Courses

Course description:

This course provides students with an opportunity to learn about and reflect on the continuously evolving tobacco industry playbook. The course will begin with an overview of the industry (e.g. key products, harms, figures, and players), before delving into its history. This will include the role of European settlers in colonizing and industrializing tobacco, the emergence of the industry in the US and Europe in the late 1800s and early 1900s, the intricate relationship between the industry and the two world wars (including post-WWII reconstruction in Europe), and the consolidation and entrenchment of the industry into Big Tobacco (i.e. Philip Morris International, British American Tobacco, and Imperial Brands – all headquartered in Europe, and Japan Tobacco International). After looking into research methodologies, the course will then explore the industry’s main business and political strategies and tactics overtime, with a particular focus on Europe and Eurasia. These notably include producing and distributing addictive products (e.g. sales and marketing strategies, tobacco product supply chains), controlling information (e.g. concealing evidence of harms, funding research and influencing media to sow doubt and push certain narratives), undermining policy and lack of government capacity in particular in LMICs (i.e. through direct lobbying and allies), and rebranding itself as the solution to problems it created, e.g. to smoking with vaping, and to illicit trade with anti-illicit trade initiatives. Key case studies will include China (the world’s largest cigarette producer) and Russia and Ukraine, with an exploration of how Big Tobacco captured post-Soviet Union markets through smuggling, how Ukraine long served as a smuggling hub for Big Tobacco companies, and how those companies responded to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. We will then explore how the tobacco industry playbook has been replicated in other industries, and discuss implications for research, policy, and practice.

Day and Time: Tuesday: 1:00 - 3:00 pm 
Location: TBA
Instructor: TBA
Term: Fall
Credit: 0.5 

*This course is offered jointly with MGA. It is open to MA CEES and MGA students only.

The first four weeks will focus on the basics of policymaking, particularly from the perspective of the non-partisan public service. How do governments set and prioritize their agenda? What is the process of interaction between political officials, including ministers, and the public service? How do stakeholders – interest groups and citizens alike – engage in the process? How do public servants choose and design delivery methods to turn policy proposals into initiatives. What can go wrong and how can one best avoid this? How are results assessed? How does one communicate appropriately and effectively, including in the era of social media and the 24/7 news cycle.

Specific examples will be cited often. Students will do a Briefing Note assignment individually on a topical issue, based on a template common in government for the written briefing of senior officials and ministers.

The second four weeks will apply these learnings to the global context in which Canada operates and engages, including vis-à-vis Europe. While the first four weeks will be based on lectures, decks and discussions, the second four weeks will also benefit from presentations and discussions with seniors practitioners. Students will prepare and present a Minister’s Briefing deck on a topical issue of importance to Canada’s global interests and values and/or international policy broadly. This presentation is designed to mimic what its like inside government. Students will work in teams of four, applying a template common in government for the oral briefing of senior officials and ministers.

Students will be assessed on a marking rubric of: 40 per cent for the briefing note assignment, 40 per cent for the minister’s briefing assignment and 20 per cent for class participation.

Term:  Fall (September-December)
Day & Time: Thursday 12-2 pm
Instructor(s): Prof. Drew Fagan
Room: B019, 315 Bloor St. West, Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy

*This course is offered jointly with MGA. It is open to MA CEES and MGA students only.

Description: The aim of this course is to give students a thorough understanding of how and why the EU came into existence, how it became a world power, how it takes decisions and why the United Kingdom first hesitated to join, then joined and subsequently - having spent fifty years reforming the EU in its own image – chose to leave again. A glimpse into future scenarios will look at the potential impact of this development, particularly with regard to relations between the EU and North America. Through a series of lectures, student research presentations, film showings and discussions with visiting speakers, course participants will be encouraged to ask questions and seek answers to the major strategic implications of the EU’s emergence and its role in the world today.

Day & Time: Wednesday 11 am-1 pm 
Location: TBA
Instructor: Prof. Graham Watson
Term: Fall
Credit: 0.5

** This is an intensive workshop. 6 sessions (12 hours of instruction) will be held on Sept 15, 16 and 18, 22, 24, 25.   The workshop is worth .25 credits.

