The faculty members within the PhD Program in Interdisciplinary Humanities come from diverse backgrounds, that encompass a broad spectrum of disciplines. This diversity, fosters a dynamic and wide range of research interests, ensuring a vibrant academic environment for our students.
Faculty available for supervision are indicated below. Faculty with “contact for supervision” indicated may or not be available for supervision depending on their schedule, so please email them and ask.
Robert Alexander
Associate Professor (English Language and Literature)
Email: ralexander@brocku.ca
Research Interests: Rhetoric, Literary Journalism, Creative Nonfiction, History of Linguistic Thought/Theory
– Available for supervision
Lynn Arner
Associate Professor (English Language & Literature)
Email: larner@brocku.ca
Research Interests: feminists theory, women’s and gender studies, as well as issues surrounding class, queer theory, gender and class in the academy.
– Not available for supervision
Gregory Betts
Chancellor’s Chair for Research Excellence; Professor (English Language & Literature)
Email: gbetts@brocku.ca
Research Interests: Canadian Experimental and Avant-Garde Literature.
– Contact for supervision
Fiona Blaikie
Professor (Educational Studies)
Email: fblaikie@brocku.ca
Research Interests: Visual art education, qualitative research including arts-informed educational research, social theory on the body and clothing, youth culture, qualitative approaches to portfolio assessment, curriculum development and implementation, arts education, aesthetics, embodied knowledge/s, intersectionality, international curricula in arts education and comparator work in arts education
– Contact for Supervision
Irene Maria F. Blayer
Professor (Modern Languages, Literatures and Cultures)
Email: iblayer@brocku.ca
Research Interests: Comparative Romance linguistics; philology; dialectology; text linguistics; diaspora studies; storytelling; oral history.
– Contact for supervision
Linda Carreiro
Professor (Visual Art)
Associate Dean, Fine and Performing Arts
Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts
Research Interests: anatomical studies, drawing, particularly anatomical drawing, experimental printmaking and text and image.
– Contact for supervision
Alex Christie
Associate Professor (Centre for Digital Humanities)
Email: achristie@brocku.ca
Research Interests: Spatial humanities; modernist studies; book history; mixed reality (AR/VR); digital prototyping; digital pedagogy
– Not available for supervision
Gale Coskan-Johnson
Associate Professor ( English Language & Literature )
Email: gcoskanjohnson@brocku.ca
Research Interests: Rhetorical studies, border studies, transnational migration, human rights, transnational feminism, the nation and its nationalisms, and postcolonial studies.
– Contact for supervision
François Côté-Vaillancourt
Assistant Professor (Goodman School of Business)
Email: fcotevaillancou@brocku.ca
Research Interests: Business ethics gains from approaches pioneered elsewhere in ethics and political philosophy.
– Available for supervision
Christine Daigle
Professor (Philosophy) and Director of the Posthumanism Research Institute
Email: cdaigle@brocku.ca
Research Interests: Feminist theory, Posthumanism, Environmental (Post)Humanities, Phenomenology, Existentialism
– Available for supervision
Stefan Dolgert
Associate Professor (Political Science)
Email: sdolgert@brocku.ca
Research Interests: Political Theory, including: Ancient Political Philosophy, Continental Political Thought, Critical Animal Studies, Democratic Theory, Environmental Ethics, Literature and Philosophy, New Materialism, Posthumanism.
– Available for supervision
David Fancy
Professor and Chair of Theatre Praxis (Dramatic Arts)
Email: dfancy@brocku.ca
Research Interests: Performance; Performativity; Immanentist thought; Deleuze and Guattari; Theatre Creation.
– Available for supervision
Margot Francis
Associate Professor (Women’s and Gender Studies/Sociology)
Email: mfrancis@brocku.ca
Research Interests: Decolonizig perspectives on settler societies; queer/integrative feminist perspectives on culture arts, identity and the body.
– Available for supervision
Jason Hawreliak
Associate Professor, Director of the Centre for Digital Humanities (Centre for Digital Humanities)
Email: jhawreliak@brocku.ca
Research Interests: Game Studies, Multimodality, Digital Media; Rhetoric; Semiotics
– Not available for supervision
Pascal Lupien
Associate Professor (Political Science)
Email: plupien@brocku.ca
Research Interests: Latin American politics, Indigenous politics, participatory development, alternative forms of development, democracy, democratization and democratic reversal, social movements and civil society, social media and politics
– Available for supervision
Ingrid Makus
Associate Professor (Political Science)
Email: imakus@brocku.ca
Research Interests: Political philosophy, identity discourse, rights discourse, Canadian political thought, gender and politics
– Contact for supervision
Mathew R. Martin
Professor (English Language and Literature)
Email: mmartin@brocku.ca
Research Interests: Early Modern English Drama, Psychoanalysis, Literary Theory
– Available for supervision
Dan Malleck
Professor and Chair, Department of Health Sciences
Director, Centre for Canadian Studies
Email: dmalleck@brocku.ca
Research Interests: Alcohol and drug policy and history; prohibition; historical patterns of drug and alcohol use; health as a moral discourse; biopolitics.
