A detail from Diego Rivera’s Detroit Industry at the DIA. Photo: Getty Images
This searchable educational catalogue offers curated videos, articles, books and short readings to help you explore key social questions. You can use it to design a class, support research, or guide your own learning. Browse by theme or keyword to find what you need.
Alongside the catalogue, we offer modular learning guides on topics like identity, systems, and history, designed for a wide range of users, from those beginning to explore a topic to those already working with it in research, teaching, or practice.
Note: these materials are for educational use and do not reflect the views of the Office or the University. Some archival content contains outdated language. For questions related to the catalogue or modules, contact educationoutreach@uwaterloo.ca and please note this is a work under constant construction.
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Colonialism
Suggested Resources
Colonialism has a longstanding global history. There are different types of colonialism (e.g., settler, exploitation), which are often orchestrated through means of domination and control. This can occur through the exploitation of people, places, and resources, as an act of forced expansion. There are a multitude of reasons as to why a sovereign may choose to colonize others, most often it falls down to seeking more wealth, power, and resources, often through any means possible.
Explore curated resources surrounding the complexities of colonialism and its longstanding history.
(1978) - Orientalism – Edward W. Said
In Orientalism, Edward W. Said critically examined the Western perception of the "Orient", arguing that it was constructed as a counterpoint to the West and used as a means to assert Western dominance. Said contended that Orientalism was not merely an academic discipline but a pervasive framework that shaped Western understanding of Eastern societies, often portraying them as exotic, backward, and static. This binary opposition reinforced colonial power structures, justifying imperialism and exploitation. He emphasized that Orientalism was a tool for controlling the East, with long-lasting effects on both the representation of the Orient and the identities of those within it.
(2018) - All Our Relations: Finding the Path Forward - Tanya Talaga
All Our Relations: Finding the Path Forward is a part of the CBC Massey Lecture series. In this book, Talaga, a journalist of Anishinaabe and Polish descent, writes about the history of resistance, resilience, and civil rights activism of the Indigenous peoples. She focuses on the higher than average suicide rates in countries subjected to colonization (ex. Canada, Australia, United States, Brazil, and Finland), and goes in depth into the Canadian context, aiming to demonstrate the extent to which Indigenous families still continue to live under the weight of colonialism, alongside the role of the Catholic Church and its complicity. Talaga emphasizes the cultural genocide which occurred as a direct result of colonization, affected Indigenous peoples and generations to come.
(1969) - The Groundings with My Brothers - Walter Rodney
"To begin with, the white world defines who is white and who is black," Walter Rodney goes on in this highly provocative work highlighting the power dynamics present between Black and white people and the deeply rooted systemic pushbacks non-white people face. He hones in on the imperialist world and its desire to erase people and their history, through colonially oppressive means. There is constant pushback and funnelling of Black people when it comes to rising up and aiming to defeat colonialist terror. Black peoples have historically lacked power, to which Rodney calls on them to stand up against white capitalist imperialists and move away from the narrative of being inferior to white people. He calls for the rise of Black power and to shift from surviving to thriving.
Diaspora
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The concept of diaspora spans time and place. The term originally referred to specific populations experiencing forced displacement from a homeland — most notably the Jewish dispersion from which the word derives — but today it is used more broadly to describe the scattering of people who live away from a place of origin while sustaining ties to it through practice and tradition. Diasporas can emerge through forced expulsion, voluntary migration, or colonial settlement. Those who live within them often navigate layered identities, maintaining connections to a homeland while forging new ones where they now reside.
Explore curated resources surrounding the diasporic feeling and experiences.
(2021) - Nostalgia, My Enemy - Saadi Youssef
This book is a collection of some of the best poems of Saadi Youssef's, translated into English from Arabic by Sinan Antoon and Peter Money. Youssef's poetry is centred on his longing for his home country, Iraq. His love for Iraq was constant and intense due to his expulsion from the country due to his political involvement; he was forced to watch the destruction of his beloved country from afar. These poems range from tones of anger and defiance to anguish and grief. Youssef continued writing till his death as he believed in the transformative power which poetry possesses.
(1967) - I am Joaquín - Rodolfo Gonzales
I am Joaquín is a piece of poetry which explores the diaspora feeling of Mexican Americans (Chicano's). It highlights the cultural disconnect felt and the rise of the Chicano Movement. It narrates the complexities of navigating ones identity and highlights the ongoing struggles and oppression faced by Chicano's, particularly when it comes to grounding their cultural identity and possessing equal rights. Gonzales aimed to maintain the message of persistent endurance to ensure that they succeed in their vision. It is a piece of artwork published by Chicano's, for Chicano's.
(1914) - A Tear and a Smile - Khalil Gibran
Khalil Gibran was a Lebanese American poet and writer. He was a central figure of the Arab literary modernism, particularly within the sphere of poetry. A Tear and a Smile is a collection of poems written during his early days as a poet. In these pieces he explores the paradoxes of life through exploring the duality and contrasts of life through sorrow and joy; hence the "tear" and the "smile". Throughout his work he maintains the message that humans are divided within themselves, apart from the already present division amongst one another.
