BIPOC-focused course list
Courses focused on Black, Indigenous and people of colour. You can also browse a list of BIPOC-related courses.
Department of Art History
Undergraduate Courses
ARTH 352-A Studies in the History of Fibre Art
Offered: 2020/2 (Fall)
Session/Credits: 13 weeks, 3 credits
Open Course: Yes
This course considers modern and contemporary fibre art within a global history of textile production, consumption, and use. In doing so, it probes the divisions between “art” and “craft”/“art” and “material culture,” and how these categories intersect with forms of power, including those shaped by race. Textiles traditions considered include African-American quilting, Indigenous weaving and beading, Ghanaian kente, Indian chintz, and Inuit fabric printing. Approximately 50% of the content will be BIPOC-related. In addition, Dr. Amos' approach to teaching is defined by meeting students where they are and utilizing methods that emphasize active and experiential learning. BIPOC*
Course Taught By: Dr. Johanna Amos, Part-time Faculty
Dr. Johanna Amos seeks to build a more inclusive art history through the study of textiles and fashion.
Notes: Students not enrolled in the Art History program may need to contact the Department to register. Please contact art.history@concordia.ca for assistance.
ARTH 355-A Studies in Architecture
Offered: 2020/2 (Fall)
Session/Credits: 13 weeks, 3 credits
Open Course: Yes
The course interrogates critical issues concerning architecture and modernity and its relationship to African traditions, aesthetics, and the built environment. The course discursively engages predominantly African writers, scholars, architects, and artists. The course is designed to fill a gap in architectural pedagogy with regard to African architecture, therefore ALL material is from or about the African context. B
Course Taught By: Alan Dunyo Avorgbedor, J.D., Part-time professor
Alan Dunyo Avorgebdor is a Ghanaian-Jamaican-American artist, attorney, and emerging scholar interested in architectural dialogues and aesthetic debates concerning the natural and built environment and their relationship to bodily expressivity in traditional African contexts.
Notes: Students not enrolled in an Art History program may need to contact the Department to register. Please contact art.history@concordia.ca for assistance.
ARTH 359-A Studies in Contemporary Photographic Art
Offered: 2021/4 (Winter)
Session/Credits: 13 weeks, 3 credits
Open Course: Yes
This course centres artworks and texts by Black, Indigenous, and other peoples of colour. Students are introduced to works by artists such as Joi T Arcand, Jeff Thomas, Carrie Mae Weems, Laura Aguilar, and American Artist. Throughout the term, the focus will be on politics of visibility, self-representation, and surveillance. BIPOC
Course Taught By: Georgia Phillips-Amos, PhD Candidate
ARTH 370-A Topics in Canadian Art: Indigenous and Settler Photography in Canada
Offered: 2021/4 (Winter)
Session/Credits: 13 weeks, 3 credits
Open Course: Yes
This course is focused on the ways that photography has either been used by Indigenous people, or impacted the lives of Indigenous people (and, to some extent other people of colour), as a tool of colonialism. Therefore, almost the entire course will engage with BIPOC-related issues. I
Course Taught By: Dr. Reilley Bishop-Stall
Dr. Reilley Bishop-Stall is a settler Canadian scholar who is devoted to anti-colonial practices and perspectives.
Notes: Students not enrolled in an Art History program may need to contact the Department to register. Please contact art.history@concordia.ca for assistance.
ARTH 373-A Issues in Contemporary Canadian Art: Visual Culture in Canada, 1960s to the Present
Offered: 2020/2 (Fall)
Session/Credits: 13 weeks/3 credits
Open Course: Yes
Through a selection of texts, actions, films, art works, and personal records, students learn both the histories and ongoing struggles of creative activists in Canada. Work by BIPOC scholars, activists and artists constitutes approximately 69%, or 9 of the 13 classes. BIPOC
Course Taught By: Alex Tigchelaar
Instructor Alex Tigchelaar uses participatory action research and has been a creative activist in queer and sex worker rights communities for over two decades.
ARTH 376-A Topics in Indigenous Art
Offered: 2020/2 (Fall)
Session/Credits: 13 weeks, 3 credits
Open Course: Yes
This course explores both historic and contemporary First Nations, Inuit and Metis artistic and cultural production. I
Course Taught By: Dr. Michelle S.A. McGeough, Assistant Professor
Dr. Michelle McGeough employs Indigenous knowledge and methods in her research practices.
ARTH 396-A Art and Culture: The Mexican Muralist Movement and its Legacies
Offered: 2021/4 (Winter)
Session/Credits: 13 weeks, 3 credits
Open Course: Yes
This course discusses contemporary Social Justice issues expressed in murals in Latin America, Canada and the USA, including the Civil Rights movement in the US. I, POC
Course Taught By: Dr. Michelle S.A. McGeough, Assistant Professor
Dr. Michelle McGeough employs Indigenous knowledge and methods in her research practices.
Notes: Prerequisites: 6 ARTH credits
Graduate courses
ARTH 613-A Indigenous Feminism(s)
Offered: 2021/4 (Winter)
Session/Credits: 13 weeks, 3 credits
Open Course: Yes
This course examines the scholarly work of Indigenous feminists who address the impacts of heteronormativity, heteropatriarchy and colonization on Indigenous nations. I
Course Taught By: Dr. Michelle S.A. McGeough, Assistant Professor
Dr. Michelle McGeough employs Indigenous knowledge and methods in her research practices.
Notes: Open only to graduate students.
