps subsidize students' travel costs to a recognized academic event where they are presenting their scholarly or creative work. The fund will not support travel to a commercial or remunerated event. (It does not cover taxis, conference fees, hotels, associated research costs, etc.).

There are two competitions each year. The spring competition covers events taking place from 1 May to 31 December; the fall competition, from 1 December to 30 April. A call for applications occurs approximately one month in advance. Notices announcing the competition and giving the deadline date for applications are posted on the doors of the Programme secretary's office and the students' lounge. Information is also posted to students through their email. Application forms are available in the Programme office.

14. The Research Costs Fund helps subsidize students' own research expenses that are above and beyond those costs that are typically associated with graduate work, such as travel to sources of research, payment of subjects, supplies, services, photocopying, etc.

All full-time registered graduate students who are members (past and present) of CUPE (Canadian Union of Public Employees) are eligible for a grant. Master's students should note that Doctoral students take priority.

There are two competitions each year, in the fall and spring. A call for applications occurs approximately one month in advance. Notices announcing the competition and giving the deadline date for applications are posted on the doors of the Programme secretary's office and the students' lounge. Information is also posted to students through their email. Application forms are available in the Programme office.

15. Students who have been awarded a Graduate Assistantship for 1998-99 should consult the Director about their general responsibilities and their prospective supervisors. Students who have been awarded a Graduate Assistantship for 1998-99 should consult the Director about their general responsibilities and their prospective supervisors. The Programme makes every effort to match Graduate Assistants with positions which may reflect the student's academic interests, however students should be aware that a match is not always possible. The type of positions available vary from year to year, with some positions assigned by the Faculty of Graduate Studies rather than SPT. Position information will be available at the start of the Fall/Winter session in September.

Students are expected to remain in close contact with the G.A. supervisor during the academic year, that is, from September to April, and to monitor the number of hours worked on a weekly basis.

16. Many students in the Programme have obtained Teaching Assistantships particularly (but not exclusively) in the undergraduate Divisions of Humanities and Social Sciences. Teaching Assistantships are an important and valuable experience for anyone who intends to teach in a university. They are also a critical source of funding, for in the current situation the Programme can only use its Graduate Assistantships for incoming students. Continuing students, therefore, should explore the possibilities of obtaining a Teaching Assistantship for 1998-99 early in the academic year and file the appropriate applications. The Programme can offer advice about possible openings but it is not responsible for placing students. Applications are available on the Web or through the Programme office. The application deadline for the summer session and the following academic year is usually in January, and applications are submitted to all departments and programme the student in considering, or has the knowledge base to work in. Students are encouraged to define their teaching interests in a broader focus rather than targeting only one programme wherever possible.

17. Students should check their mailboxes in the Student Lounge for notices about colloquia, guest speakers and information concerning the Programme. There will only be a few mailings each year. Except in the case of part-time students, mail received in the Programme office will not be forwarded to your current address.

18. All students are encouraged to set up their email accounts as early as possible and to provide the Programme Assistant with your email account. A considerable amount of information is posted to students through listservers set up in SPT. Hardcopy notices of this information is also posted for students who do not have computers in the Student Lounge or posted on the Lounge door. It is the responsibility of the students to check their mail, email and postings as deadlines are firm.

19. Students who require specialized computer needs, or seeking computer related assistance should contact the Help Services at Computing and Communications Services (CCS), T-128 Steacie Science Building, phone: 736-5800.

20. The Social & Political Thought Programme strives to avoid being an impersonal bureaucracy, but the Programme is a large one and the workload in the office is often overwhelming. There are a number of relatively easy ways in which members of the Programme can reduce the administrative burden. The most obvious one is to inform the Programme regularly of changes in plans, courses, G.A.'s, etc. A brief note to the Programme Assistant informing her of some new development can often save endless bureaucratic hassles at a later stage. Moreover, students ought to make a point of discussing with the Director their academic plans: course selection, comprehensive fields, thesis topics, potential supervisors and committees, leaves of absence, etc. Finally, the most effective way of avoiding misunderstandings and confusion is to put things in writing.