Feminism
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Scholars and activists often speak of feminisms in the plural, because there's no single shared view, only a loose agreement that gender shapes how people are treated, what they can access, and who gets to be in charge. Some feminisms focus on equal rights and changing laws. Others argue that male dominance runs through the foundations of everyday life. Still others look at how race, class, and gender together shape overlapping experiences of being held back. Feminist thought has also grown differently around the world, and feminists outside the West have pushed back on the idea that their concerns should mirror those of Western movements. Across these differences, most feminisms share a common aim: to end the systems that treat people unequally because of their gender, and to build a world where no one is held back on that basis.
Explore curated resources regarding feminism and how it has been historically shaped.
(1981) - The Approaching Obsolescence of Housework - Angela Davis
In Davis' 1981 book, Women, Race, and Class, the following chapter, The Approaching Obsolescence of Housework, she addressed the persistent undervaluation of housework, particularly the way it disproportionately burdens women and remains largely invisible within capitalist economies. She argued that domestic labour should be industrialized and socialized, transforming it from unpaid, private labour into a collective responsibility. However, Davis critiqued the Wages for Housework Movement, suggesting that paying women for domestic work could merely legitimize its exploitative nature, rather than dismantling it. Instead, she advocated for broader societal changes, including equal job opportunities for women and the redistribution of domestic labour, to achieve true liberation.
(1977) - Let Me Speak! - Domitila Barrios de Chungara
What happens when a community refuses to stay silent about its own erasure? That’s at the heart of Let Me Speak!, the powerful testimony of Domitila Barrios de Chungara, a Bolivian miner’s wife who found her voice in union organizing and the Housewives’ Committees. She saw how the system taught her people to see themselves as nothing more than invisible labor, not citizens, not women, not humans worthy of dignity. But through hunger strikes, solidarity networks, and public storytelling, she and other women affirmed a different kind of identity in the struggle, not pride in poverty or the hollow victory of climbing above others, but the possibility of a future beyond rich and poor, exploiter and exploited, where no one has to live unseen.
(1940) - In Woman's Defense - Mary Inman
In Mary Inman's In Woman's Defense, she addresses the problem of the undervaluation and invisibility of housework, particularly the labour of housewives, within capitalist society. She argued that while housewives' work is essential to the functioning of the economy, it is not recognized as productive labour. Instead, it is seen as domestic and insignificant, despite sustaining the work force and enabling workers to contribute to industrial production. The legalization of women's subordination, she comments, is not by the middle class men but by the small group of powerful upper-class men. Inman critiques this devaluation of housework as a strategy used by the capitalist class to maintain women’s economic dependence and uphold their subordinate status within society.
Imperialism
Suggested Resources
Imperialism usually refers to one state extending its political, economic, or cultural power over another. Scholars disagree about what drives it: some point to resources, cheap labour, and markets; others to military interests, or to cultural and ideological aims beyond money. Its forms have shifted from direct rule (including colonialism) to arrangements where formally independent states remain shaped by wealthier ones through debt, trade, and multinational corporations, what Kwame Nkrumah called neocolonialism. Whether these newer arrangements are imperialism renamed or something else is still debated.
Explore curated resources surrounding imperialism.
(1997) - The Invention of Women: Making An African Sense of Western Gender DIscourses - Oyèrónkẹ́ Oyěwùmí
In this book, sociologist Oyèrónkẹ́ Oyěwùmí argues that British colonial rule imposed a rigid gender binary on Yorùbá society, which had previously organized roles and status by seniority, lineage, and community rather than biological sex. British administrators redefined Yorùbá society through laws and records that fixed people into categories of “men” and “women,” concentrating property rights and inheritance in male hands through patrilineal succession. These redefinitions served concrete colonial objectives by creating clear, enforceable hierarchies of ownership and authority that enabled land seizure, taxation, and tighter administrative control.
(1963) - The American Revolution - James Boggs
In The American Revolution(1963), James Boggs addresses the systemic oppression of the working class and African Americans within the capitalist system, which is reinforced by both economic exploitation and racial inequality. He argues that the American economy, driven by automation and imperialism, has left the working class increasingly disenfranchised, with unions failing to address the broader systemic issues. Boggs calls for a revolutionary movement that dismantles capitalism and builds a new, classless society based on solidarity, justice, and collective action, where marginalized groups, particularly Black workers, lead the charge for radical change.
(1974) - Democracy for the Few - Michael Parenti
What happens when policy changes but power doesn’t? That’s the question political scientist Michael Parenti examines in Democracy for the Few. He argues that reforms like civil rights laws, social programs, and workplace protections, while real and hard-won, remain fragile because they leave the underlying distribution of wealth and power untouched. Policy, he shows, is only as durable as the popular pressure sustaining it, and concentrated economic interests are always poised to undermine or reverse gains that threaten their dominance. Real change, he contends, requires addressing the systemic inequalities embedded in the political and economic order, not mistaking concessions for transformation.
