Interdisciplinary Programs

An interdisciplinary program allows students to make connections across a diverse range of knowledge, concepts, and skills to develop new ways of thinking and to address an array of complex problems. Interdisciplinary studies will help you develop skills such as critical thinking, synthesis, research, and problem solving to address complex issues effectively throughout your career.

The Centre for Canadian Studies offers an opportunity to study Canadian culture and society from a variety of disciplinary perspectives, with co-operating faculty from Communication, Popular Culture and Film, Dramatic Arts, Economics, English Language and Literature, Modern Languages, Literatures and Cultures, Geography, History, Political Science, Sociology and Visual Arts.

The Centre for Canadian Studies offers combined major programs leading to a BA (Honours or Pass) and a Minor for students in other disciplines. Canadian Studies core courses may also be taken as electives by students in other degree programs. Canadian Studies may be combined with any other discipline or program in the Humanities or Social Sciences which offer a combined major program.

The field of Environmental Humanities addresses important complex environmental issues and bridges traditional divides between the humanities and sciences. Students explore environmental and climate issues by examining human values, ethics, responsibilities, and cultures.

Students in any discipline can obtain a Minor in Environmental Humanities within their degree program by completing a combination of courses from Classics, History, English, Interactive Arts & Science, Philosophy, Studies in Art and Culture, and Visual Arts. The program is administered through the Department of History.

Students wishing to pursue a pattern of studies that does not coincide with either a single major or a combined major program may choose a Bachelor of Arts (Pass) Degree in General Humanities.

Students electing to pursue a General Humanities program should develop a program plan in consultation with an Academic Adviser in the Office of the Registrar or with one of their respective Faculty Academic Advisers in the Faculty of Humanities.

This program involves courses offered through Brock University and George Brown College. This four-year program combines courses and training in applied labour studies settings at George Brown College with a degree in History and Labour Studies at Brock. The program caters to individuals who wish to have a career in a wide variety of areas including unionized environments, occupational health and safety, politics, or human resources. The program allows students to gain both solid applied skills in these areas, and a strong theoretical knowledge about a variety of these topics.

Students who successfully complete the requirements for this program will be granted both a degree from Brock, and two certificates from George Brown College 1) a certificate in Contemporary Labour Perspectives from the George Brown School of Labour, and 2) a Post-Graduate Certificate in Human Resources Management. Gaining both a degree and these certificates would ordinarily involve attending college after gaining a university degree, but the Brock and George Brown program combines the two in a single integrated package that can be completed in four years. Enrolment is limited.

Brock University’s Interdisciplinary Humanities doctoral program provides students with a focused context in which to engage with topics integral to the contested notions of knowledge, values, and creativity, as reflected in the specific fields of Critique and Social Transformation, Culture and Aesthetics, Technology and Digital Humanities, and Ways of Knowing.

The program is committed to providing a rigorous interdisciplinary teaching and research environment, which nurtures scholarly and creative activity. Such endeavours aim to investigate the past as well as influence the ways in which reflection and creation contribute to the further unfolding of society and culture. Students pursuing Brock University’s Interdisciplinary Doctoral Humanities Program will have the opportunity to collaborate across disciplines.

The Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies offers an excellent opportunity to learn about medieval and Renaissance culture and society through the interdisciplinary and cross-cultural study of the history, literature, philosophy, art and architecture of cultures across the globe, from 400 CE to 1700 CE.

Course offerings range from the late Roman world to Renaissance Italy, from the Mediterranean to the Americas, and from the reading of seminal authors like Dante, Chaucer and Shakespeare to emergent and marginalized voices. As well, our courses explore the culture, religion, music, architecture and art of the Middle Ages and Renaissance.

The Middle Ages and Renaissance were instrumental in shaping the cultures in which we live. The interdisciplinary understanding of how Medieval and Renaissance cultures worked will illustrate their legacy to us, and their importance in shaping who and what we are. Our program seeks to help the students develop the skills of critical inquiry, analysis, argumentation and expression needed for the treatment of these questions.

The Centre for Studies in Arts and Culture, part of the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts, is designed for students who wish to gain a critical view as well as experiential knowledge of contemporary culture from the perspectives of observer, creator, performer or cultural agent.

Our aim is to contribute to the vitality of the arts by developing informed audiences, practitioners or critics who are engaged by interdisciplinary practices and discourses in creative work, whether dance, video, music, theatre or the visual arts. The Centre for Studies in Arts and Culture is dedicated to developing a context in which the contemporary artist, performer, critic, curator or cultural agent can examine pragmatic and theoretical approaches to understanding the creative process and its cultural implications.

As part of their Studies in Arts and Culture Honours degree program, students may complete a Concentration in Cultural Management offered in co-operation with the Faculty of Business, a Concentration in Languages, Arts and Cultures in co-operation with the Department of Modern Languages, Literatures and Cultures or a Concentration in Cultural Transmission and Heritage Studies in co-operation with the Department of History and the Department of Geography and Tourism Studies.