ARTH 615-A - Issues in Postcolonial Theory in Art and Art History: Afrofuturism in Contemporary Canadian Art
Offered: 2020/2 (Fall)
Session/Credits: 13 weeks; 3 credits
Open Course: Yes
Afrofuturism’s major cultural moment in the mainstream spotlight was spectacularly symbolized by the massive success of Marvel’s 2018 blockbuster film Black Panther, America’s first superhero of African descent. This revitalized attention to the literary and music movement that looks at sociopolitical issues through an Afrocentric futuristic and science fiction lens, points to the urgency of critical responses and political activism to imagine the possibility of attainable life-bearing future worlds in response to an unprecedented historical period of widespread anti-immigrant animus, anti-black racism, unguarded misogyny, homophobia, and white supremacy. In North America (US and Canada), the popular rise of Afrofuturism also parallels a flurry of activity in the arts and culture sectors that speak to a resurgence of contemporary art by BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, people of colour) artists influenced by the ideas of the movement. Focusing on moving image works (experimental film and video), performance art, AI and virtual reality artworks by Canadian-based BIPOC artists, this seminar will explore the convergence of artistic practice engaged with Indigenous and Afro-Asian futurist aesthetics, drawing from the interdisciplinary approaches and models of analysis from the fields of Afrofuturism, science fiction criticism, feminism, critical race theory, transatlantic slavery studies, and media archeology. Ultimately, this seminar asks: What is the political and cultural significance of this new art not only to art history and art criticism but also to tackling issues in the present world if we are to imagine our continued existence in the future? BIPOC
Course Taught By: Dr. Alice Ming Wai Jim, Professor
Dr. Alice Ming Wai Jim is Concordia University Research Chair in Ethnocultural Art Histories.
Notes: Students not in the ARTH MA program should contact department administrator and/or professor to enrol.
Department of Design & Computation Arts
Undergraduate Courses
DART 339-A Second Skins and Softwear
Offered: 2020/2 (Fall)
Session/Credits: 13 weeks 3 credits
Open Course: Yes (see notes)
This course follows a decolonized curriculum, encouraging Indigenous theories, perspectives and methodologies as counter-points and intersections to new materialism. Students will be engaging with and responding to land acknowledgements, water/land relationships and sovereignty. I
Course Taught By: Dr. Miranda Smitheram, Assistant Professor
Dr Miranda Smitheram's research centres around decolonizing design processes through indigenous methodologies (mātauranga Māori).
Notes: Prerequisites: DART 380 or 381; DART 391, 392 previously or concurrently; or written permission of the Department. This is open by permission of the professor.
DART 441 - The Culture of Images
Offered: 2020/2 (Fall)
Session/Credits: 13 weeks, 3 credits
Open Course: Yes (see notes)
Race, identity, representation, intervention and activism are key components of DART 441, and will be used to connect to other topics such as branding, culture jamming and theories of vision. BIPOC*
Course Taught By: Dr. Alison Reiko Loader, Part-Time Faculty
Dr. Alison Reiko Loader applies intersectional concerns to histories of visual culture, animation and moving images.
Notes: Prerequisites: DART 441; 48 credits in the Major in Design; DART 491/492 previously or concurrently. DART 441 is a theory-based studio course (i.e. research-creation). This course prioritizes in-program students and opens if space becomes available.
Department of Studio Arts
Graduate Courses
ASEM 654/2-A - Aspects of Contemporary Cinema: Indigenous Cinema of the Americas
Offered: 2020/2 (Fall)
Session/Credits: 13 weeks, 3 credits
Open Course: No
This Masters Seminar explores the aesthetics and politics of Indigenous creativity on film and media arts. Students are also led to develop their thinking about a range of related topics, such as identity definition, power dynamics around ethnicity and gender, social inequity, ties to the land, colonialism, racism, etc. I
Course Taught By: Nicolas Renaud, Part-time Professor in Studio Arts, Part-time Professor, Cinema, Part-time Professor, First Peoples Studies, School of Community and Public Affairs
Nicolas Renaud is of mixed Huron-Wendat and Québécois descent, he attempts to bring Indigenous perspectives on Indigenous topics, and looks at the principles of decolonization as primarily a work to undo mental and cultural constructions of the Other within Western society.
Notes: ASEM 654 is a seminar reserved to MFA-Studio Arts students
Department of Theatre
Undergraduate Courses
PERC 321-A Introduction to Performance Studies
Offered: 2020/2 (Fall)
Session/Credits: 13 weeks, 3 credits
Open Course: Yes
BIPOC-related topics and methods include but are not limited to: decolonizing performance, intercultural collaboration and performance; negotiating in/visibility; the performativity of nationhood; and the political nature (and surveillance) of fabulousness, fierceness, and style for Black, brown, and marginalized people. BIPOC content including reading list, guest speakers, case studies, and examples constitute at least 50% of the course. BIPOC
Course Taught By: Dr. Dayna McLeod, Assistant Professor
Dr. Dayna McLeod utilizes an intersectional framework that draws on queer and feminist theory, performance studies, and media studies.
Notes: Prerequisites: 24 credits and enrolment in a program of the Department of Theatre or permission of the Department. Undergraduate non-Theatre students and INDI/HUMA students should contact the instructor for possible enrolment.
PERC 364-A - Oral History Performance
Offered: 2021/4 (Winter)
Session/Credits: 13 weeks, 3 credits
Open Course: Yes (see notes)
Oral history performance is about choosing a community or individual to work with, collaborate, listen to their memories, and produce a piece of performance to grant audience to those narratives. In that sense, it is a suitable space for BIPOC individuals to get voices of their families and communities heard. BIPOC*
Course Taught By: Dr. Luis Carlos Sotelo Castro, Associate Professor
An artist-researcher from mixed race origin (Colombian), I focus on situating listening as a unit of creation and analysis.
Notes: Students from outside the Department of Theatre may ask for authorization to enrol. Please contact luís.sotelo@concordia.ca.
