Merleau-Ponty: The Art of Perception
(also offered as PHIL 5P71 and SCLA 5P71)
Merleau-Ponty’s treatments and analyses of the visual (painting and film) and literary arts, seen as products, explorations, and distortions of human perception and embodied subjectivity, which shed light on our cultural and pre-cultural experiences of the world.
Humanities Computing
(also offered as HIST 5V71)
Use of the computer for research, teaching, and expression in the Humanities to support teaching and research, including topics such as text analysis, high performance computing, Geographic Information Systems, quantitative methods, photo-editing and animation, simulations, and serious games.
Graduate Seminar in Political Theory (Political Theory for Posthumans)
(also offered as POLI 5P83)
A comparison of important and opposing contemporary approaches to the interpretation of major texts or issues in political theory. Core seminar.
PhD Thesis
Preparation, public defence, and examination of a thesis that is interdisciplinary in approach and that demonstrates the candidate's capacity for independent thought and study.
Interdisciplinary Research and Writing in the Humanities
The nature and academic requirements of interdisciplinary studies, including research methodologies and resources. Focus on reading, discussion, writing, and the ongoing construction of an interdisciplinary thesis in the Humanities.
Fields of Interdisciplinary Study
Introduction to the four fields of the Interdisciplinary PhD in Humanities: 1) Epistemologies; 2) Critique and Social Transformation; 3) Culture and Aesthetics; 4) Technology and Digital Humanities.
Teaching Apprenticeship
Participation in the development and delivery of an undergraduate course under the mentorship of a Brock faculty member. Development of a teaching portfolio.
Note: this course will be evaluated as Credit/No-Credit.
Recycling of Stories in Contemporary Culture
Intermedial phenomenon of retelling traditional and classic stories for a contemporary audience of all ages. Biblical narratives, folk and fairy tales, oriental tales, myth, legend, literary classics for adults, canonical children's books in a variety of genres and media. Theory of intertextuality; verbal and visual retellings; aesthetics and codes; narrative strategies; generic transposition; intermedial transformation; production, reception, and marketing.
Text, Context, Intertext in Narrative: Constituting and Locating the Self in Culture
Interdisciplinary, intercultural and comparative approach to the study of narrative as it contributes to the construction of the self and cultures. Analysis of orality, storytelling, performance, narrative, memory, and cultural identity. Authors may include Benjamin, Ong, Ricouer, Lejeune, White, Taylor.
Hermeneutics of Personal, Social, and Artistic Transformation(s)
Theories of interpretation structure subjective and intersubjective experience. Theorists may include M. Heidegger, H. G. Gadamer, P. Ricoeur, H. Marcuse, R. Ingarten, M. Foucault, and J. Habermas.
Feminist Thought: Constructive Revisions of the Canon
Interdisciplinary approach to the role played by feminist thought in examining and reinterpreting central notions that pervade all disciplines, such as identity, individuality, alterity, rationality, knowledge, solidarity, community, engagement. Authors may include Beauvoir, Braidotti, Butler, Cixous, Fraser, Grosz, Haraway, Kristeva, Irigaray, Benhabib, Jaggar, and Ziarek.
Colonial/Post-colonial Histories
Examination of colonial and post-colonial history, fiction and art in colonial and settler-colonial societies.
Theory and Praxis of Digital Humanities
Introduction to computationally-supported methods and applications for analysis, expression, and teaching in the digital humanities. Course will provide readings on topics ranging from agent-based simulations to text analysis, and practical instruction in 3D modeling and Geographic Information Systems.
Note: No programming skills required.
Deep Maps in the Digital Humanities
Course provides a theoretical and practical overview of evolving expressive forms in the digital humanities, with a specific focus on the deep map. Students will review extant literature on the deep map, and participate in the conception, creation and design assessment of a proposed innovation for the Deep Map, expressed in Augmented Reality.
Directed Reading
Research course with directed study and regular meetings with a faculty member, covering topics not offered in a designated course, and with permission of the Graduate Program Director.