Courses

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; Please note that the course will start on September 16 and will end on December 2, 2025. 
Location: 315 Bloor St. W, Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, Room B019
Instructor:  Timothy Snyder
Term: Fall
Credit: 0.5

Description: This course will begin with an examination of the many definitions of the term ‘terrorism’, their most contentious elements, and the main implications of these definitional debates. We will then explore the history of terrorism and counterterrorism in Western Europe, from the French Revolution via the left-wing and separatist movements of the 70s-90s to the Jihadist and far-right terrorism most prominent today. An analysis of the key characteristics of terrorist groups and lone actors will be followed by an assessment of various policy responses, with specific case studies on France and the role of the EU. Our final discussions will centre on the latest trends in counterterrorism, including the role of human rights and civil society actors in promoting a potentially more humane and effective response than the so-called War on Terror.

Thursdays: 12:00 - 2:00 pm 
Location: Scheybal Seminar Room, 14th Floor of Robarts Library
Instructor: TBA
Term: Fall
Credit: 0.5 

Description: A comparative examination of the emergence and upsurge of populist radical right parties in contemporary Europe. The course will begin with historical context, definitions and typologies, before exploring topics including ideology and issues; leaders, members and voters; political parties, organizations and subcultures; transnational influences and networking; patterns of response by mainstream parties and radical right parties in public office. This course will analyze several country cases in detail, including France, Austria, the Netherlands, Italy, Denmark, Hungary, Finland and Estonia. A basic knowledge of recent European history and comparative politics is required.

*Please note this course has 10 spots for MGA students and 10 spots for CEES students.

Term:  Fall (September-December)
Day & Time: Monday 2-4 pm
Instructor(s): Prof. Andres Kasekamp
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.

Tuesdays 10 am - 12 pm
Location: Room: B019, 315 Bloor St. West, Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy
Instructor: Prof. Graham Watson
Term: Fall
Credit: 0.5

** This is an intensive workshop. 3 sessions (12 hours of instruction) will be held on September 2,3 and 4th.   The workshop is worth .25 credits.

Winning the Cold War, Losing the Peace

September 2  4:00-7:00 pm 

September 3 12:00 - 4:00 pm and 6:00-8:00 pm

September 4 4:00-7:00 pm 
Location: 1 Devonshire Place

Instructor: Misha Glenny
Term: Fall
Credit: 0.25

Democracy and Dictatorship (ERE1152HF)

Democracy and Dictatorship provides an in depth introduction to theories of regime change and persistence — including voluntarist and structural approaches to democratization and theories of authoritarian durability. We will focus in particular on current threats to democracy in Europe, including the rise of populism in the early 21st century

Term: Fall
Day & Time: Wednesdays 10 am - 12 pm 
Instructor(s): Lucan Way
Room: Scheybal Seminar Room, 14th Floor of Robarts Library

Topics in European and Eurasian Studies: On Which Side of History? Hungarian Literature and Culture in the 20^th century

** This is an intensive workshop. 6 2 hour sessions will be held on September 29, October 1, 6, 8, 15, 20, and 22.

The workshop is worth .25 credits.

On Which Side of History? Hungarian Literature and Culture in the 20^th century

(29 Sept – 24 Oct, 2025)

The workshop looks at key works of modern Hungarian literature alongside the political movements and historical events that have shaped cultural production in the 20^th century.

One of the central topics of the workshop is the issue of identity and memory in modernist literary experimentation, induced or exacerbated by psychoanalysis, addiction or the anxieties of urban life. The other is to explore literary encounters with social transformation, forced migration, ethnic persecution and political conflict around the historical junctures of 1919, 1944-45, and 1956. In representing traumas of violence, displacement, and loss under fascism, communism, war, the holocaust or in exile, a special focus will be given to female voices and the transformation of Hungarian women’s writing (A. Kristof, A. Polcz, M. Szabó). Another, satirical sort of trauma narrative should highlight the ironies and absurdities of a wider East-Central European experience (I. Örkény, G. Mikes).