PERC 318-A Playwriting I
Offered: 2020/2 (Fall)
Session/Credits: 13 weeks, 3 credits
Open Course: Yes
Many of the play readings and artists covered in the course content are BIPOC related. At least 50% of plays are written by BIPOC artists. The engaged conversation takes into account their lived experiences as BIPOC artists, as well as communities the artists work in and speak with as audiences. The professor is an artist of mixed Abénaki/Euro heritage, who brings particular Indigenous ways of knowing and practice into each class, including modes of writing practice that centre in embodied creation methods. BIPOC*
Course Taught By: Jessica Carmichael, MFA, MA, Assistant Professor
Professor Jessica Carmichael’s heritage encourages her to look at Non-Western storytelling and the post-colonial implications of the canon today, as well as experiencing land/s as an embodied teacher in how we approach form and content for creation.
Notes: Prerequisites: 24 credits or written permission by Department
PERC 362-A Playwriting II
Offered: 2021/4 (Winter)
Session/Credits: 13 weeks, 3 credits
Open Course: Yes
Many of the play readings and artists covered in the course content are BIPOC related. At least 50% of plays are written by BIPOC artists. The engaged conversation takes into account their lived experiences as BIPOC artists, as well as communities the artists work in and speak with as audiences. The professor is an artist of mixed Abénaki/Euro heritage, who brings particular Indigenous ways of knowing and practice into each class, including modes of writing practice that centre in embodied creation methods. BIPOC*
Course Taught By: Jessica Carmichael, MFA, MA, Assistant Professor
Professor Jessica Carmichael’s heritage encourages her to look at Non-Western storytelling and the post-colonial implications of the canon today, as well as experiencing land/s as an embodied teacher in how we approach form and content for creation.
Notes: Prerequisites: PERC 318-A and 30 Credits or written permission by the Department.
PERC 398-E Topics in Performance Creation: Indigenous Storytelling
Offered: 2020/2 (Fall)
Session/Credits: 13 weeks, 3 credits
Open Course: Yes
The course is entirely focused on Indigenous storytelling with a focus on stories of origin and creation myths (i.e. Cree, Lakota, Mohawk). The course is open to students of all backgrounds as an introduction to Indigenous content and methodologies. I
Course Taught By: Floyd Favel, Adjunct Professor
Floyd Favel is a theatre theorist, director, essayist, and Cree cultural leader based in Saskatchewan.
Notes: This course is open to students across campus after consultation with the instructor.
PERC 412-A Expanded Dramaturgy: Critical Perspectives and Practices
Offered: 2020/2 (Fall)
Session/Credits: 13 weeks, 3 credits
Open Course: Yes
Course readings include bell hooks (choosing the margins), Sarah Ahmed (On Being Included), podcasts with Black artists and dramaturges, queer and crip perspectives on dramaturgical practices, covering themes on dramaturgies of difference and diversity. BIPOC
Course Taught By: Dr. Shauna Janssen, Assistant Professor
Dr. Shauna Janssen uses intersectional perspectives in her teaching, research, and performance creation practice.
Notes: Prerequisites: 30 credits in undergrad program in department or permission from professor to take course.
Faculty of Fine Arts
Undergraduate Courses
FASS 293-A - Sexual Representation in the Arts
Offered: 2021/4 (Winter)
Session/Credits: 13 weeks, 3 credits
Open Course: Yes
This course focuses on gender and sexual minoritarian expression as they relate to creativity, activism and discourse in the 21st century. Contemporary scholarship in the disciplinary fold of Performance Studies (as well as contemporary theories of embodiment), naturally tend toward complexity in minoritarian expression and subjectivity. As such, many exemplary practitioners and thinkers in the field experience oppression from multiple axes. Assigned readings comprised of 70% female/non-binary authors; 49% BIPOC authors. BIPOC*
Course Taught By: Matthew-Robin Nye, PhD Candidate
Matthew-Robin Nye is undertaking his Doctoral studies at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in Society and Culture, in the fields of Process Philosophy, Performance Studies and Studio Art.
Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema
Undergraduate Courses
FMST 217-A First Peoples’ Cinema
Offered: 2021/4 (Winter)
Session/Credits: 13 weeks, 3 credits
Open Course: Yes (see notes)
This class focuses entirely on films made by Indigenous filmmakers. It explores the artistic expression as well as the political issues of the colonial experience of First Peoples around the globe. I
Course Taught By: Nicolas Renaud, Part-time Professor in Studio Arts, Part-time Professor, Cinema, Part-time Professor, First Peoples Studies, School of Community and Public Affairs
Nicolas Renaud is of mixed Huron-Wendat and Québécois descent, he attempts to bring Indigenous perspectives on Indigenous topics, and looks at the principles of decolonization as primarily a work to undo mental and cultural constructions of the Other within Western society.
Notes: Access may be granted upon authorization by the instructor and Department if space is available.
FMST 398-BB Cinema and the Body
Offered:
Session/Credits: 13 weeks, 3 credits
Open Course: Yes
This course broadly addresses BIPOC content through a focus on the centrality of bodies in the cinematic experience. Drawing on postcolonial and feminist theory, the course invites students to reflect on the way that cinema has been and continues to be used as a racialized and gendered tool to oppress certain bodies. Specifically, this course offers lectures on Black spectatorship, colonial and postcolonial cinema and the representation of Indigenous and Black bodies, including examples challenging dominant models of white beauty (about 40-50% of the course). The instructors also commit to screening and reading non-white filmmakers and writers throughout the course, in lectures that deal less directly with BIPOC related questions. BIPOC*
Course Taught By: Co instructors: Lola Remy & Ylenia Olibet, PhD Candidates
Lola Remy uses postcolonial theory in her research on the practice of cultural appropriation of experimental filmmakers during the postwar period. Ylenia Olibet uses postcolonial feminist approaches in her research.
Notes: Prerequisites: Second year standing.