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Registration Information

Students in the Faculty of Graduate Studies have recently moved to a computerized registration system that allows students to register either through terminals located across campus, or over the telephone. Registration packages will be sent out during the summer for students (please make sure any change of address is updated if you have moved recently). Registration for graduate students starts August 10 to August 13th, (during which time, graduate students will have exclusive use of the on-line system). Registration will remain open after that time until September 15th. All registrations after September 15th, 1998 will incur a late fee of $60.00.

All first year students are required to meet with the graduate programme director prior to registering. Appointments may be made by email (bsinger @yorku.ca or jhawley@yorku.ca), or by telephone at (416) 736-5320. Incoming students are encouraged to book appointments from August 10th to September 10th.

Students who wish to register in an SPT reading course, must complete the reading course form, and have signatures of the selected course director and graduate programme director prior to registration in any reading course. The system will not permit students to register in the reading courses without computer authorization from SPT.

Important reference information for registration:

Telephone numbers:

Voice Response Enrolment System: (416) 872-3005

Enrollment Help Line: (416) 736-5744

Office of the Registrar: (416) 736-5440

Possible problems you may encounter:

• Is your telephone a touchtone telephone? (Does each key make a different sound?) This is essential for the voice response system.
• Do you have outstanding fees? If you do have large outstanding fees from your previous session, you may be prevented from registering until you have addressed the issue with FGS.
• Have you hit a time limit in your programme? If you have completed 2 years in the MA programme, you must change to part-time status. (If there are extenuating circumstances, please speak with the programme director to discuss options). All Ph.D students have a time limit of 6 years.

Students who have any academic concerns or questions are always encouraged to make an appointment with the SPT Programme Director at their earliest convenience.

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French poststructuralism has been enormously influential in all areas of the social sciences and humanities. Indeed it has become something of a fad in which concepts like decentered, discursive practice, subject position, text, deconstruction, and difference are so frequently used with so many different meanings in so many different contexts that much of their original import is often lost. In order to gain some clarity on the nature of poststructuralism (or poststructuralisms), we shall first examine some of the forms of French structuralism from which it evolved. The course will mainly be concerned with issues on ontology and epistemology as well as the ubiquitous politics. While the main focus will be on certain French structuralists and poststructuralists, some non-French thinkers will also be considered. Given the enormity of the literature, the course will necessarily be quite selective. At the same time, we shall not devote large amounts of time to single thinkers. Rather we shall survey a selection of important and representative texts.

 Full Course R. Albritton

(Same as Political Science 6080.06)

This course employs the concept of fordism and post-fordism to examine the emerging configuration of the new international order. The seminar will examine the problems posed by globalization, the internationalization of production and finance, trading blocs, state strategies and the drive for competitiveness and security. Special attention will be paid to the contribution of the Paris-based Regulation school of political economy and how international political economy conceives of the link between national systems of production and the organization of markets globally.

Half Course (Fall) D. Drache

(Same as Political Science 6810.03)

The formation of regional trading blocs in North America and Europe has far reaching implications for governments. This course will examine the complex set of aims, objectives and institutional structures of the European Community and the North American Free Trade Agreement. Special attention will be paid to the limits and dynamics of economic integration, the challenges of adjustment and the problem of asymmetry. The course will focus on a range of issues including new regulatory norms, trade liberalization measures vs the benefits of a strategic trade policy, trade dispute mechanisms and industrial and corporate strategy.

 Half Course (Winter) D. Drache

(Same as Political Science 6815.03)

This graduate seminar is concerned with rethinking the terms of pedagogy when pedagogy takes seriously the ways knowledge constitutes social difference and normalcy. It examines what discourses of social difference and representation as a philosophical and political question offer to the rethinking of pedagogy. It asks, can difference be thought about in ways that refuse normalization of the subject, and that refuse to fix the subject to identity as timeless. Our focus will be on how social difference is produced, imagined, and practised in discourses of knowledge such as education, psychoanalysis, eugenics, feminism and cultural studies. Topics are organized under the following questions: What does knowledge want; what does knowledge forget; what does knowledge cost; how is knowledge made? The seminar will consider the contradictory relations among knowledge, conduct, social location, positionality, the subject in narrations of race, sex, gender, and the body.

