Courses

An intensive examination of selected precepts and principles which have influenced the practice of filmmaking and its critical evaluation.

This course contextualizes contemporary structuralist, psychoanalytical, feminist, Marxist, and post-modernist theory with respect to the history and development of specific art practice in the visual arts and its relationship to society. It incorporates an analysis from French, British and North American sources together with debates, artistic productions, and explorations by contemporary artists. Same as Visual Arts 5600 3.0 and Ryerson Graduate Communication & Culture 967.

An examination of the rights, freedoms,and obligations of the media and of practising journalists. The course deals with such issues as the grounds and limits of freedom of expression, moral responsibilities respecting truth, balance, and objectivity; ethical and business pressures in media; obligations to the public, the audience, sources, colleagues, employers, and oneself. The course includes case studies and discussion of ongoing media activity. Same as Ryerson Graduate Communication & Culture 969.

Students in the core courses are required to attend a workshop on research methods in communication and cultural studies. These sessions are designed to complement the theoretical materials presented in the core seminars and will provide an overview of the range of research methods in communication and cultural studies. The course introduces students to a wide range of methods and approaches, including research design (qualitative and quantitative), survey research, content analysis, textual analysis, discourse analysis, historiography, legal and documentary research, ethnographic techniques, cultural studies approaches, and others.

Introduces a critical approach to the three symbiotic areas of the program at the graduate level: media and culture; politics and policy, and technology in practice: applied perspectives. The course explores each area in modules that concentrate on four aspects: history; philosophy; theory; and principle concepts or issues, with one week dedicated to each aspect in each area.

This combination lecture/seminar course consolidates graduate coursework and bridges the transition to independent critical research. It assists and evaluates the student in developing professional skills including: peer review, grant-writing, formal presentations, conference and publications submission which may include applied research in submissions to government or organizational policy papers, and public forums or hearings on communication and culture.

Fundamental to contemporary cultural studies is the recognition that the meaning, form and value of cultural products, such as situation comedies, soap operas, and advertisements, cannot be separated from the social context in which they are produced and received. The course will explore such questions as: What are the genre conventions? How do different individuals and communities use and value television products? To what extent do television products promote resistance and change and to what extent do they preserve the status quo? Students will apply several frameworks to selected products in order to analyse how the product works in relation to individuals and communities. Same as Ryerson Graduate Communication & Culture 925.

The phenomenon of popular music is investigated from a number of perspectives through a survey of scholarly and popular vernacular literature. Issues in popular music, including paradigms for analysis and interpretation, are examined. Same as Music 6320 3.0 and Ryerson Graduate Communication & Culture 931.

The course will begin by exploring the ways in which we have been taught how to analyse and understand images, and how to produce and reproduce them. The course aims, however, to move beyond analysis of specific texts in order to historicize and understand the larger cultural meanings that have been assigned to the visual. We will attempt to come to terms with what W.J.T. Mitchell has called the pictorial turn in all its complexity. The course includes works by philosophers and cultural theorists as well as poets, painters, novelists, videographers, filmmakers, and cyberneticists.

This course explores philosophical concepts that are relied upon as meaningful in communication. It introduces students to metaphysical concepts and gives students a chance to explore how much of the world relies on shared metaphors in the struggle to communicate.

This course explores critical debates and interdisciplinary research methods employed in the study of material objects. It draws on case studies and theoretical work on material culture, display, and representation to consider the influence of the 'material turn' on contemporary scholarship and on historical and curatorial practices.

The list of topics for discussion is flexible, depending upon the interests and preparation of students from year to year and the speciality of the course director. This course is designed to provide opportunities for post-doctoral fellows, visiting scholars and FGS appointed faculty to teach speciality courses in the field of Media and Culture.

The list of topics for discussion is flexible, depending upon the interests and preparation of students from year to year and the speciality of the course director. This course is designed to provide opportunities for post-doctoral fellows, visiting scholars and FGS appointed faculty to teach speciality courses in the field of Media and Culture.