Department of Classics, Modern Languages & Linguistics
Undergraduate Courses
LING 300-A Sociolinguistics
Offered: 2020/2 (Fall)
Session/Credits: 13 weeks 3 credits
Open Course: Yes
This course examines language in society through the lens of ethnic identity. The focus of the course is on the co-construction of BIPOC Identities in society. BIPOC
Course Taught By: Dr. Jacqueline Peters, Part-time Professor
LING 300-B Sociolinguistics
Offered: 2021/4 (Winter)
Session/Credits: 13 weeks 3 credits
Open Course: Yes
This course examines language in society through the lens of ethnic identity. The focus of the course is on the co-construction of BIPOC Identities in society. BIPOC
Course Taught By: Dr. Jacqueline Peters, Part-time Professor
Department of Communication Studies
Undergraduate Courses
COMS 419-01 Communications and Indigenous Peoples
COMS 519-01 Communications and Indigenous Peoples
Offered: 2020/2 (Fall)
Session/Credits: 13 weeks, 3 credits
Open Course: Yes (with exceptions)
100% of the content is related to Indigenous cultural politics and communications in Canada, and is primarily comprised of Indigenous methodologies, writings and media works by Indigenous scholars, writers and activists. I
Course Taught By: Dr. Monika Kin Gagnon, Professor
Dr. Monika Kin Gagnon is a non-Indigenous, Japanese Canadian scholar working from a feminist, anti-racist, decolonizing perspective.
Notes: This is a combined section class. Students not enrolled in a Communication Studies program may need to contact the Department and professor to register.
COMS 422-01 - Perspectives on the Information Society
Offered: 2020/2 (Fall)
Session/Credits: 13 weeks, 3 credits
Open Course: Yes
BIPOC-related issues are inextricably linked to any perspective on the information society, which can only be examined in full by dismantling the embedded anti-black and anti-Indigenous racism that is operative within Canadian/Western institutions and producers of knowledge (discourse, media, education, journalism, etc.). The course's bibliography draws largely on texts produced by leading BIPOC scholars in Communication Studies from or with deep connections to the Global South (such as Dr. Shakuntala Rao at SUNY Plattsburgh). BIPOC
Course Taught By: Dr. Ingrid Bejerman, Lecturer
Ingrid Bejerman is a journalist operating in the four major colonial languages of the Americas, actively deconstructing her practice.
Notes: Open to students who have successfully completed 48 university credits or who have received permission from the Department.
COMS 424-01 Community Alternative Media
Offered: 2020/2 (Fall)
Session/Credits: 13 weeks, 3 credits
Open Course: No
50-75% of the course is related to BIPOC issues and focuses on case studies on resistance to racist violence, and representations of BIPOC communities. BIPOC*
Course Taught By: Dr. Yasmin Jiwani, Professor
Dr. Yasmin Jiwani, critical anti-racist feminist theory and praxis.
Notes: Students not enrolled in a Communication Studies program may need to contact the Department and professor to register.
COMS 464-01 Race, Ethnicity and Media
Offered: 2021/4 (Winter)
Session/Credits: 13 weeks, 3 credits
Open Course: No
90% of the course is related to BIPOC issues and focuses on case studies on resistance to racist violence, and representations of BIPOC communities. BIPOC
Course Taught By: Dr. Yasmin Jiwani, Professor
Dr. Yasmin Jiwani, critical anti-racist feminist theory and praxis.
Notes: Students not enrolled in a Communication Studies program may need to contact the Department and professor to register.
Graduate Courses
COMS 519-01 Communications and Indigenous Peoples
COMS 419-01 Communications and Indigenous Peoples
Offered: 2020/2 (Fall)
Session/Credits: 13 weeks, 3 credits
Open Course: Yes (with exceptions)
100% of the content is related to Indigenous cultural politics and communications in Canada, and is primarily comprised of Indigenous methodologies, writings and media works by Indigenous scholars, writers and activists. I
Course Taught By: Dr. Monika Kin Gagnon, Professor
Dr. Monika Kin Gagnon is a non-Indigenous, Japanese Canadian scholar working from a feminist, anti-racist, decolonizing perspective.
Notes: This is a combined section class. Students not enrolled in a Communication Studies program may need to contact the Department and professor to register.
COMS 614-01 News and Public Affairs
Offered: 2021/4 (Winter)
Session/Credits: 13 weeks, 3 credits
Open Course: Yes
50-75% of the course is related to BIPOC issues and focuses on case studies on resistance to racist violence, and representations of BIPOC communities. BIPOC*
Course Taught By: Dr. Yasmin Jiwani, Professor
Dr. Yasmin Jiwani, critical anti-racist feminist theory and praxis.
Notes: Students not enrolled in a Communication Studies program may need to contact the Department and professor to register.
Department of Education
Undergraduate Courses
ESTU 641-A Education in Pluricultural Societies
Offered: 2020/2 (Fall)
Session/Credits: 13 weeks, 3 credits
Open Course: Yes
All sections of the course are related to BIPOC issues theoretically and empirically. BIPOC
Course Taught By: Dr. M. Ayaz Naseem, Professor
Dr. M. Ayaz Naseem uses decolonizing perspectives in his research.
Notes: Students from other programs can also register if space is available. Please contact the instructor for more information.
Department of English
Undergraduate Courses
ENGL 351/4-A - 20th Century Writing by Women
Offered: 2021/4 (Winter)
Session/Credits: 13 weeks, 3 credits
Open Course: Yes
The second half of the course is dedicated to Women Writers of Colour. BIPOC*
Course Taught By: Dr. Cynthia Quarrie, Assistant Professor
Dr Cynthia Quarrie uses postcolonial, ethical, and critical race theory in her study of narrative forms.