Manipulated Realities: Understanding Disinformation, Foreign Influence, and the Weaponization of Information

From Soviet-era “active measures” to contemporary AI-powered influence operations, disinformation has become a central security threat of the digital age, one that erodes public trust, distorts political discourse, and undermines democratic institutions globally. This two-week intensive workshop offers graduate students an interdisciplinary examination of how state and non-state actors have weaponized information, and outlines how policymakers, journalists, researchers, and civil society can identify, counter, and build resilience against these threats. Beginning with a historical overview outlining the early foundations of information warfare and psychological operations, the course covers how these tactics have evolved throughout the 20th century and into the 21st. Students will examine how these early techniques – including information laundering, narrative manipulation, and forgery – have been repurposed and adapted for the speed and scale of the digital information environment. The course then shifts to looking at contemporary foreign influence operations – particularly those linked to Iran, Russia, and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) – drawing on the latest, open-source research to give students a comprehensive picture of how these countries design and deploy information operations targeting foreign audiences. Throughout the course, students will also be encouraged to engage critically with the tensions between countering disinformation and protecting freedom of speech. A key component of the workshop introduces students to open-source intelligence (OSINT) techniques and methodologies that are used by analysts to detect and monitor foreign state-aligned influence operations. Students will gain hands-on experience using OSINT tools and techniques to conduct cross-platform tracking, network analysis, and real-time monitoring of active influence operations. By the end of the workshop, students will be equipped with a comprehensive understanding of the current disinformation ecosystem and the preliminary analytical skills necessary to pursue careers tackling information threats across the private and public sectors.

Sept 15, 16 and 18, 22, 24, 25 4:00-6:00 pm

Location: TBA

Instructor: TBA
Term: Fall
Credit: 0.25

Topics in Ukraine: Who Owns the Past? Ukraine and the Remapping of Europe (ERE1195HF)

What counts as “Europe”? What does it mean to be “European”? Since the end of the Second World War, through the Cold War, the collapse of the Soviet Union, the reunification of Germany, the eastern enlargement of the European Union, democratic uprisings across Eastern Europe, and most recently the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Europe’s political, cultural, and moral boundaries have been repeatedly redrawn. Each of these turning points produced new interpretations of the past, reshaping competing visions of Europe and European identity.

This course examines how Europe is continually remapped through struggles over history, heritage, and belonging. Centering on Ukraine while situating it within a comparative Eastern and Central European framework, the course explores overlapping imperial legacies that continue to structure contemporary debates about sovereignty, colonialism, nationalism, restitution, and repair. Ukrainian history and culture serve not as an exception but as a critical lens through which broader European contests over memory, territory, and political community come into focus.

By adopting critical, international, and historical lenses, the course interrogates how and by whom the past is mobilized in the present: in disputes over monuments and museums, in historiographic debates, in claims for recognition and apology, in politics of displacement and return, in debates over environmental extraction, and in war destruction. We will examine the limits of contemporary memory and heritage studies in confronting Europe’s imperial and colonial entanglements by challenging the dominant nation-centered and Western European biases that continue to shape dominant narratives of European history and culture, including some forms of their critique. By the end of the course, students will be equipped to critically analyze the existing European “memory regime,” the mechanism through which it is legitimized, and the political stakes it carries. They will be able to further situate Ukraine within broader structural forces that render certain histories, regions, and people marginal or invisible within
narratives of Europe’s past and its imagined futures.

Day and Time: Tuesday 11:00 am -1:00 pm
Location: Scheybal Seminar Room, 14th Floor of Robarts Library
Instructor:  Karolina Koziura
Term: Fall
Credit: 0.5

Topics in European and Eurasian Studies: Russian Sharp Power Influence in Europe 

** This is an intensive workshop. 4 3 hour sessions will be held on October 5, 6, 7 & 8

The workshop is worth .25 credits.

This course examines the evolving patterns, instruments, and political consequences of Russian sharp power influence in Europe and beyond, with a particular focus on electoral interference, disinformation campaigns, economic leverage, and geopolitical influence operations. The course will examine three levels of Russian strategic impact: dominance (in the near abroad), preeminence (in post-communist East Central Europe), and influence (in Western Europe and beyond). Special attention will be devoted to ways and strategies of Russian influence on democratic elections, including both successful and unsuccessful cases, the strategies and narratives employed by Kremlin-linked actors, and the varying resilience of democratic institutions across European states. Through the analysis of contemporary case studies, policy debates, public opinion trends, and historical continuities from Soviet ‘active measures’ to modern hybrid warfare, the course explores how authoritarian influence operates in democratic environments, why it succeeds in some contexts while failing in others, and how the targeted societies and institutions have responded to these challenges.

