Fall/Winter Timetable
POL2024H1S L0101
Undergraduate Course Code: POL432H1S L0101
Feminist Theory: Challenges to Legal and Political Thought
Themes
This course offers challenges to the foundations of modern political and legal thought. It focuses on the underlying conception of the self and its implications for core concepts such as autonomy, freedom, equality and power. Many different critics have charged that the liberal tradition is based on an unrealistically individualistic vision of human beings. Feminist theory offers one of the most promising avenues for moving beyond that critique to the construction of a theory based on a conception of human beings as socially constituted and inherently independent. The model of individual integrity in these theories is premised on, rather than set in opposition to, social interdependence. Such a conception then poses the challenge of reconceptualizing autonomy, individual responsibility and other core concepts. The legal system is one of the primary means by which our society articulates and enforces central values such as equality, justice, and freedom. The course will thus also look at the ways in which feminist theory suggests a transformation of the ways in which these values are given concrete application in law.
Texts
Packet of materials available at Faculty of Law Bookstore.
Format and Requirements
Participation, one page written "comments" on the reading every other week, "responses" to comments every other week (20%). A five-page paper on the assigned readings (20%). 20-25 page paper due last day of classes (60%).
September 12, 2024
Congratulations to political science students Yojana Miraya Oscco and Jenna Quelch who have both been awarded 'Connaught PhDs for Public Impact' fellowships. The Connaught PhDs for Public Impact Fellowship Program offers U of T doctoral students...
November 14, 2023
Congratulations to Madalyn Hay, a recipient of a 2023-2024 Connaught PhDs for Public Impact Fellowship. Madalyn, one of our doctoral students, holds a BAH in Contemporary Studies and Classics from the...
August 24, 2023
Congratulations to alumna Meaghan Williams, a recipient of the 2022-23 Governor General’s Gold Medal for Academic Excellence, the highest academic honour available to graduate students in Canada. Awarded annually by the Office of the...
June 14, 2021
Great news from the Canadian Political Science Association, which held its annual awards ceremony (online) over the weekend of June 12 & 13: Professor Stefan Rencken’s book "Private Governance and Public...
April 22, 2021
Congratulations to two political science alumni now teaching at U of T who have both won Superior Teaching Awards! Igor Shoikhedbrod and Khalid Ahmed will be celebrated on May 5th at...
August 6, 2020
Q&A with 2020 Vanier Scholar Yojana Miraya Oscco Congratulations to PhD student Yojana Miraya Oscco who has won a prestigious Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship (SSHRC). Launched in 2008, the program enables...
April 30, 2020
Congratulations to our graduate student Kevin Edmonds who has won New College's June Larkin Award for Pedagogical Development. A PhD candidate specializing in Caribbean political economy, histories of alternative/illicit development, foreign intervention and...