ENGL 354/2-A - Studies in Contemporary Literature: Narrative Theory and the Contemporary Short Story
Offered: 2020/2 (Fall)
Session/Credits: 13 weeks, 3 credits
Open Course: Yes
Two-thirds of the short stories on the syllabus are written by BIPOC authors (with approximately one quarter of the authors being LGBTQ+). The course is framed with a discussion about who gets published and why, what kinds of experiences are traditionally understood to be good ""short story material"" and why, and centres race in these discussions. Students will read both formalist narrative theory and theory about narrative contexts, and will interrogate both from the perspective of the marginalized identities centred in the fiction read. BIPOC
Course Taught By: Dr. Cynthia Quarrie, Assistant Professor
Dr Cynthia Quarrie uses postcolonial, ethical, and critical race theory in her study of narrative forms.
ENGL 386-A Caribbean Literature
Offered: 2020/2 (Fall)
Session/Credits: 13 weeks, 3 credits
Open Course: Yes
This course deals with Caribbean literature, mostly in English but with some work in French and Spanish. Almost all of the writers covered are people of colour. B, POC
Course Taught By: Dr. Amanda Perry
Dr. Amanda Perry, a white Canadian woman, has spent the past ten years researching multilingual Caribbean literature.
Département d'études françaises
Undergraduate Courses
FLIT 367-AA Littérature d’Haïti
Offered: 2020/2 (Fall)
Session/Credits: 13 weeks, 3 credits
Open Course: Yes
This course discusses the literature and culture of Haïti. B
Course Taught By: Dr. Françoise Naudillon, Full Professor
Dr. Naudillon included postcolonial perspectives in her research.
Notes: Students should contact the Department to inquire about enrolling.
Department of Geography, Planning & Environment
Undergraduate Courses
GEOG 315-A Social and Cultural Geographies
Offered: 2021/4 (Winter)
Session/Credits: 13 weeks, 3 credits
Open Course: Yes
This course is about power, oppression, and resistance. It covers settler colonialism, anti-Black racism, migration, and policing - all from an intersectional feminist perspective. Probably 1/2 of the course is about race. BIPOC*
Course Taught By: Dr. Ted Rutland, Associate Professor
Ted Rutland examines how white supremacy are woven into the understanding and governance of modern cities.
Notes: Prerequisites: GEOG 290. Students should contact the Department to inquire about enrolling in the course.
GEOG 330-A Urban Geography
Offered: 2021/4 (Winter)
Session/Credits: 13 weeks, 3 credits
Open Course: Yes
Much of the course examines how the production of difference (gender, sexuality, 'race', indigeneity) shapes cities. Some sections have more BIPOC content than others. In the Cultures of Cities, Jean-Michel Basquiat provides an illustration of the post-modern aestheticization of urbanity. The section on Cities of Difference illustrates social distance theory using the example of the racialization of Vancouver's Chinatown and the assignment for this section involves the critical evaluation of census data on 'ethnicity' and 'race'. The second half of the course deals with neighbourhood patterns. Many components address ethno-cultural patterns of neighbourhood formation (such as ethnoburbs) and racialized segregation. A sustained analysis of the policies shaping African-American segregation in Chicago is used to complexify and disrupt popular understandings of 'ghettoization'. B, POC
Course Taught By: Dr. Julie Podmore, Affiliate Assistant Professor
I am a queer intersectional feminist scholar of cities.
Notes: Prerequisites: GEOG 220 or permission of the Department. Students should contact the Department to inquire about enrolling.
GEOG 407-A Indigenous People and the Environment
Offered: 2020/2 (Fall)
Session/Credits: 13 weeks, 3 credits
Open Course: Yes (see notes)
This course focuses on land and the struggle for land by Indigenous peoples and their allies. Drawing on theories of settler colonialism and transnational histories of Indigenous and anti-colonial movements, the course examines how racialized dispossession is enacted and resisted in the present and how Indigenous people are winning land and autonomy back from settler states. I
Course Taught By: Dr. Kevin A. Gould, Associate Professor
Dr. Kevin Gould's research lies at the intersection of political ecology and critical geography.
Notes: Prerequisites: GEOG 290 or permission of instructor. Students can enrol in the class with approval of the instructor.
GEOG 430 Social Geographies of Montreal
URBS 420-AA Social Geographies of Montreal
Offered: 2020 (Summer)
Session/Credits: 6.5 weeks, 3 credits
Open Course: Yes
This course is about power, oppression, and resistance in Montreal. It covers parts of Montreal history, including colonization, slavery, policing, migration, and prisons. Probably 2/3 of the course is about race. BIPOC
Course Taught By: Dr. Ted Rutland, Associate Professor
Ted Rutland examines how white supremacy are woven into the understanding and governance of modern cities.
Notes: Prerequisites: GEOG 315 or 330; or permission of the Department. Students should contact the Department to inquire about enrolling in the course.
Geography 498 Special Topics in Geography – Indigenous and Environmental History of the Americas since 1492
Offered: 2021/4 (Winter)
Session/Credits: 13 weeks, 3 credits
Open Course: Yes (see notes)
The course covers changes in the demographics of the Americas since Contact in 1492. It covers the epidemics and their effects on Indigenous populations, as well as the fall of the major empires in Mexico and Peru. We also discuss the Transatlantic slave trade. B, I
Course Taught By: Dr. Jeannine-Marie St-Jacques, Assistant Professor
Notes: 48 credits completed or permission of the professor. Students should contact the Department to inquire about enrolling in the course.