 Half Course (Fall) D. Britzman

(Same as Education5685.03 and Women's Studies 6901B.03)

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This course will examine contemporary theories of egalitarian justice. The focus will be on the views of a select group of philosophers including John Rawls, Ronald Dworkin, G.A. Cohen, Richard Arneson, Nancy Fraser, Derek Parfit, Debra Satz, Thomas Nagel, and Amartya Sen.

(List of selected Texts available through the Social & Political Thought office.)

 Half Course (Winter) L. Jacobs

(Same as Philosophy 6160.03)

This course attempts to explore a range of Marxist responses to the linguistic turn within western philosophy and social theory in the twentieth century. The central theme concerns the ability of Marxism's production paradigm of social life to offer an adequate account of the role of language in human relations. Key texts of Marx and Engels, Antonio Gramsci, Mikhail Bakhtin, Walter Benjamin, Lev Vygotsky, Noam Chomsky, Jurgen Habermas and James C. Scott will form the core of the required readings.

 Full Course D. McNally

(Same as Political Science 6000M.06)

This course explores the implications of phenomenology, organicism and psychoanalysis for political economy by means of an examination of the work of writers influenced by such ideas. The writings examined are drawn from Marx, Alfred Marshall and John Maynard Keynes.

 Full Course T. Winslow

This course originates in a certain disquiet. As disciplinary boundaries become increasingly porous and certain topics come to be shared by the different disciplines, students often find themselves drawn to areas for which they have received little preparation. This course seeks to respond to this situation by examining both classic and contemporary texts in politics and culture.

In the coming year the focus is on democracy, understood as a regime that bears a series of seemingly opposed claims. For it seeks, at one and the same time, to establish a legitimate basis for government and its extension, while limiting the latter in the face of an autonomous civil society. More, it would institute a privileged relation to communication, justice and truth, while simultaneously stimulating the development of factions and interests. Or again, it would provide a foundation for collective identity, while opening itself to the play of social alterity and division. With its apparently impossible and contradictory demands, democracy, its controversies and their evolution, will be related to the constitutive debates of the modern and post-modern imaginaries.

 Half Course (Winter) B. Singer

(Same as Sociology 6170.03)

A study of political, social, economic and cultural changes in Germany between the Wars. The course will focus on the rise and fall of the Weimar republic, the social and political impact of inflation and deflation, the rise of National Socialism, Hitler's entrenchment in power, and the beginning of a war economy. Cultural developments through the period will also be discussed. A reading knowledge of German is desirable but not absolutely essential.

Full Course M. Kater

(Same as History 5300)

This course is designed to introduce graduate students to a broad range of theoretical and methodological approaches to textual analysis as developed in the twentieth-century, while providing them with the opportunity of working with several faculty members and encountering their diverse areas of expertise. The actual content of the course will vary from year to year, depending on the principal instructor, who will be responsible for at least 13 consecutive seminars, in which they will present their areas of concern and engage in seminar discussion with the students. In 1997-98, Marie-Christine Leps will be the principal instructor, and will cover the following: Saussurian linguistics, Russian Formalism, Structuralism, Marxism, the Bakhtin Circle, and discursive criticism. Other faculty members will contribute the following:

• Class and cultural studies: Peter Sinnema
• Psychoanalysis and the dynamics of learning: Deborah Britzman
• The language of ethics and alterity: Levinas and Derrida: Thomas Loebel
• French feminism: Barbara Godard
• Gender studies: Lesley Higgins
• African-American critical theory: Rinaldo Walcott
• Postcolonial critical theory: Terry Goldie

Full Course M.C. Leps

(Same as English 6992.06)

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The course is divided into four sections. The first three weeks will be dedicated to examining third world development in historical perspective, focussing on the variations and phases in the development of the historical structures of dependency and on the ideological/cultural legacy of colonialism in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Readings will include articles and selections of books by Celso Furtado, Giovanni Arrighi, Keith Griffin and Bradford Burns.

Section two (weeks 4-8) will concentrate on class relations and the "models" of industrialization adopted by third world societies. It will include a discussion of: the western capitalist model and the different ways in which it has been imitated; the developmental outcomes arising from variations in the social relations among landlords, capitalists, and peasants; several case studies focused on those variations in social relations. Readings will be drawn from the works of Barrington Moore, Louis Lefeber, Stephen Marglin, Maurice Zeitlin and John Saul among others.