This course offers a historical examination of the multiple, overlapping processes through which Asian identities and regions were constituted. It will also examine new directions in Asian studies in an era of intensified global flows, transnationalism, and the presence of Asian diaspora in Canada and elsewhere.

The course investigates Postcolonialism as a field within Cultural Studies. Emphasizing socio- and politico-cultural analyses, themes such as colonial discourse, orientalism, hybridity, resistance, subalternity, indigeneity, Eurocentrism, cultural imperialism, language, race, sexuality, gender, and subjectivity are examined through a range of interdisciplinary and conceptual perspectives. Texts containing influential theoretical arguments are the primary focus, with some works from the Arts also featured.

This course engages with current questions in the field of media and environment, providing a broad overview of key schools of thought and historical approaches to environmental communication and media. Topics covered include: environmental impacts of digital media and media industries; environmental soundscapes and environmental sensing; Indigenous cosmologies; and mediating environmental justice.

This course reflects the theoretical perspective that communication systems and cultural practices shape and are shaped by the social distribution of power in all societies. It examines the role of the state, the market and civil society in the production and distribution of cultural products and the implications of their relationships for society.

This course reflects the theoretical perspective that communication systems and cultural practices shape and are shaped by the social distribution of power in all societies. It examines the role of the state, the market and civil society in the production and distribution of cultural products and the implications of their relationships for society.

This course focuses on specific issues that are shaping communication and cultural policy, including the emergence of the information highway, globalization and convergence.

This course examines global media from an historical and critical perspective. Broadcasts, publications, films and digital productions are viewed as transnational communication channels which have a decisive impact on contemporary life. Same as Ryerson Graduate Communication & Culture xxx

The list of topics for discussion is flexible, depending upon the interests and preparation of students from year to year and the speciality of the Instructor. This course is designed to provide opportunities for post-doctoral fellows, visiting scholars and FGS appointed faculty to teach speciality courses in the field of Politics and Policy.

This course is an exploration of the major current issues for communication and culture raised by contemporary and emerging communication technologies and their applications. It builds on the more basic materials covered in Communication & Culture: Understanding Communication Technologies.

This course focuses on the changes brought about by changes in communication technology for individuals, groups and organizations, and the challenges and opportunities presented by them. This course may be offered as part of an experiment in interuniversity collaboration. Course credit exclusion: Ryerson Graduate Communication & Culture 963.

This course examines the shift from traditional cinematic spectacle to works probing the frontiers of interactive, performative, and networked media. Drawing upon a broad range of scholarship, including film theory, communication studies, cultural studies and new media theory, the course will consider how digital technologies are transforming the semiotic fabric of contemporary visual culture. Our focus will be on the phenomenon Gene Youngblood described three decades ago as ‘expanded cinema’—an explosion of the frame outward towards immersive, interactive and interconnected (i.e., environmental) forms of culture.

This hands-on course gives students an opportunity to learn about new screen technologies, approaches and techniques in a lab environment. Students will work in the lab to build prototypes that will function as a testing ground for both new technology and future cinema theory. Our method is iterative: there is an urgent need for scholars in this field to be both theorists and practical experimenters, to research while doing, understanding that the process of exploring firsthand is an important step toward knowing what kinds of knowledges and ways of understanding these new digital tools and artefacts demand, encourage or make possible.

This seminar provides an overview of key theories and themes that form the foundation of contemporary critical design studies. Drawing on theories from a broad range of disciplines, this course employs close readings of selected texts and works to explore design as a product, a practice, and a mode of social communication. Specific topics may vary with the instructor.

This course examines play as it is currently developed and popularly imagined in commercial computer- and consoled-based games in order to more closely examine what is learned in those immersive environments and ask how they might more productively be harnessed for educative ends

This course examines the interconnectedness of representation and visual culture in contemporary wired society. Students critically explore and assess the influence and shaping of technological mediations in visual culture investigating theory, culture, globalization and education.