Department of History
Undergraduate Courses
HIST 261-A History of South Asia
Offered: 2020/2 (Fall)
Session/Credits: 13 weeks 3 credits
Open Course: Yes
This 200-level survey course offers an overview of the history of South Asia from the beginning of human civilization in the region through the 21st century. The bulk of the course covers the period from the onset of European colonization in the 15th century through the decolonization of India in the 20th century, and a lot of time is spent unpacking the history of European imperialism and colonialism, resistance and freedom movements, and the complexities of decolonization in the post-colonial period. We also cover the history of the South Asian diaspora globally, and the histories of people of South Asian decent around the world (and particularly in Canada, especially in relation to discriminatory policies & histories of racism). This course looks historically at systems of oppression (caste, the cultural and political dominance of Hindus/Hinduism, anti-indigenous/tribal mobilization) and follows their evolution around the logics of race in the early modern and modern period, along with other political iterations of dominance in India. POC
Course Taught By: Dr. Rachel Berger, Associate Professor
Dr. Rachel Berger is a settler scholar who uses an intersectional approach to the history of the past in South Asia (predominantly anti-racist and feminist, and centring the lives of queer people, Muslims and other minorities in the region). This course is informed by post-colonial and Marxist readings of the Indian past (in line with the field-specific theory that has shaken up the narrative over the past 3 decades) and relies heavily on decolonization theory and the work of BIPOC scholars, and South Asian feminist scholars and activists, in particular, to think critically about South Asian histories in a global context.
Notes: Students should contact the Department to inquire about enrolling in the course.
HIST 263/4 A - History of Japan
Offered: 2021/4 (Winter)
Session/Credits: 13 weeks 3 credits
Open Course: Yes
This course is a history of Japan (including Indigenous people of the Japanese archipelago such as the Ainu and Ryukyuan peoples) from earliest times until present and thus foregrounds BIPOC stories and "non-Western" historical perspectives. It situates Japan in Asian history and cultural flows and later considers the effects of Euro-American racial thinking, racist science and imperial anthropology, and similar points of cultural and imperial friction and conflict. The "modern history" part of the course considers the influence of North American settler colonialism on Japanese imperial practices, the experience of ethnic minorities in Japan, and places these in a comparative context, bringing in Canadian examples and points of contrast. POC
Course Taught By: Dr. Matthew Penney, Associate Professor
Dr. Matthew Penney is a historian of modern Japan who foregrounds Japanese and other non-Western historical experiences in his writing and teaching.
HIST 264/2-A History of Africa
Offered: 2020/2 (Fall)
Session/Credits: 13 weeks, 3 credits
Open Course: Yes (see notes)
As an introductory course on African history, HIST 264 is focused on a significant segment of BIPOC people's history. The assignments for the course are built around texts by high-profile African authors. And while race is only one of the many themes it treats, the course aims to foreground the diversity and complexity of African historical experience, including its importance to the foundations of today's world. B
Course Taught By: Dr. Andrew Ivaska, Associate Professor
You can read more about Dr. Ivaska's research and teaching here:https://www.concordia.ca/artsci/history/faculty.html?fpid=andrew-ivaska
Notes: Non-History majors may need to receive permission to register (and History majors often have priority).
HIST 336-A - Deviancy and Orthodoxy in Mexican History
Offered: 2020/02 (Fall)
Session/Credits: 13 weeks 3 credits
Open Course: Yes
This class examines the state and the church's changing construction of orthodoxy and deviancy in Mexico across time; as such, both indigenous populations and Afro-Mexicans were important categories of social deviants in the mentality of colonial institutions. We examine both populations when examining such topics as: religious orthodoxy, idealized racial identities, political control, the law, and cultural nationalism. Discussions involving Afro-Mexicans and indigenous populations occupy 50-66% of the course material. BIPOC*
Course Taught By: Dr. Nora Jaffary, Professor
Notes: Prerequisites: 24 university credits or permission of the Department
HIST 387-AA Museums and Heritage in a Globalized World
Offered: 2021/4 (Winter)
Session/Credits: 13 weeks 3 credits
Open Course: Yes
This course is centrally about the history, culture, and politics in public institutions, landscapes, discourses, and the material world. These are inevitably bound up with highly political issues of representation and identification, themselves profoundly shaped by histories and legacies of colonialism, genocide, and nationalism, whose brunt has been borne by BIPOC individuals (as well as those, like Jews and southern European ethnic groups, who were historically racialized and were not treated as White when they arrived in North America). BIPOC
Course Taught By: Dr. Erica Lehrer, Professor
HIST 485-AA Curating Difficult Knowledge
HIST 665-AA Curating Difficult Knowledge
Offered: 2021/4 (Winter)
Session/Credits: 13 weeks 3 credits
Open Course: Yes
This course is centrally about the history, culture, and politics in public institutions, landscapes, discourses, and the material world. These are inevitably bound up with highly political issues of representation and identification, themselves profoundly shaped by histories and legacies of colonialism, genocide, and nationalism, whose brunt has been borne by BIPOC individuals (as well as those, like Jews and southern European ethnic groups, who were historically racialized and were not treated as White when they arrived in North America). BIPOC
Course Taught By: Dr. Erica Lehrer, Professor
HISW 276-X - History of Latin America: The Colonial Period
Offered: 2020/2 (Fall)
Session/Credits: 13 weeks 3 credits
Open Course: Yes
This class is a general survey of Latin America in the colonial period; the history of both indigenous civilizations, enslaved Africans, and Afro-Latin America (pre and post-contact with Europe), as the demographic majority of Latin America throughout the era under consideration occupies the majority of class time. This course discusses both these populations when covering such topics as religious belief, political organization, perceptions of race, colonial economies, nascent nationalism and others. BIPOC
Course Taught By: Dr. Nora Jaffary, Professor
Dr. Nora Jaffary, like many current historians, recognizes that Afro-Latin American and Indigenous populations constructed the history of colonial Latin America.