Section three (weeks 9-11), will consider the ways in which the major ideological traditions of the 19th century (conservative, liberal, and Marxist) appear in theories of development and how they have influenced perceptions of feasible policies and policy choices. Readings will be drawn from Robert Nisbet, David Mitrany, and Dudley Seers, as well as others.

The fourth section (weeks 12-13) will examine some new ways of conceptualizing development. Readings will include works by Amartya, Sen, Carmen Diana Deere and Dharam Ghai.

Half Course (Fall) L. North

(Same as Political Science 6560.03F)

The course approaches current policy issues in international trade and economic integration from an interdisciplinary perspective, presenting both relevant mainstream economic analysis as well as alternative theoretical approaches. We focus on main trading arrangements such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the European Union, and the World Trade Organization, placing particular emphasis on topical areas such as impacts on human development, labour, environment, and trade and development. Specific objectives within this area of inquiry are a) to identify key policy issues, b) understand main approaches that have been proposed to deal with these issues, c) become acquainted with important policy debates, and finally, d) to encourage the student to pursue independently a line of inquiry in policy analysis.

 Half Course (Fall) R. Grinspun

(Same as Economics 5910.03)

This seminar engages dynamics of teaching and learning as complex psychical events and brings to bear on questions of education, the psychoanalytic concepts of Freud's topology of psychic structure, and the analytic concepts of trauma, transference, identification, and repression. Within these concepts, questions of love, hatred, aggressivity, and ambivalence will be mapped. These analytic concepts question the time of learning, its fault lines, and the relations individuals make with the self through the other. The seminar considers foundational methodological writings in the interdisciplinary field of education and psychoanalysis and some contemporary debates posed by more recent pedagogies on education as symptomatic of crisis.

Half Course (Winter) D. Britzman

(Same as Education 5697.03 and Women's Studies 6901M.03)

Part I: The course will begin with a careful examination of the work of Antonio Gramsci. Two main purposes are to be achieved in this part of the course. The first is a clear understanding of Gramsci's contribution to political theory, in particular his theories of hegemony and civil society, his conception of the state, and his overall view of society as historical bloc. The second one is the analysis of the general assumptions that guided Gramsci's thinking in general. These assumptions are the constitutive principles of his historicism, a concept that embodies a general theory of social explanation, a theory of history, and a general epistemology.

Part II: Gramsci's thought is often considered to be a radical critique of Marxism, one that does not reject Marx's original thought but seeks to revitalize and update it. Most of his original theories, however, have been of considerable influence among many political thinkers, some of whom would not consider themselves Marxist. This broad appropriation of Gramsci's idea has led to a complex web of influences that has grown along with many of the contemporary positions within political theory. Thus, Gramsci's vocabulary can clearly be detected in works on feminism, postmodernism, the new political economy, and even in the work of some liberals and communitarians. Although the vocabulary is of Gramscian inspiration, the concepts and the theoretical assumptions behind them are often of a very different character. In the second part of the course some of these new treatments of the topic developed in the first part of the course will be carefully examined. The purpose is again twofold. First, an appreciation of some of the new conceptual frameworks (the specific topics can differ from year to year, a fact that may be identified by the subtitle following the colon) will be carefully examined and their differences from Gramsci's original though carefully noted. The second task will be to trace the differing philosophical assumptions and to confront them with Gramsci's .

This comparison will no doubt result in a heightened appreciation of the complexity of political theory and a greater understanding of political analysis.

Half Course (Fall) E. Morera

(Same as Political Science 6045.03)

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Environmental concerns now have a significant place on the public agenda. They include global environmental changes; sustainable development; appropriate uses of natural resources; product packaging, waste management, zero discharge strategies; obligations to future generations; distributive justice and so on. This course will examine these and other issues in the context of contemporary discussions of environmental ethics.

This will be a cross-disciplinary exploration of both the theory and the practice of environmental ethics. Reading will be drawn from environmental philosophy, moral theory, business ethics and environmental studies. Both readings and discussion will focus on the application of ethical theories, principles and values to practical problems and policy debates in the private, public and para public sectors.

 Half Course (Winter) W. Cragg

(Same Philosophy 6200.03W)

Course details - T.B.A.