Labour Movements
Suggested Resources
Workers have long been exploited by those who employ them, their wages kept low, their hours long, and their safety treated as secondary to profit. Labour movements took shape in response, most visibly during the rise of industrial capitalism in the nineteenth century, though workers had organized in various forms long before. What unites these movements, across different times and places, is the recognition that individual workers have little power on their own, but together they can withhold their labour, bargain, and make demands that no single person could make alone. What those demands are has varied widely: better wages and safer conditions, shorter workdays, the right to unionize, protections for the unemployed and the elderly, and in some traditions, a fundamental rethinking of who owns what workers produce.
Explore curated resources surrounding labour movements.
Image Credits: Betsy G. Reyneau, via Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons
(1966) - A "Freedom Budget" for All Americans - Asa (A.) Philip Randolph
This document was worked on by A. Philip Randolph, Bayard Rustin, and Martin Luther King Jr., as a means of developing a plan. This plan particularly focused on moving America's most vulnerable, both Black and white people alike, out of poverty. Specifically, the Freedom Budget was an economic plan with the aim of eradicating poverty through creating jobs and opportunities for people, all within the span of 10 years. They called for large scale public investments not only in jobs, but also housing, education, and healthcare. Although the Freedom Budget was not successful in its intended means, it became the cornerstone for future policy proposals such as King's work in the Poor People's Campaign.
(1940) - In Woman's Defense - Mary Inman
In Mary Inman's In Woman's Defense, she addresses the problem of the undervaluation and invisibility of housework, particularly the labour of housewives, within capitalist society. She argued that while housewives' work is essential to the functioning of the economy, it is not recognized as productive labour. Instead, it is seen as domestic and insignificant, despite sustaining the work force and enabling workers to contribute to industrial production. The legalization of women's subordination, she comments, is not by the middle class men but by the small group of powerful upper-class men. Inman critiques this devaluation of housework as a strategy used by the capitalist class to maintain women’s economic dependence and uphold their subordinate status within society.
(1963) - The American Revolution - James Boggs
In The American Revolution(1963), James Boggs addresses the systemic oppression of the working class and African Americans within the capitalist system, which is reinforced by both economic exploitation and racial inequality. He argues that the American economy, driven by automation and imperialism, has left the working class increasingly disenfranchised, with unions failing to address the broader systemic issues. Boggs calls for a revolutionary movement that dismantles capitalism and builds a new, classless society based on solidarity, justice, and collective action, where marginalized groups, particularly Black workers, lead the charge for radical change.
Rhetorical Literature
Suggested Resources
Language doesn't just describe the world, it helps shape it. The words available to us influence how we see, what we can say, and how we group ourselves and others. Scholars of rhetoric, discourse, and critical theory have long studied how language works as a form of power: how certain ways of speaking become dominant, whose voices get treated as authoritative, and how public messages persuade, include, or exclude. Language has also been a site of resistance. Some communities have used coded speech, double meanings, and literary indirection to name experiences that couldn't be said openly, preserve knowledge, and speak to each other past their censors. How much language shapes thought, and how much room speakers have to push against the meanings they inherit, is debated.
Explore different styles of writings used to send a message.
(1920) - When Africa Awakes - Hubert Harrison
This book is a compilation of various editorials, articles, and reviews written by Harrison between the years of 1917–1920. The chapters go through the lasting effects of World War I on the lives of Black Americans. In particular, pointing out the blatant hypocrisy of American soldiers being enlisted to go outside the country and fight in the guise of establishing foreign democracy, yet America's very own Black citizens are subjected to undemocratic regimes. Harrison provides the reader with thought-provoking points, and a call to action to unite Black Americans to work towards liberation.
(1923) - The Prophet - Khalil Gibran
Khalil Gibran, a prominent Lebanese-American author, known most famously for this piece of work, The Prophet. He follows along a character who is leaving an island which had long been called home. But prior to leaving, he imparts words of wisdom to the other inhabitants. These pieces of poetry deal with the complexities that come with the transition of leaving home and starting a new left elsewhere as an immigrant. They also demonstrate that immigrants can have an abundance of knowledge to share with their new community. He imparts teachings on virtues such as love, community, generosity, family, and so much more.
(2001) - Message to Aztlán - Rodolfo Gonzales
Gonzales was a boxer, politician, activist, and public speaker. Message to Aztlán is a compilation of Gonzales' work over the span of 20+ years. It is divided by order of speeches, plays, poetry, and other messages. It particularly rose to fame during the 1960s Chicano Movement, where he hoped to inspire the new generation to persist in improving their country and the world in general. Major themes in his work include nationalism, economic and political independence, and overall Chicano unity.
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