Alumni Testimonials

“The opportunity to talk with students and faculty from widely varying disciplines allowed me to gain new perspectives and to encounter schools of thought previously unknown to myself.”

— Monica Dufault, SCLA Graduate 

“On a personal note, my studies have also provided me with a great philosophical basis for understanding the world and life itself. SCLA has truly been an enriching experience for me.”

— Heidi Horvath, SCLA Graduate

“Brock was invaluable in my professional development as an academic, and provided an environment where I was free to pursue my interests while being challenged to grow and develop a research method of my own.”

— Josh Dawson, SCLA Graduate

“The Faculty of Humanities at Brock University created an exceptional learning environment that was rigorous and challenging in nature, as well as supportive and encouraging of each student’s personal research interests.”

— Elizabeth D’Angelo, SCLA Graduate

“A first tier choice for those of us who wish to introduce new ideas in well-established academic fields.”

— Alex Jankovic, SCLA Graduate

“My own experience was supportive and productive and allowed for a truly interdisciplinary project.”

— Melissa La Porte, SCLA Graduate

“SCLA, with its wide-view approach to literature and the arts, perfectly prepared me for my PhD in Humanities. I was able to find the common territory of poetry and philosophy which makes up the field of my life’s work. I recommend it to any student with similar interests. There are few other programs available that compare to it.”

— Adam Richards, SCLA Graduate 

“Freedom to break down barriers, freedom to collaborate and freedom to enrich ones research and awareness of topics from a variety of perspectives.”

— Miranda Baird, SCLA Graduate

After graduation

Some graduates from the M.A. in Comparative Literatures and Arts have chosen to continue their graduate studies:

  • Ph.D. in English (Carleton University and University of Ottawa)
  • Ph.D. in Comparative Literature (University of Toronto, University of Western Ontario, University of SUNY-Buffalo)
  • Ph.D. in Cultural Studies (Trent University)
  • Ph.D. in Humanities (York University)
  • M.A. in Art and Visual Culture (University of Guelph)
  • M.A. in Popular Culture (Brock University)
  • M.A. in Women’s Studies (University of Western Ontario)
  • Teacher’s College
  • OISE, University of Toronto

Other graduates entered the job market in positions such as the following:

  • Instructor of performing arts at the university level
  • Theatre director and actor
  • Teaching assistants at Brock University
  • Museum educator at the Bata Shoe Museum in Toronto, ON
  • Programs/publications coordinator at the Power Plant, Toronto
  • Marketing and Production Coordinator, Koyama Press, Toronto
  • Freelance photographer
  • Freelance translator

Completed papers and theses

Adair, Tyler 2018
The Politics of May ’68 in Contemporary French Cinema
Supervisor: Dr. Andrew Pendakis
Second Reader: Dr. Peter Lester

Allan, Jonathan A. 2007
A Theory of Influence and Phenomenology: Jorge Luis Borges Misreads Virginia Woolf
Supervisor: Dr. Cristina Santos
Second Reader: Dr. Corrado Federici

Baird, Miranda 2011
Unveiling the Mind, Body and Space: Exposing (In)Visible Borders Facing Maghrebian Women and Beurettes
Supervisor: Dr. Tamara El-Hoss
Second Reader: Dr. Cristina Santos

Bannister, Karen 2012
“Toward Hyperpresence: Corporeality and an Aesthetics of Violence in Marina Abramović’s Rhythm 0 and Vanessa Place’s Statement of Facts”
Supervisor: Gregory Betts
Second Reader: Duncan MacDonald

Barlow, Amy 2019
Nonconformism in the French banlieues: Abd al Malik
Supervisor: Dr. Tamara El-Hoss
Second Reader: Dr. Leah Bradshaw

Bews, Kirstin 2018
The Real Mckenzies and The Marginalising Discourse of Highlandism
Supervisor: Dr. Greg Gillespie
Second Reader: Dr. Tamara El-Hoss