– Available for supervision
Aaron Mauro
Associate Professor (Centre for Digital Humanities)
Email: amauro@brocku.ca
Research Interests: Cyber security, natural language processing, misinformation and disinformation, data visualization, digital publishing and knowledge mobilization, user interface and user experience, full stack application development, digital media including games, photography, social media, and others.
– Available for supervision
Behnaz Mirzai
Professor (History)
Email: bmirzai@brocku.ca
Research Interests: Comparative and cross-cultural studies, ethnicity, slavery, gender, as well as social, economic and religious interactions in the Middle East.
– Contact for supervision
Elizabeth Neswald
Associate Professor (History)
Email: eneswald@brocku.ca
Research Interests: History of science and technology since 1800; Cultural history of thermodynamics; History of nutritional physiology; Material cultures of science and technology.
– Available for supervision
Trevor Norris
Professor (Education)
Email: tnorris@brocku.ca
Research Interests: Philosophy of Education; Political Theory; Critiques of Consumerism and Neoliberalism; Modern to Postmodern Transition
– Available for supervision
Lissa Paul
Professor (English Language and Literature)
Fellow, Royal Society of Canada
Email: lpaul@brocku.ca
Research Interests: Children’s literature, literary theory, poetry, 18th century, gender studies, postcolonial discourse
– Not available for supervision
Andrew Pendakis
Associate Professor (English Language and Literature)
Email: Apendakis@brocku.ca
Research Interests: History and Theory of modern centrism
– Available for supervision
Michael Ripmeester
Professor (Geography and Tourism Studies)
Email: mripmeester@brocku.ca
Research Interests: Geographies of popular memory, geography and ethnohistory, historical and cultural geography, historical geographies of First Nations in Ontario, historical geographies of Native – Euro – Canadian relationships in 19th century Canada, landscape and Identity
– Available for supervision
Jennifer Roberts-Smith
Professor (Dramatic Arts)
Email: jrobertssmith@brocku.ca
Research Interests: Equity in post-secondary theatre education, intersectional feminist design research methodologies, digital theatre archives, prototyping, virtual learning environments, pedagogical and theatrical game design, theatrical text encoding, early English theatre practice, stage direction.
– Available for supervision
Matthew Royal
Associate Professor (Music)
Email: mroyal@brocku.ca
Research Interests: Music theory (especially theories of rhythm and temporality); Early-modern music theory (16th and 17th centuries); Music cognition; Acoustics and history of acoustics.
– Contact for supervision
Danny Samson
Associate Professor (History)
Email: dsamson@brocku.ca
Research Interests: Colonial, political culture, rural, environmental
– Available for supervision
Cristina Santos
Associate Professor (Hispanic and Latin American Studies)
Email: csantos@brocku.ca
Research Interests: Feminist Theory, Post-colonial Discourse, Gender and Sexuality Studies
– Available for supervision
Donna Szoke
Associate Professor (Visual Arts)
Email: dszoke@brocku.ca
Research Interests: Video art; Experimental animation; Media art; Site-responsive public art; Installation art; Critical theory.
– Available for supervision
Susan Spearey
Associate Professor (English Language and Literature)
Email: sspearey@brocku.ca
Research Interests: Postcolonial Studies, South African Literature and Culture, Post-conflict Literature, Artistic responses to conflict and transitional justice, Trauma Theory, Ethics, Theories of Witnessing, Social Justice and the Arts, Pedagogy
– Not Available for supervision
Mark G. Spencer
Professor (History)
Email: mspencer@brocku.ca
Research Interests: History of Ideas in Eighteenth-Century America and Britain.
– Available for supervision
Gökbörü Sarp Tanyildiz
Assistant Professor (Sociology)
Email: gtanyildiz@brocku.ca
Research Interests: Political economy of gender, work, and social policy; sociology of genders, sexualities, and families; race and racialization; classical and contemporary social theories; history of sociological analysis; phenomenological sociology; global social movements; and urban sociology.
– Available for Supervision
Elizabeth Vlossak
Associate Professor (History)
Email: evlossak@brocku.ca
Research Interests: Cultural history of war, women’s and gender history, border studies, nations and nationalism, critical heritage studies, and memory and the politics of commemoration.
– Contact for supervision