A directed research course is intended to permit the student to conduct research or develop a theoretical perspective in an area of study related to the student's program objectives. The research may take the form of a pilot study for a thesis or dissertation project. Course credit exclusion: Ryerson Graduate Communication & Culture 991.

A directed research course is intended to permit the student to conduct research or develop a theoretical perspective in an area of study related to the student's program objectives. The research may take the form of a pilot study for a thesis or dissertation project. Course credit exclusion: Ryerson Graduate Communication & Culture 991.

A directed research course is intended to permit the student to conduct research or develop a theoretical perspective in an area of study related to the student's program objectives. The research may take the form of a pilot study for a thesis or dissertation project. Course credit exclusion: Ryerson Graduate Communication & Culture 991.

Under this heading, a group of students, with the agreement of a faculty member, may organize a seminar in an area not covered in the course offerings. Course credit exclusion: Ryerson Graduate Communication & Culture 8992.

Under this heading, a group of students, with the agreement of a faculty member, may organize a seminar in an area not covered in the course offerings. Course credit exclusion: Ryerson Graduate Communication & Culture 8992.

Under this heading, a group of students, with the agreement of a faculty member, may organize a seminar in an area not covered in the course offerings. Course credit exclusion: Ryerson Graduate Communication & Culture 8992.

Master's students will be able to receive credit by undertaking field placements in appropriate institutions. Same as Ryerson Graduate Communication & Culture 993 and 093.

Master's students will be able to receive credit by undertaking field placements in appropriate institutions. Same as Ryerson Graduate Communication & Culture 993 and 093.

Master's students will be able to receive credit by undertaking field placements in appropriate institutions. Same as Ryerson Graduate Communication & Culture 993 and 093.

Develops knowledge and skills of selected advanced research methods topics. The list of topics for discussion is flexible, depending upon the interests and preparation of students from year to year and the specialty of the course director. Corequisite: CC8902 (CMCT 6002 3.0) or CC9900 (CMCT 7200 3.0)

A directed research course is intended to permit the student to conduct research or develop a theoretical perspective in an area of study related to the student's program objectives. The research may take the form of a pilot study for a thesis or dissertation project.

A directed research course is intended to permit the student to conduct research or develop a theoretical perspective in an area of study related to the student's program objectives. The research may take the form of a pilot study for a thesis or dissertation project.

A directed research course is intended to permit the student to conduct research or develop a theoretical perspective in an area of study related to the student's program objectives. The research may take the form of a pilot study for a thesis or dissertation project.

Under this heading, a group of students, with the agreement of a faculty member, may organize a seminar in an area not covered in the course offerings.

Under this heading, a group of students, with the agreement of a faculty member, may organize a seminar in an area not covered in the course offerings.

Under this heading, a group of students, with the agreement of a faculty member, may organize a seminar in an area not covered in the course offerings.

Facilitates independent doctoral research by developing skills of disciplinary rigour in relation to individual research interests. It provides guidance in the advancement of field and area specialties in preparation for comprehensive qualifying exams, dissertation proposal, and ethics review process. It includes theories and practices of critical pedagogy and praxis, academic and professional publication, and other elements of professional research.

The course will explore key concepts, texts and debates in the field of contemporary cinema and media studies. While maintaining a focus on the intellectual and material histories of cinema studies and media studies as disciplines (and their recent convergence), including epistemological and ontological frameworks, methodological approaches, and institutional and technological supports, the course will emphasize recent developments in cinema and media studies. Three broad areas of study will structure the course: cinema and cultural theory; national and transnational cinema; cinema and technologies of the image.

The principal aim of this course is to cultivate in students a critical research sensibility that addresses questions of communication and culture and their intersection, with research being defined as an engaged process of enquiry and discovery that leads to the production of social knowledge.