Half Course (Fall) G. Delanty

(Same as Sociology 6200.03 and Philosophy 6630.03)

The aim of the seminar is to take up a topical issue that requires some knowledge of social, political and philosophical thinking. Contemporary liberal-left and neo-conservative thought is concerned with re-defining the relations between nation states, the global economy, citizenship, identity and cultural diversity. A useful focus for these basic questions of social democracy is the liberal-communitarian debate that has occurred in the UK, Canada and the USA Here we consider the nature of individual and society, state of nature and contract theory, rights/duties, identity, citizenship, diversity and social justice. To do so, we will start with a close reading of Rawls Theory of Justice.

 Half Course (Summer) J. O'Neill

Please note, as this is a summer course, please register in the summer session only.

(Same as Sociology 6200.03 and Philosophy 6630.03)

 We will explore the complex issues raised by Kant in the Critique of Judgement: That is, both the Critique of Aesthetic Judgement and Critique of Teleological Judgement .

In Critique of Aesthetic Judgement the course will focus on the distinction between the beautiful and the sublime. Each is the obverse of the other. Thus Kant introduces his concept of disinterested interest in his analysis of the beautiful whereas the sublime involves both disinterested interest and the resolution of dialectic dissonance. It is in the section on the sublime that Kant stresses the crucial importance of art for the development of ethical feeling.

Whereas Plato takes feeling to be a species of desire as always evaluatively related to an object, Kant claims that feeling is wholly internal but nonetheless the developmental mediator between animal impulse and reason in terms of disinterested interest: that is, the direct apprehension of feeling.

In the Critique of Teleological Judgement Kant stresses the limitations of Newtonian laws with respect to living beings. Instead, Kant retains Aristotle's biology to define living beings as An organized product of nature... in which every part is reciprocally purpose [end] and means. [Kant's brackets and italics]. Kant adds: In it nothing is vain, without purpose, or to be ascribed to a blind mechanism of nature [that is, according to Newtonian law]. (Chapter 66) Thus Kant takes it to be a teleological ground. . . when we represent to ourselves the possibility of the object after the analogy of that causality which we experience in ourselves (chapter 61); that is, heuristically informed experience without which Kant states: we should have no experience at all . (chapter 66)

The course will emphasize the relevance of this aspect of Kant's thought for the Critique of Judgement as a whole.

Half Course, (Winter) M. Bakan

(Same as Philosophy 6020.03)

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Heidegger's Being and Time seems to be about the temporality of Being. However, in Being and Time Heidegger also insists that authentic individuality, as my own being, is opposed to what he calls the they/self': the anonymous das Man' who conforms to what others do. Thus, Heidegger has often been interpreted as an anarchist.

The course will therefore be focussed around Heidegger's concept of individuality rather than Heidegger's concept of Being. As we shall see, Heidegger's concept of individuality is based on Dasein's Being-towards-death; that is, Dasein's Being-towards-death is the essential basis of individualization.

Furthermore, Heidegger links Being-towards-death to what he calls the Amoment of vision. The latter, as the radicalized Present, becomes Dasein's necessary future as free for the simplicity of one's fate. This theme is developed in Being and Time, Chapter V of Division Two . Indeed, Heidegger ties freedom for the simplicity of one's fate to one's freedom to choose one's hero.

 And we shall also see, Heidegger's concept of individualization mimics Ernst Junger's concept of our era and the Being of the solder/worker who, longing to die for the leader of their people, is both individualized and integrated with the masses.

Half Course, (Fall) M. Bakan

(Same as Philosophy 6020Q.03)

This course will concentrate on the main texts of Heidegger's later philosophy, beginning from 1940 and will cover such topics as language, metaphysics, technology, logos, history, nihilism, and art. The later Heidegger is at least as important to current continental philosophy as his early philosophy, but it is not studied enough on its own.

Half Course (Summer) S. Mallin

Please note, as this is a summer course, please register in the summer session only.

(Same as Philosophy 6020B.03)

This course concentrates on Heidegger's Nietzsche, Vol I and IV. These books of lectures by Heidegger are central to almost all contemporary continental and postmodern philosophy, both of which are strongly influenced by Nietzsche and Heidegger. They reveal the turn' of Heidegger from his early existentialism and Nietzschianism to his later anti-nihilistic philosophy which criticizes both Nietzsche and his own early work. They thus provide us with the occasion to discuss many of the main issues in current philosophy as well as the later thinking of both Nietzsche and Heidegger.