Cherniak, Elizabeth 2010
Men with Disabilities: Occupying the Space of Other, Masculinities and Sexuality in Auto/biographical Novels and Films
Supervisor: Dr. Cristina Santos
Second Reader: Dr. Tamara El-Hoss

Chevalier, Laura 2010
Medusa Through the Eyes of Time
Supervisor: Dr. Cristina Santos
Second Reader: Dr. Michael Berman

Chaarani, Dania 2012
Reading Rape Allegories and Body Speech Acts, A Comparative Analysis: Women Without Men and Tshepang: The Third Testament. Subverting Master Narratives in Expressions of Female Subjectivity
Supervisor: Dr. Susan Speary
Second Reader: Dr. Corrado Federici

Corlis, Wayne 2012
A Comparative Study: The Sublime, Gerhard richter, and Deleuze and Guattari
Supervisor: Dr. Derek Knight
Second Reader: Dr. Corrado Federici

Dignam, Colin Michael Grant Russ 2008
Insecurity, Sacrifice and Tragedy
Supervisor: Dr. Mathew Martin
Second Reader: Dr. C. Federici

Dufault, Monica 2011
Investigations into a Performance of That Woman: A Sex Play?
Supervisor: Dr. Natalie Alvarez
Second Reader: Dr. Leah Bradshaw

Ellis, Cameron 2010
Thomson: Poet of the Scared (Or, The Inferno as a Guide to The City)
Supervisor: Dr. Corrado Federici
Supervisor: Dr. Leslie A. Boldt

Field, Andrea 2008
The Manufactured Body
Supervisor: Dr. Keri Cronin
Second Reader:  Dr. Corrado Federici

Gnau, Brittany 2008
Binds of Inscription: A Meeting of Butler and Wilde, Benjamin and Baudelaire
Supervisor: Dr. Natalie Alvarez
Second Reader:  Dr. Athena Coleman

Huisman, Marlie Christine 2008
Re-envisioning Habitat: Paul Kantner-Jefferson Starship’s Blows Against the Empire and Haight Ashbury
Supervisor: Dr. Derek Knight
Second Reader: Dr. Catherine Parayre

Jankovic, Alex 2009
Beyond the Artist’s Vision: War, Disillusionment and the Urban Commune in the 20th Century
Supervisor: Dr. Derek Knight
Second Reader:  Dr. Gregory Betts

Kanerva, Edward
Paralogical Prisms: The Postmodern, Pseudoscientific Crystalline Poetics of Robert Smithson and Christian Bok
Supervisor: Dr. Catherine Parayre
Supervisor: Dr. Gregory Betts

Kristiansen, Linda 2012
Deleuzoguattarian Approach to and Analysis of the Graphic Novel Adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven and Bill Watterson’s Inspired A Nauseous Nocturne – Why being a Body without Organs Should Be Promoted
Supervisor: Dr. Tamara El-Hoss
Second Reader: Dr. Tim Conley

LaPorte, Melissa 2010
Pompeii’s Last Days: Briullov & Bulwer-Lytton
Supervised by: Dr. Barbara Burrell
Second Reader: Dr. Keri Cronin

MacDougall, Brenna 2019
Performative Structures in II.1 of James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake and Samuel Beckett’s Endgame
Supervisor: Dr. Tim Conley
Second Reader: Dr. David Fancy

Manchego-Badiola, Piero 2012
On Martyrs, Myths and Motorcycles: Che as Mythical Icon in Ernesto Che Guevara’s The Motorcycle Diaries: Notes on a Latin American Journey and Walter Salles’ The Motorcycle Diaries
Supervisor: Dr. Cristina Santos
Second Reader: Dr. Michael Meneghetti

McGuiness, Kevin 2007
Sebastian Queer Saint
Supervised by: Dr. Cristina Santos
Second Reader: Dr. Derek Knight