October 5, 6, 7 & 8  4:00-7:00 pm 
Location: Scheybal Seminar Room, 14th Floor of Robarts Library

Instructor: Dr. Peter Kreko
Term: Fall
Credit: 0.25

Independent Reading Course offered in Fall

The course offers a deep exploration of political movements, conflicts, and socio-cultural shifts in the Transcaucasus region, examining how these dynamics were shaped by both the Soviet and post-Soviet eras. Over twelve weeks, students engage with theoretical and empirical materials to analyze contemporary political landscapes and their historical roots in the Soviet legacy. The curriculum specifically focuses on state-society relations and the diverse forms of contentious politics that define the region today.

Mondays 11:00 am - 1:00 pm 
Location: Scheybal Seminar Room, 14th Floor of Robarts Library

Instructor: TBA
Term: Spring
Credit: 0.5

Information TBD

This course explores how the lands of Ukraine have been central to the direction of global history since before the beginning of civilization. We observe there early human settlements and the spread of Indo-European languages. The structure of western myth—from the Greek to the Norse—has depended heavily on encounters with and the lands and peoples of today’s Ukraine. In the modern period, Ukraine was at the centre of the slave trade and of modern colonialism as well as the central territory of Nazi and soviet totalitarianism. Today, Ukraine is an experiment in post-imperial democracy and a laboratory for new conversations about human freedom.

Tuesdays 12-2 pm; 
Location: TBA
Instructor:  Timothy Snyder
Term: Spring
Credit: 0.5

Land in all its messy complexity is the topic of this course: as soil, as property, as ecological base, as source of political influence and ideology, as space for economic and social (re)production, and as an aesthetic resource for the projection of national imaginaries. By integrating the material, practical, and discursive dimensions of land (better articulated in the German term Boden), we aim to answer the question of whether Boden/land works as an analytical framework or concept for writing history. This means stepping back from examining land in isolation through the lens of different sub-disciplines—such as environmental history, legal history, or political history—and instead treating it as an integrative concept for approaching modern history. We will engage with theoretical frameworks and case studies, for example from environmental humanities, spatial and legal history, and material culture studies.

Day and Time: Wednesday 1:00-3:00 pm
Location: Scheybal Seminar Room, 14th Floor of Robarts Library
Instructor: TBA
Term: Spring
Credit: 0.5

Online Popular Culture and the Spread of Authoritarianism

** This is an intensive workshop. 4 3 hour sessions will be held on March 8, 9, 10 and 11, 2027 from 4-7 pm.

How to explain the rising support for authoritarian and fascist politics? The course introduces participants to the cultural sociological study of authoritarianism. While scholars of disinformation assume that ordinary people are drawn to follow charismatic autocrats because of false facts, cultural sociologists foreground that popular and everyday cultures pave the way for such support. To appear plausible, false facts need to resonate with previously held beliefs and public stories. Through the example of online popular culture – including reels, vigilante reportages, and music videos – participants will study how political propaganda draws on more encompassing stories of the good life and its alleged enemies. Participants will learn how to construct and analyze such broader narratives that permeate various arenas of social life. Also, they will acquire conceptual leverage and develop methodological skills to analyze online contents’ visual and audible features. Arguably, the capacity of online popular culture to address the senses is central to its emotive force. The course focuses on regions that were once part of the Soviet Union or its sphere of influence. Russia’s war on Ukraine will hence figure as a paradigmatic example of how war is legitimated and delegitimated through popular culture.

OPEN BY APPLICATION ONLY:

This course is part of CEES's Hungarian Studies Program. As this is a limited enrollment course, with up to 6 students from years one and two, admission to the course is by application only.  Applications from all disciplines are welcome. Please note that priority goes to students who have not been to Hungary. The course includes a one-week research trip in Budapest to take place December 5-12, 2026 (costs for air travel up to 1200 CAD, transportation in Budapest, and hostel accommodation as well as most meals will be covered). Ground transport in Canada is not covered. Students are expected to depart Toronto on the 5^th and arrive in Budapest on the 6^th. Students are expected to make their own travel arrangements. The research concludes on December 11, with expected departure on December 12. Students who want to extend their trip can do so at their own expense.

Interested students are asked to submit a two-page research proposal for the field-work component in Budapest. You will be writing a 20 page research paper based on secondary research and the fieldwork. In the proposal you are expected to identify a research question and provide a key list of a minimum of 5 potential stakeholders in Budapest who will be interviewed.  Questions will be designed prior to departure. During the week-long stay in Budapest, students will conduct interviews with their selected stakeholders, attend lectures and seminars, and participate in various cultural activities. The interviews/seminars and field work will then be integrated into the final research essay for the course. The research essay will be due on March 5, 2027. Students who fail to fulfill all course requirements must return the cost of their participation in the field trip.