Half Course (Winter) S. Mallin

(Same as Philosophy 6020B.03W)

Women and Politics provides a survey of the literature in the fields of feminist theory, feminist epistemology, feminist political economy and women and politics.

The first half of the course consists of an intertext of different feminisms: Liberal, socialist, radical, postmodern, neoconservative, pragmatist, lesbian, African-American, postcolonial, and standpoint.

The second half of the course situates gender as a derivative feature of political economy focussing on international political economy, postmodern\postcolonial critiques of political economy, gender and economic restructuring in developed and developing states with an emphasis on Canada. Finally, the course examines identity politics and traditional political mobilization.

Full Course S. Bell / I. Bakker

This course in postcontemporary theory addresses the question where does philosophical\theoretical inquiry begin when it has all been done before and again. It applies Derrida's suggestion to begin wherever one is, in the middle of the fix we find ourselves in, in the middle of a text, a phrase, a word; that is, to begin in the immediate moment, the present.

The course attempts to construct a political theory of speed by examining the deployment of speed in select theoretical texts of Baudrillard, Caputo, Deleuze and Guattari, Derrida, Haraway, Jameson, Kroker, Lingis, Nietzsche and Virilio. The operative principle of speed is that thought is rewritten as speed and everything races to its opposite. The result is that old essentialisms and binaric divisions collapse in the moment or present.

Speed is understood as the ideology and practice of postmodernity; it simultaneously functions as a concept that corresponds to and a critique that scrutinizes the postmodern condition of catastrophe.

The aim of Speed Theory is to facilitate a provocative rethinking of the self, subjectivity, identity, ethics, politics, philosophy and cultural practices.

Half Course (Winter) S. Bell

(Same as Political Science 6000.03)

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Approaches to culture and literature in the English-speaking countries have been transformed very fundamentally over the past three decades. This has come about thanks to [1] a wide variety of the texts of continental theory which suddenly became available in English for the first time (Lukacs, Gramsci, the Frankfurt School; Soviety Semiotics, and much besides); [2] a wide range of influences from adjacent, and sometimes conflicting, modes of thought (linguistics, history, feminism, postmodernism, postcolonialism et all); and [3] the work of great originality that came to de done in cultural/literacy Studies in response to all that (e.g., Raymond Williams, Terry Eagleton, Fredric Jameson, Stuart Hall). This course, conducted as a seminar, will offer the opportunity to read a whole range of the key texts of this very complex field.

Students will be expected to possess advanced skills in reading difficult texts; to participate vigorously in weekly work of the seminar; to make at least one full presentation in the course of the term; and to submit a research paper of approximately 30 pages, no later than at least a week before the end of term. A short list of topics for the papers shall be provided early in the term, though the particular topic for any given paper may be modified, in consultation with the instructor, to accommodate the interests of the individual student.

Half Course (Fall) A. Ahmad

(Same as Political Science 6090.03 and English 6952)

Narratology, a lively area of contemporary theory, aims to produce comprehensive theories of narrative texts. The 1980s has been called the silver age of narratology, an era of consolidation, application, testing, polishing and extension of the theoretical impulses of its golden age, considered to begin variously with the work of Aristotle or Henry James. With the more recent cognitive turn, narratological theories have been extended to consider the implications of narrative in the formation of customary knowledge, narrative understood as a set of relations ordering the everyday, shaping intellectual discourses, and disciplinary forms of knowledge. This course will provide an introduction of such contemporary theories of narrative.

We will first explore narratological concepts by reading some of the major formalist, structuralist, semiotic and post-structuralist theories, then apply them to a variety of narrative texts, literary and non-literary. These will include works of prose fiction (a classic realist novel, a modernist novel, a limit text) as well as other narratives ranging from oral anecdotes to newspaper articles or history books, medical, psychoanalytic and legal discourses, ballets, plays, films, visual art works, and criticism. These texts will be selected in response to students' interests and theatre and film productions currently on view in Toronto. Most of the articles or parts of books are on reserve in the library. Those listed are recommended for purchase. A complete reading list will be available in the programme office.