Meldrum, Claire 2008
Anne of the Silver Screen: The Role of Filmed Adaptations in the Critical and Popular Understanding of L.M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables
Supervisor: Dr. Anne Howey
Second Reader: Dr. J. Leach

Montazeri, Shiva 2019
Nationalism in Iran: The Literary and Artistic Works of Iranian Poets During the Constitutional Period (1905-1911)
Supervisor: Dr. Behnaz Mirzai
Second Reader: Dr. Tamara El-Hoss

Mugan, Camila 2018
Speaking Silence: The Rise of an Authentic Female Identity in Ancient Tillage (1975) by Raduan Nassar and To the Left of the Father (2001) by Fernando de Carvalho
Supervisor: Dr. Cristina Santos
Second Reader: Dr. Irene Blayer

Purdy, Laura 2011
“Actualized Desires”: A Comparative Study of the ‘Self’ and the Unconscious in Pan’s Labyrinth and The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman
Supervisor: Dr. David Fancy
Second Reader: Dr. Cristina Santos

Rangaratnam, Sarah 2010
Sexual Temptresses and Evil Queens: Fairy Tale Constructions of Widows in Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century France
Supervisor: Dr. Cristina Santos
Supervisor: Dr. Renée-Claude Breitenstein

Revilla, Sarah 2018
Machos and Masculinities in Mexico: A Cross-Cultural Dialogue of Machismo
Supervisor: Dr. Cristina Santos
Second Reader: Dr. Irene Blayer

Richards, Adam 2010
Sappho and Decadence: The Lesbian Visions of Swinburne and Baudelaire
Supervisor: Dr. Alexandre Amprimoz
Supervisor: Dr. Corrado Federici

Rita-Procter, Steven 2011
The Autobiographical and Confessional Mode as Fiction, Non-Fiction and Metafiction: Narrativizing the Self in  Contemporary Literature and Visual Art
Supervisor: Dr. Leah Bradshaw
Second Reader: Dr. Derek Knight

Rondinelli, Zach 2018
Comics Pedagogy
Supervisor: Dr. Jennifer Rowsell
Second Reader: Dr. Cristina Santos

Spencer, Jacqueline 2008
Beyond Words: Flashbacks to Lacan’s Mirror Stage in Franz Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis” and David Cronenberg’s “Spider”
Supervisor: Dr. Corrado  Federici
Supervisor: Dr. Leslie Boldt

Srndic, Maja 2010
Fairytale Histories of Be-longing: Restorative and Reflective Nostalgia in “Once Upon a Time there was a Country” (1998) and “Underground” (1995)
Supervisor: Dr. María del Carmen Suescun Pozas
Second Reader:  Dr. Bohdan Nebesio

Storie, Jane 2009
Validating Little Red Riding Hood
Supervisor: Dr. Sandra Beckett
Second Reader:  Dr. Lissa Paul

Tamlin, Trevor 2009
Burlesque — Then and Now
Supervisor: Dr. Natalie Alvarez
Supervisor: Dr. Corrado Federici

Tanaka, Alejandro
Japanese Horror Films and Their Relationships with Oral Tradition and Modernity
Supervisor: Dr. Corrado Federici
Second readers: Dr. Irene Blayer and Dr. Leslie Boldt

Zehentbauer, Janice 2007
Nothing Sacred: Women Writing Magic Realism
First Reader: Dr. Cristina Santos
Second Reader: Dr. Leslie Boldt

Chambers, Carla c. 2018
Marked Territory: Assemblages of the Black Female Subjct in Nineteenth-Century Visual Arts and Verdi’s Aida (Carla Chambers)
Supervisor: Dr. David Fancy
Second Reader: Dr. Cristina Santos

D’angelo, Elizabeth c. 2011
Collective Violence: A Study of the Gendered and Socio-Economic Factors Behind Early Modern Italian and English Witch Hunts
Supervisor: Dr. Cristina Santos
Second Reader: Dr. Corrado Federici