Diaspora and Transnational Studies Courses |
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First Year Seminars The 199Y1 and 199H1 seminars are designed to provide the opportunity to work closely with an instructor in a class of no more than twenty-four students. These interactive seminars are intended to stimulate the students’ curiosity and provide an opportunity to get to know a member of the professorial staff in a seminar environment during the first year of study. Details here. DTS200Y1 What is the relationship between place and belonging, between territory and memory? How have the experiences of migration and dislocation challenged the modern assumption that the nation-state should be the limit of identification? What effect has the emergence of new media of communication had upon the coherence of cultural and political boundaries? All of these questions and many more form part of the subject matter of Diaspora and Transnational Studies. This introductory course ex-amines the historical and contemporary movements of peoples and the complex issues of identity and experience to which these processes give rise as well as the creative possibilities that flow from movement and being moved. The area of study is comparative and interdisciplinary, drawing from the social sciences, history, the arts and humanities. Accordingly, this course provides the background to the subject area from diverse perspectives and introduces students to a range of key debates in the field, with particular attention to questions of history, globalization, cultural production and the creative imagination. DTS390H1 DTS390Y1 A scholarly project chosen by the student, approved by the Department, and supervised by one of its instructors. Consult with the Diaspora and Transnational Studies Program Office for more information.
Topics change from year to year. Not offered in 2010-2011. DTS402H1
As they travel through space and time, material objects play an important
role in the production of diasporic identity. This course focuses on the culturally
defined and socially regulated processes of circulation, transaction, and
use
to examine the ways in which diasporic communities identify value and meaning
in objects and how those objects give value to the social relations that
define communities. Through readings, guest lectures and discussions, we will
address
questions such as: What roles do objects play in the constitution and reproduction
of diasporic communities? What qualities are read into objects, through what
mechanisms, and how does their meaning vary across space? What is the relationship
between object, narrative, affect and identity? What conditions affect the
durability of the relation between object and diasporic identity?
The course examines patterns of Jewish stories popular in the countries
of the Jewish Diaspora. We will start with biblical stories, then move on to
the
moralistic tales of the Talmud, medieval Ladino and Hebrew ballads and legends,
tales of Dybbuks, Golems and other supernatural beings, Hassidic tales, Yiddish
wonder stories, immigration folklore of the 20th and 21st century.
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DTS401H1