Please note: This course was previously offered under the course number SPT 6022.03)

Half Course (Winter) B. Godard

(Same as English 6990.03)

The course will involve a close reading of selected classical texts by Durkheim, Marx, Weber and Simmel, with a view to:

• understanding the way of thinking of each theorist;
• grasping thematic coherences within and between them;
• raising questions of what constitutes a classic text and choosing between methods for reading them.

Full Course B. Green

(Same as Sociology 6100.06)

 This course provides students with an introduction to the study of social movements and collective action. It will also raise questions about the role of social movements in the struggle for democracy.

A social movement is a large scale popular protest involving: (a) an effort to bring about major change in response to oppressive situations; (b) disruptive methods extending beyond routine politics; and (c) reliance on collective action.

Our central objective is to explore the conditions under which such collective responses to oppression occur, the factors shaping their outcomes, and the relationship between these bursts of popular political energy and a people's capacity for democratic self-governance.

Class readings will focus on the theory of social movements and collective action. For their individual research projects, students may focus on a particular movement of their choice, without restrictions of place or time.

Half Course (Winter) D. Marien

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Aesthetics has recently received bad press. Terry Eagleton has relegated it to ideology, Pierre Bourdieu to taste, Habermas to cultural value and communicative rationality. In her writing on Sociology and Art, Janet Wolff has stressed the virtual impossibility of a sociological aesthetics which does not reduce art by explaining it away by something else from which it apparently derives. Much contemporary work is about the relativity of the aesthetic. And yet, with the increasing multiculturalism of Canada and the so-called globalism of the world, it might be worthwhile reopening the issue by exploring different conceptions of the aesthetic by drawing on Indian, Zen and various African conceptions as we consider the Western elaborations. If aesthetics is intrinsically about value, judgement, beauty, this course not only opens up the possibility of situating the concepts but also of exploring the different situations and genres (including literature, music, dance and electronically-derived expressions) that articulate them. As this is a phenomenological exercise, the course begins by considering the phenomenological concerns of Husserl, Gadamer, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty and the Frankfurt School before expanding into non-Western aesthetics. It then returns to reexamine contemporary critical theory in the light of these explorations.

A reading list will be available nearer the time of the first class.

 Full Course I. Davies

(Same as Sociology 6460.06)

This course will focus upon the ways in which public life is sustained, defined and contested in intimate relations as part of a struggle between privatization and community. Themes will include eros and seduction, tyranny, power and the face, collectivization and culture and rituals of solidarity, conflict and antagonism. Students will be expected to develop their own research and materials.

Readings will include Hegel, Sartre, Simmel, Levinas, J. Benjamin, M. Wittig, Jean Luc Nancy and Boszormenyi-Nagy.

Full Course A. Blum

(Same as Sociology 6410.06)

The course provides an intensive reading of Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit. The first half of the course will examine the Preface, Introduction, and the sections on consciousness and Self-Consciousness of Hegel's phenomenological analysis of the subject's various perspectives on the objective world and then of the self. It will then explicate why neither an objective nor an introspective view of the world is adequate in dealing with truth, goodness and beauty. Beginning with the question about how one begins philosophy in the first place without presuming the answer in the very way one begins, the course examines epistemological and philosophy of science perspectives and then considers an approach to truth, ethics and aesthetics which starts with the passions rather than scientific understanding. In the first half of the course, the course director will lecture on each of the sections in turn in a seminar setting.

The second half of the course will analyze the sections of the Phenomenology dealing with REASON and SPIRIT. Students will each be assigned a section to analyze in class and lead the presentation. The analysis will form the basis of the second essay.

Half Course (Winter) H. Adelman

(Same as Philosophy 6380.03)

This year the course examines feminism and political economy in the context of post-modernity, focussing specifically on the theories of globalization and restructuring. It considers theories of social reproduction, sexual politics and the current neo-liberal economic agenda. Students interested in taking this course are invited to discuss their interests with the course director in the early Fall so that specific course readings can reflect student interests.

