Fall 2019
COMS 616 (CRN 1594) (3 credits)
Staff-Student Colloquium 1: Professional Seminar in Communication Studies
Prof. Gabriella Coleman
Monday, 2:35 PM-5:25 PM
Ferrier 230
This seminar introduces incoming Communication Studies graduate students to core theoretical and methodological issues animating the field of communication studies, practical strategies for writing, and the specific orientations and research interests of faculty teaching within the AHCS program at McGill University. The first half of the course will concentrate on the practicalities of graduate school work life and writing, especially grant writing. It will be followed by a series of guest presentations by AHCS departmental faculty and will introduce students to a series of methods and themes around the archive, materiality, the gift, liberalism/neoliberalism and postcolonialism, that cut across various fields, periods, and orientations in Communication Studies and Art History. Sessions with guest faculty will be jointly held with the Art History proseminar led by Professor Cecily Hilsdale.
COMS 630 (CRN 12473) (3 credits)
Readings in Communications Research 1
Advisor's approval required.
COMS 635 (CRN 27670) (3 credits)
Communication and Postcolonial Thought: Racial Capitalism
Prof. Jenny Burman
Friday, 11:35 AM-2:25 PM
Arts W-220
We begin with the premise that all capitalism is racial capitalism: “Capital can only be capital when it
is accumulating, and it can only accumulate by producing and moving through relations of severe
inequality among human groups – capitalists with the means of production/workers without the
means of subsistence, creditors/debtors, conquerors of land made property/the dispossessed and
removed” (Jodi Melamed). In this seminar, we examine the inextricability of structural racial violence
from all historical forms of capitalism. We begin with the ‘Black radical tradition’ and its dialogue
with Marxism, then proceed to histories of transatlantic slavery and settler colonization, mostly as
they have structured and continue to shape American and Canadian economic and social systems (as
well as people’s everyday lives). Woven throughout the seminar is the theme – and metaphor, and
experience – of haunting, which was of interest to Marx and many of his interpreters, and continues to animate scholarly and cultural texts on slavery and colonization. Haunting is one way of thinking about active relations between the past/passed and present/living - the question is whether it is capacious enough to open to the future.
*Follow this link for a good introduction to Cedric Robinson's work on racial capitalism and the Black radical tradition.
COMS 675 (CRN 27657) / ARTH 731 (3 credits)
Media and Urban Life
Prof. Will Straw
Wednesday, 11:35 AM-2:25 PM
SH688 465
This course deals with a variety of ways in which we might think about the relationship of cities to media, art and culture. Cities “contain” media, of course, but the relationship between the two goes beyond this. Cities are themselves media-like in the ways in which they process information, structure cultural expression and give material form to social history and memory. Likewise, as spaces marked by rhythms of activity and experience, forms of interconnection and exchange, cities are fundamentally “cultural” in ways that go beyond those activities we normally designate as “culture.”
COMS 683 (CRN 22003) (3 credits)
Special Topics in Media and Politics: Sabotage
Prof. Darin Barney
Tuesday, 2:35 PM-5:25 PM
Ferrier 230
“Nothing appears so enigmatic today as the question of what it means to act.”
- Paulo Virno, “Virtuosity and Revolution: The Political Theory of Exodus” (1996)
This course will examine the history and philosophy of sabotage as a form of political action, and will comprise an extended speculation as to whether sabotage is a form particularly suited to contemporary conditions. It will begin by situating sabotage in relation to other forms of militancy, and will proceed to examine sabotage as it has been theorized and performed across a range of traditions and contexts, including slave resistance, labour and work (including reproductive labour), indigenous refusal, hacking, logistics, planning and energy.
COMS 692 (CRN 3404) (6 credits)
M.A. Thesis Preparation 1
Preparatory work towards the Master's thesis.
COMS 693 (CRN 3405) (6 credits)
M.A. Thesis Preparation 2
Preparatory work towards the Master's thesis.
COMS 694 (CRN 3406) (6 credits)
M.A. Thesis Preparation 3
Preparatory work towards the Master's thesis.
