Joint doctorate in comms celebrates 25 years with special McLuhan event
The Université de Montreal (UdeM), Université de Québec à Montréal (UQAM) and Concordia celebrated the 25th anniversary of their Joint Doctorate in Communication with a special event held recently at the Société des arts technologiques (SAT). « more »
Congratulations!
... to M.E. Luka, PhD Candidate in Communication Studies, on winning the prestigious Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship! « more »
The Université de Montreal (UdeM), Université de Québec à Montréal (UQAM) and Concordia celebrated the 25th anniversary of their Joint Doctorate in Communication with a special event held recently at the Société des arts technologiques (SAT).
Entitled Innis, McLuhan, and the Media: Path to Enlightenment or Dead End?, the event brought together communication professors and students to discuss the legacy of two Canadian pioneers of communication studies: Harold Innis and Marshall McLuhan. The invited speakers were asked to examine the relevance of their work “against the backdrop of a media landscape that is transforming itself before our eyes.”
The first session of the event, entitled Decoupling Innis and McLuhan?, featured three presentations that re-examined the connection between the two scholars and their communication theories. One of the invited speakers was Luiz Martino, a professor from the Faculty of Communications at the University of Brasilia in Brazil. William (Bill) Buxton, Concordia’s director of the joint PhD program, also presented his paper, entitled The Rise of McLuhanism, The Loss of Innis-sense.
“Innis and McLuhan are seen as a tandem, representing the core of what’s called the Toronto School of Communication,” Buxton explained. “McLuhan gained a lot of prominence, and then the connection to Innis was less clear at that point. So it was really trying to restore the balance.”
The second session, entitled Probing McLuhan, focused the spotlight on the celebrated media theorist famous for coining the saying, “the medium is the message.” The session featured three more presentations, including one by Darren Wershler, Research Chair in Media and Contemporary Literature in Concordia’s Department of English, entitled Marshall McLuhan and the Economies of Citation.
PhD candidate Christina Haralanova
Wershler’s presentation examined McLuhan’s poetic approach to writing, and his decidedly non-academic approach to citations in his work. The session’s respondent was Concordia PhD candidate Christina Haralanova.
The SAT’s new Satosphere dome was full for the event’s keynote address by Harvard Professor Jeffrey T. Schnapp, presented along with a three-dimensional projection by UdeM design professor Luc Courchesne. Both the lecture and the projection addressed the wildly popular, experimental book by McLuhan and graphic designer Quentin Fiore, coordinated by Jerome Agel, called The Media is the Massage: An Inventory of Effects, published in 1967.
Schnapp said he was delighted to find out he would be presenting his lecture in the Satosphere while the book’s images and texts were swirling overhead. Upon seeing the space and Courchesne’s projection, Schnapp said he decided to abandon his written lecture in favour of an improvised presentation. “It seemed to me it would be really perverse to have a traditional lecture in a space where you could have precisely the kind of deeply defamiliarizing experience of a print artifact that you could have in the Satosphere,” he said.
Following the presentation, guests gathered in the expansive Espace SAT to enjoy some refreshments and discuss the day’s events. “I think the keynote was really good, well made and interesting,” said Haralanova, who has just finished her PhD forum, and will soon begin working on her thesis proposal in which she plans to examine “hacker spaces, feminism, social justice, and the media.”
Haralanova praised the joint PhD program, saying it has exposed her to many different approaches to communication studies. “We gain a lot from having the possibility of knowing different professors from different universities,” she said. “My doctoral forum was with students from the three universities, and this experience has been very rich for me."
An Event celebrating 25 years
of the Joint Ph.D. program in communication
(Université de Montréal, Concordia University, UQAM)
Société des Arts Technologiques (SAT)
1201, boul. St. Laurent, Montréal
On April 25th, we invite you to join us in celebrating 25 years of the Joint Ph.D. program in communication. For that purpose, we invite you to a free one-afternoon symposium — held at the Société des Arts Technologiques — dedicated to the ideas of Harold Innis and Marshall McLuhan — whose one-hundredth birthday was celebrated last year. We will have two panels of three presentations each, featuring the works of our colleagues and students (see program hereafter), and a keynote address by Jeffrey Schnapp, founder and faculty director of metaLAB (at) Harvard, introduced by Luc Courchesne, in the “McLuhan Massage Parlour” at Société des Arts Technologiques (SAT).