Half Course (Winter) M. Luxton

(Same as Women's Studies 6501.03)

The epistemological project' is subject to multiple interrogations in the closing years of the twentieth century. Naturalistic epistemologists - both Quinean and other - take issue with the abstractions and dislocated concentration on knowledge in general that characterise the epistemologies of the Anglo-American mainstream. Feminists, Foucauldian, and other post-colonial thinkers are demonstrating the connections between knowledge and positions of power and privilege, and hence the complicity of epistemology in an oppressive Enlightenment legacy of dominance and subordination. Together, many of these critics are exposing the politics of knowledge that underpin claims to disinterested knowledge and objectivity. In this course we will examine and evaluate some of these critiques that bespeak a late-twentieth-century crisis of reason, in an attempt to consider where epistemology can go now.

Half Course (Fall) L. Code

(Same as Philosophy 6110.03 and Women's Studies 6105.03)

This course involves the study of various theoretical and applied works on language, discourse and politics. Depending on the particular interest of students, discussions will touch on some of the following topics: feminist approaches to politics and discourse; male-female language; political language and political culture; language names and power; language discourse and public policy; political language, political communication and the mass media. Students who wish to enrol in this course should consult with the course director.

Half Course, Winter D.V.J. Bell

(Same as Political Science 6330.03 and Environmental Studies 6172)

This course will fall in two parts: a history of the sex/gender concept and an overview of contemporary feminist and queer theoretical work on sexualities. The former topic will lead from an examination of the concept of sex in nineteenth and early twentieth century social theory to the invention of the sex-gender distinction in 1950s sexology and its critical revisions in later feminist discourse. Alternative theories of gender, including Marxist, structural functionalist, and symbolic interactionist will be surveyed. The section on sexualities will focus on the uses of transdisciplinary feminist and queer theory for sociological projects. The work of Butler, Haraway, Hausman, Seidman, Strathern and Plummer will be among those considered.

Full Course - Please Note: This full course runs L. Weir

from Jan 7, 1999 - July 8, 1999 incl.

(Same as Sociology 6180.06 and Women's Studies 6505.06)

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IV. M.A. Requirements

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V. Ph.D. Requirements

Dissertations should adhere to the format set forth in the Guidelines for the Preparation and Examination of Theses and Dissertations published by the Faculty of Graduate Studies. Copies are available in the SPT office, and online here.

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VI. Financial Aid for MRP's and Dissertations as agreed to in the CUPE contract

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VII. M.A. and Ph.D. Major Research Papers

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After these dates, you will receive an F unless you can make a solid case, supported by the Course Director, to the Associate Dean of the Faculty of Graduate Studies on medical or similar grounds for what is in effect a second extension. These are no longer being given liberally. We are reluctant to lose good students for administrative reasons, but it is important that you organise your time and work to allow for all reasonable contingencies.

7. Any instructor has the right to establish an earlier deadline for final submission of work. This deadline may not be before 15 December (for fall term half courses) or 1 May (for half winter term courses or full fall/winter courses) or 1 September for half or full summer courses). An instructor whose final deadline for submission of work is earlier than those set out in 1, 2, and 3, must clearly communicate this fact to students at the beginning of the course.

8. No instructor may establish deadlines that are later than those adopted by the Faculty of Graduate Studies.

9. Students should also be prepared to find any course you enrol in and later drop listed on your transcript showing a W. Students have until 1 November to withdraw from a newly enrolled fall term half course or full course and until 15 February to withdraw from a winter half course without the W appearing on your subsequent transcripts. Any course dropped after those dates (but before the final deadlines for dropped courses) will show a W on your records.

Students may petition the Executive Committee, through the Director, to have their final deadlines extended subject to the following strictures:

1. It must be understood that petitions to extend deadlines should come in response to exceptional (and unpredictable) circumstances and ought not to be treated by students and faculty as normal operating procedure.

2. Petitions from students must be accompanied by the written support of the instructor in whose course the extension is sought.

3. Petitions for extension must be submitted prior to the deadlines set out in VIII, item 6. No petitions submitted after the deadlines will be considered.

4. The petition must contain both a plausible rationale for an extension and a precise indication as to the work left to be done and the time necessary for its completion. Petitions for open-ended extensions will not be granted.

Petitions for extensions should be exceptional. Problems with written work should be discussed with instructors and faculty advisors from the beginning in order to assure that insurmountable problems do not emerge at the last minute.

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IX. Guidelines for Ph.D. Comprehensive Examinations

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XI. Dissertation Supervisory Committee

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XII. Dissertation Defense

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