Prior to departure, students will be required to attend a number of group meetings and other events.  Upon return, students will participate in a de-briefing session and a preliminary presentation of their papers to the group. Students will also be expected to organize a public roundtable to discuss their research finding. The due date for applications is October 2 at 5 pm. Please submit your applications to Professor Robert Austin: robert.austin@utoronto.ca and Katia Malyuzhinets: katia.malyuzhinets@utoronto.ca

A number of courses offered at the graduate level in Anthropology may be of interest to CEES MA students.  ADD/DROP forms are required, and enrollment opens to CEES students only after the department’s own students have enrolled. Please note also that research projects and essays written for these courses must be focused on the region.  For a complete list of course offerings in Anthropology, please view the department’s Graduate Course Descriptions and Course Schedule.

A number of courses offered at the Centre for Comparative Literature may be of interest to CEES MA students.  ADD/DROP forms are required, and enrollment opens to CEES students only after the Centre’s own students have enrolled. Please note also that research projects and essays written for these courses must be focused on the region.  For a complete list of course offerings at the Centre for Comparative Literature, please view the Centre’s Graduate Course Descriptions and Course Schedule.

A number of courses offered at the graduate level by the Centre for Criminology and Sociolegal Studies may be of interest to CEES MA students.  ADD/DROP forms are required, and enrollment opens to CEES students only after the Centre’s own students have enrolled. Please note also that research projects and essays written for these courses must be focused on the region.  For a complete list of course offerings, please view the Centre’s Graduate Course Descriptions and Course Schedule.

A number of courses offered at the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures may be of interest to CEES MA students.  ADD/DROP forms are required, and enrollment opens to CEES students only after the Department’s own students have enrolled. Please note also that research projects and essays written for these courses must be focused on the region.  For a complete list of course offerings at the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures, please view the Department’s Graduate Course Descriptions and Course Schedule.

MGA’s Policy on Non-Departmental Enrollment in Elective Courses:

Non-departmental students may request to enroll in any MGA elective unless it is specified that it is open to MGA students only. Students in the MPP and CEES MA program have priority access to MGA elective courses. CEES students may request enrollment starting September 2, 2025

Enrollment is not guaranteed and is at the discretion of the MGA program. Please note also that research projects and essays written for these courses must be focused on the region.

Students who are interested in enrolling an MGA elective may submit an SGS Add Drop Course Form listing the courses they would like to enroll in to the MGA Program Office via email to mga@utoronto.ca. Students will be sent a confirmation e-mail if their enrollment is successful.

Please contact the MGA Program Office if you have any questions mga@utoronto.ca.

For more information, please check https://munkschool.utoronto.ca/mga/courses/mga-courses.

A number of courses offered at the Department of History may be of interest to CEES MA students.  ADD/DROP forms are required, and enrollment opens to CEES students only after the Department’s own students have enrolled.

Please note also that research projects and essays written for these courses must be focused on the region.  For a complete list of course offerings at the Department of History, please view the Department’s Graduate Course Descriptions and Course Schedule.

A number of courses offered at the Department of Political Science may be of interest to CEES MA students.  ADD/DROP forms are required, and enrollment opens to CEES students only after the Department’s own students have enrolled. Please note also that research projects and essays written for these courses must be focused on the region.  For a complete list of course offerings at the Department of Political Science, please view the Department’s Graduate Course Descriptions and Course Schedule.

All fall (H1F), full/year (Y1Y) and spring term (H1S) courses administered through the Department of Political Science will have an enrollment  window exclusively for political science graduate students. 

Students not registered in the department will have an opportunity to enrol in Political Science courses (if instructors give their approval and provided there is classroom space):

• For fall and full year courses, September 12th through September 20th
• For spring term courses, January 9th through January 22nd

A number of courses offered at the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures may be of interest to CEES MA students.  ADD/DROP forms are required, and enrollment opens to CEES students only after the Department’s own students have enrolled. Please note also that research projects and essays written for these courses must be focused on the region.  For a complete list of course offerings at the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, please view the Department’s Graduate Course Descriptions and Course Schedule.

A number of courses offered at the Department of Sociology may be of interest to CEES MA students.  ADD/DROP forms are required, and enrollment opens to CEES students only after the Department’s own students have enrolled. Please note also that research projects and essays written for these courses must be focused on the region.  For a complete list of course offerings at the Department of Sociology, please view the Department’s Graduate Course Descriptions and Course Schedule.