Teaching & Supervision

ENVS 8103 PhD Research Desgin Workshop (2020, 2024)

This course is designed to support PhD students in Environmental Studies as they conceive and develop their PhD dissertation proposals. We will discuss, review or workshop particular approaches, methodological issues, and methods based on the interests and needs of those enrolled. Class activities and assignments are directed at students developing, writing (or refining in the case of those with a draft already written) and completing their dissertation proposals and preparing themselves for the dissertation research/writing process.

ENVS 8102 PhD Research Seminar (2001 to 2003, 2007 to 2013)

The PhD Research Seminar is the only mandatory course in out doctoral program. It offers an advanced introduction to select interdisciplinary themes in environmental studies. It is intended to stimulate interaction and discussion of substantive issues, theoretical frameworks, epistemological and methodological approaches related to intellectual praxis in environmental studies. Critical exploration of interdisciplinary research problems assists with the preparation of the students’ program plan and addresses questions emerging from the students’ comprehensive research fields. The course also provides opportunities to explore the various facets of academic life, including engagements in teaching, research and writing.

ENVS 6132 Urban Environmental Design (2000 to 2004 and 2014-2015)

Contemporary environments are designed, socially constructed, and culturally valued.  They are just as much the product of politics and ideologies (colonialism, urbanization, modernization, globalization, sustainability, etc.), as they are the result of the professional practices of planners, architects and engineers, politicians, developers, and residents. Environmental design and the (re)production of “natural” and “built” environments have historically encompassed the tensions between nature and culture. From the planning and design guidelines for colonial settlements in the New World, to Olmsted’s green urban reform, to the modernist idea(l)s of the city, to McHarg’s manifesto on ecological processes, and to most recent greening of cities, the course examines various traditions, debates, and challenges to environmental design. It critically engages with ecological, social, political, economic, and cultural interrelationships of environmental design practices, representations and contemporary projects and trends.

ENVS 6133 Social Justice and Planning (under revision)

Formerly Plurality and Planning (2004 to 2006, 2010 to 2013 and 2004-2015)

ENVS 6275 (POLS 6282/GEOG 5395) International Political Economy and Ecology Summer School (co-taught in 2002, 205, 2013 and 2016)

Since 1991, the International Political Economy and Ecology (IPEE) Summer School has been a marquis event in graduate education at York University. The course is sponsored by the Department of Politics, Faculty of Environmental Studies, and the Department of Geography at York University. Every year an internationally renowned scholar in the field is invited as the course instructor to engage in a salient issue within the field of political economy and ecology. The two-week course has brought a remarkable line-up of world renowned scholars to York each year. I directed the following summer schools:

2002 Blue Gold: Unpacking the Political Ecology of the Emerging Global Water Crisis with Tony Clarke (co-directed with Roger Keil)

2005 Ecology, Imperialism and the Contradictions of Capitalism with Alex Demirovic, Joel Kovel, Joan Martinez-Allier and Ariel Salleh (co-directed with Stefan Kipfer)

2013 Radical Food and Hunger Politics in the City with Nik Heynen

2016 Resurgencies: Settler-Colonialism and Radical Indigenous Politcs with Glen Coulthard (co-directed with Stefan Kipfer)

For a complete list of past IPEE Summer School Speakers, see http://political-science.gradstudies.yorku.ca/ipee-summer-school/

ENVS 5100 Interdisciplinary Research in Environmental Studies (2024)

The course introduces incoming MES students to a broad range of debates and interdisciplinary perspectives in Environmental Studies as a basis for the preparation of their Initial Plan of Study.

ENVS 5100 is the mandatory core course for all incoming MES students. Students are introduced to concepts, theories, practical skills and research methods that are considered core to interdisciplinary environmental studies. The knowledge and tools acquired through this course will enable each student to consolidate their Plan of Study, which maps out the evolving framework for completing their MES degree. 

ENVS 4750 Political Ecology of Landscapes (2014-2015)

This course provides an introduction to political ecology and landscapes from an interdisciplinary perspective. Political ecology provides a double political and ecological lens to understand the interconnections between society and the environment embodied in particular landscapes. The course focuses on both the theoretical and practical aspects of political ecology to understand how landscapes are produced and evolved through power relations. The course examines the material and discursive constitution of human-environment relations in various types of landscapes, perspectives and disciplines. Through concepts and issues such as nature, environmental change, landscape urbanism, landscape exploitation, landscape preservation, landscape resistance and landscape justice, the course explains how landscape, nature and ecology are always political.

Graduate Students Supervision

Doctoral dissertations

Dr. Clara Fraser (2023) Truth and Reconciliation at the Bay: Environmental Conservation Discourse, Contested Notions of Human-Creation Relations in Mnidoo Gaamii/Georgian Bay, and Indigenous-Cottager Relations (co-supervision with J. Foster)

Dr. Aedan Alderson (2021) A Post-Colonial Era? Bridging Mi’kmaq and Irish Experiences of Colonialism 

Dr. Maria Juncos (2021) Urbanizing Agroecological Principles in North America: A Multimethod Research and a Participatory Approach with a Peri-Urban Case Study in Burlington, Vermont

Dr. Liza Kim Jackson (2020) Mending and Transforming the Torn Social Fabric: Lumpen Social Reproduction in Settler Urban Space as Relational Praxis Art

Dr. Julia Fursova (2019) Common Health: The Role of Non-Profit Organisations in Supporting Community Action for Health Equity and Justice

Dr. Teresa Abbruzzese  (2012) The Contested Production of Amusement in Southern Italy: Transgression through Rituals

Dr. Richard Oddie (2008) Alternate Routes, New Pathways: Development, Democracy and the Political Ecology of Transportation in Hamilton, ON

Dr. Catherine Phillips (2008) Saving More than Seeds: Natures, Technology and Politics with/in Seed Saving (https://www.routledge.com/Saving-More-Than-Seeds-Practices-and-Politics-of-Seed-Saving/Phillips/p/book/9781409446514)