The University of Toronto Scarborough is committed to fostering the undergraduate experience. As part of this commitment, the UTSC Office of the Vice-Principal Research and Innovation and the UTSC Library launched two successful initiatives in 2016 which continue to evolve and grow every year.
Each initiative provides an opportunity for students who have excelled in research, scholarship and creative activities to showcase their work and win cash prizes.
UTSC Undergraduate Research & Creative Forum - Application deadline: February 27, 2024 12:00 PM ET (noon)
UTSC Undergraduate Research & Creative Prize - Application deadline: April 15, 2024 12:00 PM ET (noon)
Patricia and Peter Shannon Wilson Undergraduate Research Prize - April 14, 2024, 11:59 PM ET
Check out the links above for details, contact your liaison librarian, or join us at our drop-in info sessions in-person outside the UTSC Library:
NOTE: Remember that you cannot choose any topics that are covered in class e.g. the National Action Committee (NAC), Royal Commission on the Status of Women.
Search the following website for potential topics (as well as documents):
Search the following encyclopedia for potential topics.
Recommended Books
(Print) Documenting First Wave Feminisms by
This book is the second of a two-volume anthology of primary source documents on feminism in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Unique in its extensive treatment of the first-wave feminist movement in Canada, it highlights distinct elements of its origins and evolution. The book is organized into thematic rubrics that address key issues, debates, and struggles within the first wave in Canada, as well as international influences and Canadian engagement in transnational networks and initiatives. Documents by Indigenous, Anglophone, Francophone, and immigrant female activists demonstrate the richness and complexity of Canadian feminism during this period. Together with its first volume, Documenting First Wave Feminisms reveals a more nuanced picture, attentive to nationalism and transnationalism, of the first wave than has previously been understood.
(Online) Documenting First Wave Feminisms: Volume 2 Canada - National & Transnational Contexts by
Using primary documents dating from the abolitionist movement to the Second World War, Maureen Moynagh and Nancy Forestell investigate the tensions inherent in organizing early transnational feminist movements.
Dreams of Equality by
Canadian women on the political left in the first half of the twentieth century fought with varying degrees of commitment for women's rights. Women's dreams of equality were in part a vision of economic and class equality, though they also represented profound desires for equality with men - both within their own parties and in the larger society. In both the Communist Party of Canada and the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, a male-dominated leadership seldom embraced women's causes wholeheartedly or as a doctrinal priority. So-called women's issues, whether birth control, consumer issues, or equal pay, usually took second place to an emphasis on the general needs of workers or farmers. Nonetheless, many women continued to promote their feminist causes through the socialist movement, in the hope that, eventually, the socialist New Jerusalem would see their dreams of equality fulfilled. In Dreams of Equality, Joan Sangster chronicles in fascinating detail the first tentative stages of a politically aware women's movement in Canada, from the time of women's suffrage to the 1950's when the CPC went into decline and the CCF began to experience the changes that would evolve into the New Democratic Party a decade later.
Framing Our Past by
With introductory essays by historians, Framing Our Past emphasizes the lived experiences of women: their participation in many areas of social life, such as social rituals with other women; organized sporting clubs; philanthropic, spiritual and aesthetic activities; study and reading groups. The authors then focus on women's roles as nurturers and keepers of the hearth B their experiences with family management, child care, and health concerns. They consider women's varied contributions within formal and informal educational systems as well as their instrumental political role in consumer activism, social work, peace movements, and royal commissions. Canadian women's shaping of health care and science through nursing, physiotherapy and research are discussed, as is women's work, from domestic labour to dressmaking to broadcasting to banking. Using diary accounts, oral history, letters, organizational records, paintings, quilts, dressmaking patterns, milliners' records, posters, Framing our Past offers a unique opportunity to share what is rarely if ever seen, offering insights into the preservation and interpretation of historical sources.
Just Watch Us by
From the late 1960s to the mid-1980s, in the midst of the Cold War and second-wave feminism, the RCMP security service - prompted by fears of left-wing and communist subversion - monitored and infiltrated the women's liberation movement in Canada and Quebec. Just Watch Us investigates why and how this movement was targeted, weighing carefully the presumed threat its left-wing ties presented to the Canadian government against the defiant challenge its campaign for gender equality posed to Canadian society. Based on a close reading of thousands of pages of RCMP documents declassified under Canada's Access to Information Act and the corresponding Privacy Act, Just Watch Us demonstrates that the security service's longstanding anti-Communist focus distorted its threat assessment of feminist organizing. Combining gender analysis and critical approaches to state surveillance, Christabelle Sethna and Steve Hewitt consider the machinations of the RCMP, including its bureaucratic evolution, intelligence-gathering operations, and impact, as well as the evolution of the women's liberation movement from its broad transnational influences to its elusive quest for unity among women across lines of ideology and identity. Significantly, the authors also grapple with the historiographical, methodological, and ethical difficulties of working with declassified security documents and sensitive information. A sharp-eyed inquiry into spy policies and tactics in Cold War Canada, Just Watch Us speaks to the serious political implications of state surveillance for social justice activism in liberal democracies.
Subject Headings: Explore relevant subject headings to look for books on potential topics.
Recommended Sources
Please note: This was the Vancouver Women's Caucus and some of its documents can be found in the Rise Up Feminist archive
Canadian News Databases
Recommended Documents
Searching for Policy Documents
ACCESS: After you select this link, limit to "Canadian Public Documents Collection" in the drop-down menu under the search box.
Here are some resources on the Idle No More movement which you may find useful.
South Atlantic Quarterly Special Issue: 114.4 (October 2015): 862-906
#IdleNoMore
Idle No More bewildered many Canadians. Launched by four women in Saskatchewan in reaction to a federal omnibus budget bill, the protest became the most powerful demonstration of Aboriginal identity in Canadian history. Thousands of Aboriginal people and their supporters took to the streets, shopping malls, and other venues, drumming, dancing, and singing in a collective voice. It was a protest against generations of injustice, a rallying cry for cultural survival, and a reassertion of Aboriginal identity. Idle No More lasted for almost a year, and then the rallies dissipated. Many observers described it as a spent force. It was anything but. Idle No More was the most profound declaration of Indigenous identity and confidence in Canadian history, sparked by Aboriginal women and their supporters, sustained by young Indigenous peoples, filled with pride and determination. When the drums slowed, a new and different Canada was left in its wake. Partially stunned by the peaceful celebrations, but perplexed by a movement that seemed to have no centre and no leaders, most Canadians missed the point. Through Idle No More Aboriginal people have declared that they are a vital and necessary part of Canada's future. The spirit of the drumming, singing, and dancing lives on in empowered and confident young Aboriginal people who will shape the future of this country for decades to come.
Consider the following criteria when selecting a source from this site or your own research:
