Overview
MAIS 635 is the foundational course for students in the Equity Studies focus area. In this focus area, students are introduced to scholarship grounded in lineages of insurgent and resurgent knowledges. Building from long histories, these knowledge practices are currently emerging from political mobilization around climate justice activism, Indigenous and Afro futurisms, migrant justice movements, queer/trans and gender non-conforming mobilizations, disability justice organizing, abolitionist politics, food security movements, and other movements.
The purpose of this course is to understand (and ideally put into practice) the struggle not simply for change but for liberation and just futures.
In MAIS 635, students will be asked to grapple with and collaborate on a grounding lexicon or set of keywords in this area of study, research, and praxis. Studies of equity, social justice, and liberatory futures have moved far past a focus on equality. Even the words "equity," "social justice," and "liberation" do not necessarily take us to the same place. Through this class, students will begin to understand why that is the case. More broadly, through collective study, students will be supported to explore keywords that offer foundations and to cultivate a practice of deep critical engagement. This will benefit those students who wish to continue in this line of study, who seek to employ a lens attentive to equity and social justice in their research, or who want to engage in this kind of political struggle in their everyday lives.
Throughout the course, students will turn this lens upon one institutional context that we all hold in common: the university. The pedagogical intent of this is to open up critical, alternate understandings of the institutions in which we are embedded. By learning what it can look like to engage deeply with one specific institutional context, students will be supported to interrogate other institutional contexts that they are proximate to or interested in.
Outline
Week 1: Introduction and Welcome: What does justice want?
Week 2: Why keywords?
Week 3: What is the university, and what is happening to it?
Week 4: If we were to talk about EDI at the university...
Week 5: Who are you, and who do you want to be in the university? Reflecting on Complicity and Solidarity
Week 6: Keyword Intensive: White Settler Colonialism, Imperialism, and the University
Week 7: Keyword Intensive: Race, White Supremacy, and the University
Week 8: Reading Week
Week 9: Keyword Intensive: Capitalism and the University
Week 10: Keyword Intensive: Heteropatriarchy and the University
Week 11: Keyword Intensive: Ableism and the University
Week 12: Reflection and ‘Making’ Week
Week 13: What does ____ want?
Week 14: What does ____ want?
Learning outcomes
When you have completed MAIS 635, you should be able to
- demonstrate literacies in keywords that are foundational in this area of study and struggle (depending on the path you take, these keywords could include oppression, refusal, inclusion, intersectionality, gender identity, capitalism, white settler colonialism, racism, complicity, whiteness, ableism, disability justice, abolition, and more).
- apply analyses attentive to intersecting, interacting, and relational structures of domination (for example, racism and white supremacy; settler colonialism, colonialism, and imperialism; heteropatriarchy; capitalism; ableism; and casteism).
- experiment with translating abstract ideas through creative and accessible modalities.
- demonstrate and continue to deepen your knowledge of the relationship between these keywords, the lineages from which they come, and key bodies of interdisciplinary scholarship (for example, feminism, critical race theory, critical disability studies, and more).
- continually reflect upon your role as a researcher and practitioner by actively engaging and interrogating keywords like relationality, implication, privilege, and complicity.
- engage in extended deep analysis and mapping of institutional contexts through keywords in Equity Studies.
- continue to take risks by delving into radical imaginations of how communities embedded within an institution have refused, resisted, interrogated, and dismantled status quo relations of power, domination, and oppression.
- collaborate with peers to create and utilize a creative lexicon of Equity Studies.
Evaluation
To receive credit for this course, students must participate in the online activities, successfully complete the assignments, and achieve a final mark of at least 60 percent. Students should be familiar with the Master of Arts — Interdisciplinary Studies grading system. Please note that it is students' responsibility to maintain their program status. Any student who receives a grade of "F" in one course, or a grade of "C" in more than one course, may be required to withdraw from the program.
The following table summarizes the evaluation activities and the credit weights associated with them:
| Activity | Weight |
| Ongoing Discussion and Engagement | 15% |
| Keyword Analysis and Literature Review | 30% |
| Creative Translation of a Keyword | 25% |
| Critical Artist Statement | 15% |
| Dear University Letter and Institutional Mapping | 15% |
| Total | 100% |
Materials
Digital course materials
Links to the following course materials will be made available in the course:
Nath, Nisha, Rita Dhamoon, Anita Girvan, and Davina Bhandar. The Letters: Institutional Lives and EDI. Fernwood Publishing, 2026.
Other Materials
All other assigned readings will be made available online through the Digital Reading Room.