COMS 695 (CRN 3407) (6 credits)
M.A. Thesis Preparation 4
Preparatory work towards the Master's thesis.
COMS 702 (CRN 7097) (0 credits)
Comprehensive Exam
Comprehensive examination as per departmental procedure.
COMS 703 (CRN 4271) (0 credits)
Dissertation Proposal
Dissertation proposal.
COMS 730 (CRN 3408) (3 credits)
Readings in Communication Research 2
Supervisor's approval required.
Winter 2020
COMS 500 (CRN 19536) (3 credits)
Special Topics: Cities, Data, Rights
Jhessica Reia
Thursday, 2:35 PM-5:25 PM
Arts W-220
This course discusses the multi-faceted power relations embedded in our contemporary cities, drawing from Urban Communication research and public interest advocacy. From the “city as medium” to the “media city”, data governance to the dystopian smart city, these reflections are intended to present a critical analysis of smartness, new media, regulatory frameworks, and urban public policies. The increasing number of people living in urban areas, the emergence of megacities, and the challenges of fighting the climate crisis highlight the importance of an interdisciplinary approach to cities and data/information. The course is divided into three overlapping sections: cities (concepts, history, controversies), data (technologies across time, from rudimentary tools to the data-centric society), and rights (regulations, the right to the city, social justice). We will use various materials during the course, such as academic literature, reports, policy papers, laws, photography, films & data analyses.
COMS 501 (CRN 21462) (3 credits)
Special Topics in Communication Studies 2: Hackers: the Class
Prof. Gabriella Coleman
Tuesday, 2:35 PM-5:25 PM
Arts W-220
This course examines computer hackers to interrogate not only the ethics and technical practices of hacking, but to examine more broadly how hackers and hacking have transformed the politics of computing and the Internet more generally. We will examine how hacker values are realized and constituted by different legal, technical, and ethical activities of computer hacking—for example, free software production, cyberactivism and hacktivism, cryptography, and the prankish games of hacker underground. We will pay close attention to how ethical principles are variably represented and thought of by hackers, journalists, and academics and we will use the example of hacking to address various topics on law, order, and politics on the Internet such as: free speech and censorship, privacy, security, surveillance, and intellectual property law. We will pair empirical readings on hackers with more theoretical text or other material on digital media to probe the ethics and politics of hacking.
COMS 630 (CRN 4374) (3 credits)
Readings in Communications Research 1
Supervisor’s approval required.
COMS 681 (CRN 18139) (3 credits)
Special Topics: Media and Culture: Death, the Body, and Visual Culture
Prof. Bobby Benedicto
Monday, 2:35 PM-5:25 PM
Ferrier 230
This seminar will investigate approaches to the representation of death and dead bodies across various media. It will draw on a range of theoretical perspectives, from the writings of Georges Bataille, Sigmund Freud, and Michel Foucault to recent works in queer, feminist, and critical race theory. Potential topics include: suicide and new media, the photography of lynching and racial violence, queer death and cinema, HIV/AIDS art, true crime documentary, torture and sacrifice, and the aesthetics of modern ruins.
Keywords: death studies, media and mortality, Bataille, psychoanalysis, queer theory
COMS 692 (CRN 1458) (6 credits)
M.A. Thesis Preparation 1
Preparatory work towards the Master's thesis.
COMS 693 (CRN 1459) (6 credits)
M.A. Thesis Preparation 2
Preparatory work towards the Master's thesis.
COMS 694 (CRN 1460) (6 credits)
M.A. Thesis Preparation 3
Preparatory work towards the Master's thesis.
COMS 695 (CRN 1461) (6 credits)
M.A. Thesis Preparation 4
Preparatory work towards the Master's thesis.
COMS 702 (CRN 6119) (0 credits)
Comprehensive Exam
Comprehensive examination as per departmental procedure.
COMS 703 (CRN 3269) (0 credits)
Dissertation Proposal
Dissertation proposal.
COMS 730 (CRN 1462) (3 credits)
Readings in Communications Research 2
Supervisor's approval required.