The reading list contains brief and digestible, yet complex and engaging texts (preferably, short stories or literary memoirs) available in excellent English translations. Whenever possible, we will watch film adaptations (including Magda Szabó’s The Door and Opium by János Szász). Alongside the work of globally acclaimed authors such as Sándor Márai and Imre Kertész, we will also discuss path-breaking visual experimentations by famed designers, film makers and photographers from the interwar period (i.e. Moholy-Nagy, Capa).

September 29, October 1, 6, 8, 15, 20, and 22. 3:00-5:00 pm 
Location: Scheybal Seminar Room, 14th Floor of Robarts Library

Instructor: Sandor Hites
Term: Fall
Credit: 0.25

Independent Reading Course offered in Fall

God was sidelined during the Enlightenment, relegated to a minor role as reason took center stage. Some time later—in the 1880s—God was killed off entirely. Modernity is about replacing God. It’s about searching for another source of certainty to ground truth. Modern philosophy, in turn, begins with the question: does the world exist? How can we be certain that what we perceive is what is real? How can we be certain of anything at all? In the absence of certainty, we’re condemned to homelessness and alienation. If modernity is the attempt to replace God, postmodernity begins when we gave up on replacing God, when we accept that there is neither a God nor a viable surrogate. If modernity is a searching for certainty and groundedness, post-modernity, in turn, is an embracing of uncertainty and groundlessness. This European intellectual history seminar explores the epistemological question in modern thought: is there such a thing as truth? And is it possible--in Václav Havel's phrase--to live in truth? We begin with Plato’s cave and move through Descartes’ malicious genius; Kant and Husserl; the role of ideology and lies in 20th century totalitarianism; the post-structuralism that develops in France as a protection against the absolutist truth claims bound up with totalitarian terror; dissident thought in Eastern Europe in the 1970s and 1980s; the twenty-first century emergence of post-truth, and the possibilities of an antidote.

Day and time: Tuesdays, 2:00-4:00 pm
Location: Scheyball Room, 14^th Floor, John P. Robarts Library Building
Instructor: Marci Shore
Term: Fall
Credit: 0.5

In the decades since the Soviet Union collapsed, the five states of post-Soviet Central Asia have charted independent foreign policy courses, navigating between the West, Russia, and China, as well as Afghanistan, India, Iran, Turkey and other states.

This course examines how Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan interact with their neighbours, with regional and global powers, and with international organizations. We use theories from the field of International Relations (IR) as lenses for viewing questions such as sovereignty, cooperation, conflict, international political economy, security, and migration.  

Mondays 12:00-2:00 pm 
Location: Scheybal Seminar Room, 14th Floor of Robarts Library

Instructor: Ed Schatz
Term: Spring
Credit: 0.5

Information TBD

OPEN BY APPLICATION ONLY:

This field course is part of CEES’s initiative in Hellenic Studies and is made possible with support from the Hellenic Heritage Foundation and the wider Greek-Canadian Community. This is a limited enrollment course, with up to 4 places for CEES graduate students and 4 places for undergraduate students. Students will need to apply to participate.  This course includes a one-week research trip to take place in Athens between 3 and 10 May 2026 (costs for transportation and accommodation as well as most meals will be covered). Priority will be given to students who will carry on to their exchange or internship placement upon completion of the trip. Only one airfare to the region will be covered. 

Interested students are asked to submit a one-page research proposal for the field-work component in Greece. In the proposal you are expected to identify a research question and provide a key list of a minimum of 5 potential stakeholders in Greece who will be interviewed.  Questions will be designed prior to departure. During the week-long stay in Greece, students will conduct interviews with their selected stakeholders and attend lectures and seminars. The interviews/seminars will then be integrated into the final research essay for the course. The research essay, which is expected to be 20 pages in length, will be due at the middle of May 2026.