Loyola College for Diversity and Sustainability
Undergraduate Courses
LOYC 298-02 Black Montreal
Offered: 2020/2 (Fall)
Session/Credits: 13 weeks, 3 credits
Open Course: No
This course is largely designed to introduce students to the major themes, issues, and debates in Montreal’s Black history from its origins until today. One hundred percent of the course speaks to BIPOC-related issues. B
Course Taught By: Dr. Dorothy Williams, Adjunct Professor
Dr. Dorothy Williams examines the lived-experiences of the successive waves of migrants, refugees, fugitives, asylum-seekers and immigrants to Montreal and on the continual re-shaping of the Black Montreal identit(ies) through this course and her research.
LOYC 398-D Religion in Native Traditions
FPST 398-A Religion in Native Traditions
RELI 368-A Religion in Native Traditions
Offered: 2020/2 (Fall)
Session/Credits: 13 weeks, 3 credits
Open Course: Yes
This course addresses religion, tradition, de/colonization via 80-90% Indigenous-authored course texts and creative content such as literature and film. The focus is on historical and contemporary contexts with an emphasis on Indigenous women's perspectives. I
Course Taught By: Colby Gaudet, PhD student
Colby Gaudet uses critical Indigenous and decolonial perspectives to engage themes of religion, tradition, and de/colonization.
LOYC 420-01 - Integrative Project
Offered: 2021/4 (Winter)
Session/Credits: 13 weeks, 3 credits
Open Course: No
For this course, students have the option of doing an in-depth research project, which may be relevant to BIPOC issues if they so choose (i.e., course content = 0-100%, depending on the research project chosen by the student). BIPOC*
Course Taught By: Dr. Peter Graham, À temps partiel
Peter Graham is an interdisciplinary social scientist with an interest in the process that transforms things into commodities and how that process in turn transforms peoples.
Notes: Prerequisites: 12 credits of LOYC courses or permission of the Department
Department of Political Science
Undergraduate Courses
POLI 301-CA Social Movements and Protest Politics
Offered: Summer 2020
Session/Credits: 6.5 weeks, 3 credits
Open Course: Yes
This class has a major component focusing on the US Civil Rights Movement, the Black Panther Party, state repression and surveillance of Black movements and communities, as well as the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, the Tiananmen Square protests in China, and other BIPOC-related cases. B, POC
Course Taught By: Dr. Daniel Douek, Part-Time Professor
Dr. Daniel Douek's research focuses on anti-colonial insurgency and colonial counterinsurgency in Southern Africa.
POLI 366-A Politics of Africa
Offered: 2020/2 (Fall), 2021/4 (Winter)
Session/Credits: 13 weeks, 3 credits
Open Course: Yes
100%. The course offers an introduction to African politics and most Africans are BIPOC. While there are some theoretical texts, the focus throughout is on the African context. Scholars based in or from the African continent are well represented in the readings. B
Course Taught By: Dr. Amy Poteete, Associate Professor, Political Science & Co-Director, Loyola Sustainability Research Centre
Notes: Prerequisites: POLI 203 or permission of the department.
Department of Philosophy
Undergraduate Courses
PHIL 498-BB Advanced Topics in Philosophy: Philosophy of Nature
PHIL 678-BB Advanced Topics in Philosophy: Philosophy of Nature
Offered: 2021/4 (Winter)
Session/Credits: 13 weeks, 3 credits
Open Course: No
This course pursues philosophical questions about what nature is and how we are related to it, as beings who are part of nature yet know it: we make sense of nature yet any sense we make arises from nature as prior to us. These sorts of questions will be introduced through a selection of chapters from Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer, a member of Citizen Potawatomi Nation and a botanist. Kimmerer poses these questions via deep reflections on her relation to nature as a scientist through and against her experience of the world as an indigenous person, her efforts to learn to speak Anishinaabemowin, which speaks of the world through “grammar of animacy,” and reflects of a very different view of plants, animals, place and nature in her tradition. Her reflections will frame and provide critical resources for a very brief study of Schelling’s view of nature, leading into studies of Jan Patočka’ The Natural World as Philosophical Problem and Raymond Ruyer’s Neofinalism, after which we will return to Anishinaabe philosophy via Dolleen Tisawii’ashii Manning’s “The Murmuration of Birds: An Anishinaabe Ontology of Mnidoo-Worlding. I
Course Taught By: Dr. David Morris, Professor
Department of Religions and Cultures
Undergraduate Courses
RELI 368-A Religion in Native Traditions
FPST 398-A Religion in Native Traditions
LOYC 398-D Religion in Native Traditions
Offered: 2020/2 (Fall)
Session/Credits: 13 weeks, 3 credits
Open Course: Yes
This course addresses religion, tradition, de/colonization via 80-90% Indigenous-authored course texts and creative content such as literature and film. The focus is on historical and contemporary contexts with an emphasis on Indigenous women's perspectives. I
Course Taught By: Colby Gaudet, PhD student
Colby Gaudet uses critical Indigenous and decolonial perspectives to engage themes of religion, tradition, and de/colonization.
RELI 398-F Decolonizing Religion
Offered: 2021/4 (Winter)
Session/Credits: 13 weeks, 3 credits
Open Course: Yes
The whole course interrogates how colonial discourses, power, and history shape the way we think about religion and various possibilities for moving beyond these colonial assumptions. The course will cover topics such as decolonization, post-colonialism, indigeneity, settler colonialism, power/knowledge, colonial discourse theory, black anti-colonial philosophy, Marxism, queer theory, the protestant presuppositions of religion, and the deconstruction of ‘religion’. BIPOC
Course Taught By: Dr. Marcel Parent, Assistant Professor
Dr. Marcel Parent centers teaching in postcolonial and decolonial perspectives to help transform presuppositions and perspectives.
