Elective Courses
CUST-5504H: Subjects of Desire
Dr. James Penney
Fall 2021
This course examines theories of subjectivity that have informed work in cultural studies, media studies, and related disciplines. What is the relation between the desiring function of subjectivity and the forces of construction and production variously attributed to power, discourse, or society? How do we conceive of the limits of determination and of the possibility of freedom and agency?
CUST-5505H: Political Theory
Dr. Nadine Changfoot
Winter 2022
This course explores the interdisciplinary practice and knowledges of political theory. Contemporary critical thinkers will be selected whose interventions traverse disciplinary boundaries (e.g. Indigenous, Critical Race Theory, Feminism, Queer, Disability and more) and theoretical trajectories (e.g. structuralism, post-structuralism, new materialism), providing insight into crises of our time and reimagined possibilities.
CUST-5508H: Media Theory
Dr. Liam Mitchell
Fall 2021
The course covers selected topics in media studies varying from year to year. Theoretical approaches may include the critical political economy of communication, media archaeology, infrastructuralism, cybernetics, and so on.
CUST-5902H: Computational Arts
Dr. Joshua Synenko
Winter 2022
Examines diverse spatial media experiences with a focus on documentary, narrative, and visual culture. Engaging through experimentation with mapping and GIS tools, location-based media, augmented reality, and virtual reality, students participate in a major project using the digital imaging resources at Bata Library's Moore Innovation and Research Hub.
Media labs are open spaces geared to creative work and collaborative outcomes. Moving beyond the idea of “genius” scholars working alone in their ivory towers, the media lab concept favours curiosity-based inquiries that are tested and reworked through dialogue and peer support. In this workshop, we follow in the tradition of media labs by inviting you to develop projects that draw from your wildest imaginations, but in ways that further help you to acquire transferable skills and training in the media technologies available at Bata Library. We focus on four major topic areas – mapping, images, locations, and experiences – and we use these to ask questions such as the following: What is the relationship between narrative and spatial representations? How does artificial intelligence affect our visual culture? To what extent do media infrastructures shape perceptions of social reality? What ethical limits should we place on mediated forms of embodiment such as VR? Throughout the term, you will have the opportunity to explore at least two of these topic areas – first, in a Lab Experiment, which is a beginner assignment that includes specific parameters, and second, in a Term Project where you will be asked to develop a concept of your own from start to finish. With assistance provided by the digital scholarship librarian and course instructor, this workshop challenges you to adapt your vision within the limits of a capstone project engaging different media applications
CUST-5312H: Reading Toronto
Dr. Joel Baetz
Winter 2022
A city - and Toronto is no different - isn't just built; it's imagined into existence. In this course, we will discover the many Torontos that are mapped by the imaginations of authors and readers who are eager to build, amplify, and revise the meanings of Canada's largest urban region.
CUST-5315H: Arts of Conflict
Dr. Michael Epp
Fall 2021
This course will explore practical and theoretical conflicts between public violence and its cultural artifacts, including literature, film, murals, sculpture and parades. Our focus will be on twentieth- and twenty-first-century texts, images and public displays from Ireland, usually relating to the Irish Republican Army. We will question why modern cultural formations and political structures condemn violence even as they rely on it; and we will ask what place public violence has in a modern culture defined by its faith in the possibility of reasoning and debating all conflicts away.
CUST-5509H: Black Lives Matter
Dr. Charmaine Eddy
Winter 2022
This course examines the Black Lives Matter movement as the most recent form of collective social protest against state-sanctioned racial violence. The course looks at the influence of earlier civil rights movements on contemporary forms of protest, the theoretical parameters behind the movement, the “racial formations” (the prison complex, racial justice activism, the Obama presidency) from which the movement emerged, as well as recent literary accounts of the movement.
CUST-5512H: Environment and Place
Dr. Finis Dunaway
Fall 2021
This course explores human-environmental relationships from a variety of perspectives using both academic and public policy debates as source material. Selected topics will draw from historical and political ecology, environmental protection and activism, heritage law, land tenure and land rights, tourism, public parks, and notions of wilderness in Canadian identities.
CUST-5503H: Feminist, Gender & Women's Studies
Professor to be determined
Winter 2022
This course explores scholarly interpretations, debates and theories that have shaped our understanding of women and gender in the Canadian and North American context. The historical and social construction of gender identity, culture and sexualities are explored, and topics such as work, reproduction, ‘race’, colonialism, political engagement and social movements.
CUST-5901H: Reading Course
An individual course designed to provide opportunities for intensive study in a particular field of the program. Please see Academic Administrative Assistant for more information.