The due date for applications is November 3, 2025 at 5 pm. Please submit your applications to Professor Robert Austin: robert.austin@utoronto.ca and Katia Malyuzhinets: katia.malyuzhinets@utoronto.ca

Topics in Ukraine: Violence, Justice, and Social Change in Ukraine and Beyond (ERE1195HS)

How do societies reckon with past violence? How do communities rebuild trust and seek justice after repression, war, or dictatorship? Since the late 1970s, the global movement for transitional justice has sought to address the crimes of the past regimes through truth commissions, tribunals, and public apologies—what Nanci Adler (2018) calls “the age of transitional justice.” Yet today, many scholars and activists are challenging this model, calling for approaches that honor local traditions, community leadership, and cultural practices of healing and remembrance. This course explores the global and local dimensions of justice, memory, and reconciliation through the lens of Ukraine, Eastern Europe, and other post-conflict societies. Students will engage with major debates around truth, accountability, victim recognition, restitution, and reconciliation, while also exploring creative, community-driven strategies such as collective storytelling, community archiving, and diasporic memory activism. Through a thematic exploration of a diverse range of case studies and materials, students will analyze how individuals, communities, and societies confront trauma and shape historical narratives. The course culminates with a focus on the current war in Ukraine, examining efforts to document war crimes and human rights violations in real time. Through partnership and collaboration with Toronto-based archives and community organizations, students will gain hands-on experience in archival research, curating, and decolonial storytelling, developing practical tools for engaging with memory, justice, and social transformation in the contemporary world. 

Tuesdays 2-4 pm
Location: Scheybal Seminar Room, 14th Floor of Robarts Library
Instructor:  Karolina Koziura
Term: Spring
Credit: 0.5

This course examines the responses of justice system institutions to concerns over crime, violence, and policing in Europe. Our substantive focus will be on how police and other justice institutions (such as prosecution and courts) respond to crime, violence, and insecurity, the outcomes of these interventions, and the views, hopes, concerns, and aspirations of individuals who experience them. We will also examine concerns and proposed solutions regarding police violence, bias, discrimination, and the effects of justice

interventions for inequality and social cohesion, including the social upheavals and political disputes generated by high-profile events, current and past. Course readings will draw from a wide range of materials, ensuring that students engage with diverse perspectives, including social science research, legal texts, official documents, and journalistic accounts. Since the course is thematic, we will include research and examples from a range of countries, likely including France, Denmark, and Sweden, along with attention to the UK, and with occasional comparisons with North America. This discussion-based seminar requires students to complete all assigned readings before class and to engage in collective discussions weekly.

Tuesdays 11 am-1 pm
Location: Scheybal Seminar Room, 14th Floor of Robarts Library
Instructor:  Ron Levi
Term: Spring
Credit: 0.5

On Which Side of History, Again? Contemporary Hungarian Literature and Culture

The sessions will take place on March 2, 4, 9, 11, 16 and 18 3-5 pm

The second part of the workshop looks at key works and trends in contemporary Hungarian literature and culture. Starting with intellectual and literary efforts to reinvent Central Europe in the late 1980s, we will track the experience of the “democratic transition” of 1989-90, the vicissitudes of a re-capitalizing society in the 1990s, the challenges of globalization and Euro-Atlantic integration after 2004, the rise of populism and the shattering of the neoliberal status quo in the 2010s—all as reflected in and by the works of globally acclaimed (Imre Kertész, P. Nádas, P. Esterházy, L. Krasznahorkai) or internationally less visible (S. Tar, N. Szécsi) Hungarian authors.

We will also explore the new wave of Hungarian cinema—from the 2003 comedy-thriller Kontroll, inspecting the misadventures of ticket inspectors in a dystopian Budapest subway system, to Son of Saul, a visually thrilling reinvention of the holocaust movie, awarded in 2015 with a Golden Globe and the Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film. Alongside literary and cinematic masterpieces, we will also look into the vibrant material culture of everyday life (from the refashioning of the Rubik cube to the “ruin pub” scene in Budapest) as well as the ways that recent engineering innovations (i.e. “Gömböc” or “Bille”, geometrical structures with only one stable resting point) may be contemplated as scientific allegories of a country in perpetual turmoil.

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 6-13, 2025 (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 6^th and arrive in Budapest on the 7^th. Students are expected to make their own travel arrangements. The research concludes on December 12, with expected departure on December 13. 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 4, 2026. 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 1 at 5 pm. Please submit your applications to Professor Robert Austin: robert.austin@utoronto.ca and Katia Malyuzhinets: katia.malyuzhinets@utoronto.ca

This is an intensive workshop worth 0.25 FCE which will be held from March 19 to March 21.

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.