Simone de Beauvoir Institute
Undergraduate Courses
WSDB 384-AA Queer Feminism
Offered: 2020/2 (Fall)
Session/Credits: 13 weeks, 3 credits
Open Course: Yes
BIPOC-related topics include but are not limited to: intersectional queer feminist theory, thought, and practice; empowered marginalized and traditionally silenced voices; Two-Spirit and Indigiqueer cultural production; archive and Black experience; and decolonization. BIPOC content including reading list, case studies, and examples constitute at least 50% of the course. BIPOC
Course Taught By: Dr. Dayna McLeod, Assistant Professor
Dr. Dayna McLeod utilizes an intersectional framework that draws on queer and feminist theory, performance studies, and media studies.
Notes: Prerequisites: 300-level courses are generally open only to students who have successfully completed at least 15 credits, which include WSDB 290, 291 and 292. Students who do not have these prerequisites may also register with permission of the Institute.
Department of Sociology & Anthropology
Undergraduate Courses
SOCI 428-A Capitalism and Crisis
Offered: 2020/2 (Fall)
Session/Credits: 13 weeks, 3 credits
Open Course: Yes (see notes)
70% of course. BIPOC
Course Taught By: Dr. Beverley Best, Associate Professor
Notes: Prerequisites: Two 300-level Sociology or Anthropology courses (or permission from instructor). Students should contact instructor to inquire about enrolling in the course.
Graduate Courses
SOCI 603-A - Contemporary Sociological Theory
Offered: 2021/4 (Winter)
Session/Credits: 13 weeks, 3 credits
Open Course: Yes (see notes)
100% of course focuses on BIPOC topics, including critical Indigenous Studies; Black Radical Tradition; Anti-colonial studies; critiques of racial capitalism, decolonial studies. BIPOC
Course Taught By: Dr. Beverley Best, Associate Professor
Notes: Prerequisites: Students should be enrolled in at the MA-level. Students should contact instructor to inquire about enrolling in the course.
Department of Theological Studies
Undergraduate Courses
THEO 243-AA Indigenous Spirituality
Offered: 2020/2 (Fall)
Session/Credits: 13 weeks, 3 credits
Open Course: Yes
Two objectives of the course are to experience and understand more clearly Indigenous worldview and concrete expressions of Indigenous spirituality. We also explore the relationship between Indigenous spirituality and Christian spirituality. I
Course Taught By: Dr. Christine Jamieson, Associate Professor
Dr. Christine Jamieson uses Indigenous methodology in teaching THEO 243.
School of Community and Public Affairs
Undergraduate Courses
FPST 203/4-A First Peoples of Canada
Offered: 2021/4 (Winter)
Session/Credits: 13 weeks, 3 credits
Open Course: Yes
This course is fully dedicated to exploring Indigenous history, reality and perspective within the Canadian context. Such content helps bridging a gap in the education system that perpetuates ignorance about Indigenous peoples. Students are also led to develop their thinking about a range of related topics, such as identity definition, power dynamics around ethnicity and gender, social inequity, colonialism, racism, etc. I
Course Taught By: Nicolas Renaud, Part-time Professor in Studio Arts, Part-time Professor, Cinema, Part-time Professor, First Peoples Studies, School of Community and Public Affairs
Nicolas Renaud is of mixed Huron-Wendat and Québécois descent, he attempts to bring Indigenous perspectives on Indigenous topics, and looks at the principles of decolonization as primarily a work to undo mental and cultural constructions of the Other within Western society.
Notes: Access may be granted upon authorization by the instructor and Department if space is available.
FPST 341/2-A - Globalization & Indigenous Peoples
Offered: 2020/2 (Fall)
Session/Credits: 13 weeks, 3 credits
Open Course: Yes
This course situates Indigenous lives and political reality within the dynamics of globalization. It views globalization at once as an extension of colonialism that seeks erasure of Indigenous identities and extraction of resources on their land, and as an opportunity for Indigenous worldview and political battles to be heard on a global stage, such as for the increasing Indigenous presence in international forums about the environmental crisis. I
Course Taught By: Nicolas Renaud, Part-time Professor in Studio Arts, Part-time Professor, Cinema, Part-time Professor, First Peoples Studies, School of Community and Public Affairs
Nicolas Renaud is of mixed Huron-Wendat and Québécois descent, he attempts to bring Indigenous perspectives on Indigenous topics, and looks at the principles of decolonization as primarily a work to undo mental and cultural constructions of the Other within Western society.
Notes: Access may be granted upon authorization by the instructor and Department if space is available.
FPST 398-A Religion in Native Traditions
LOYC 398-D Religion in Native Traditions
RELI 368-A Religion in Native Traditions
Offered: 2020/2 (Fall)
Session/Credits: 13 weeks, 3 credits
Open Course: Yes
This course addresses religion, tradition, de/colonization via 80-90% Indigenous-authored course texts and creative content such as literature and film. The focus is on historical and contemporary contexts with an emphasis on Indigenous women's perspectives. I
Course Taught By: Colby Gaudet, PhD student
Colby Gaudet uses critical Indigenous and decolonial perspectives to engage themes of religion, tradition, and de/colonization.
Centre for Engineering in Society
Graduate Courses
ENCS 691-G (8184) Topics in Engineering and Computer Science
Offered: 2021/4 (Winter)
Session/Credits: 13 weeks/4 credits
Open Course: Yes
The course addresses equity, diversity and inclusion in STEM fields through critical lenses (critical race theory, feminist theory, decolonizing theories). It questions power relations in STEM intersectionally and how engineering and sciences and STEM education are reproducing inequity. BIPOC*
Course Taught By: Dr. Tanja Tajmel, Associate Professor
Dr. Tanja Tajmel explores decolonial approaches in her research.
Notes: It is recommended that students hold a BA in STEM fields as a prerequisite. Students should contact Dr. Tajmel to inquire about enrolling.