Dr. Schnapp will present a talk entitled “Marshall McLuhan and the Electric Information Age Book” based on his recent book, The Electric Information Age Book (co-authored with Adam Michaels (Princeton Architectural Press, January, 2012). This book explores the nine-year window between 1966 and 1975, when a group of designers, graphic artists, and editors literally invented the future of the paperback book. The period begins in 1966 when Jerome Agel and Quentin Fiore, in collaboration with Marshall McLuhan, employed a variety of radical techniques—verbal visual collages and other typographic pyrotechnics—to produce a book in the shape of “an inventory of effects:” The Medium Is the Massage. Schnapp’s keynote address will be presented in the context of Luc Courchesne’s immersive installation entitled “le salon de massage McLuhan” (in collaboration with Mike Wozniewski, Benjamin Bergery, Luc Martinez et David Duguay). This interactive experience, inspired by McLuhan’s, Fiore’s and Agel’s book, marks the one-hundredth anniversary of McLuhan’s birth in a medium that he could only have dreamed about. During Dr. Schnapp’s keynote, the public will be located at the center of the Satosphere dome, while Luc Courchesne will “move” inside The Medium is the Massage whose every page has been redeployed in the 3D space of the Satosphere dome, the biggest immersive projection room in the world. This gigantic dome, with its 54-foot diameter and 45-foot height, is equipped with eight video projectors and 157 speakers to allow immersive and participatory exhibits of this kind.
On April 25th, the medium will thus be the message, the mental and audiovisual massage of the cybernetic age!
PROGRAMME
1:00 pm – Welcoming Address
1:15 pm – Session 1 – Decoupling Innis and McLuhan?
Chair –Sandra Gabriele, Professor
Department of Communication Studies, Concordia University
“Le concept de moyen de communication dans l’École de Toronto”
Luiz Martino, Professeur
Faculdade de Comunicação, Universidade de Brasilia
“Innis, un homme de son temps ? McLuhan, un homme de l’espace ?”
Gaetan Tremblay, Professeur
École des médias, UQAM
“The Rise of McLuhanism, The Loss of Innis-sense: Rethinking the Toronto School of Communication”
Bill Buxton, Professor
Department of Communication Studies, Concordia University
Respondent:
Shirley Roburn, PhD Candidate
Department of Communication Studies, Concordia University
3:00 pm – break
3:15 pm - Session 2 – Probing McLuhan
Chair – Lorna Roth, Professor
Department of Communication Studies, Concordia University
“Marshall McLuhan and the Economies of Citation”
Darren Wershler, Research Chair in Media and Contemporary Literature
Department of English, Concordia University
“Le concept de forme chez McLuhan. Plaidoyer pour un changement d’ethos”
Oumar Kane, Professeur
Département de communication sociale et publique (UQAM)
“McLuhan’s legacies: An Animal-studies perspective”
David Jaclin
PhD Candidate,
Département de communication, Université de Montréal
Respondent: Christina Haralanova
PhD Candidate
Department of Communication Studies, Concordia University
5:00 pm – break
5:30 – Keynote
“Marshall McLuhan and the Electric Information Age Book”
Jeffrey Schnapp,
Professor of Romance Languages & Literatures and Comparative Literature,
Fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society,
Harvard University
“Le salon de massage McLuhan”
Luc Courchesne, Professeur,
École de design industriel, Université de Montréal
7:00 – 8:00 Reception
Jeffrey T. Schnapp is Professor of Romance Languages & Literatures at Harvard University, where he also teaches on the faculty of the Department of Architecture at the Graduate School of Design, and serves as faculty co-director of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society. In February 2011, he co-founded a new laboratory under the aegis of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society: metaLAB (at) Harvard. Though primarily anchored in the field of Italian studies (before moving to Harvard in 2011, he occupied the Pierotti Chair of Italian Studies at Stanford) Dr. Schnapp has played a pioneering role in several areas of transdisciplinary research and has been at the forefront of a new wave of digital humanities work. His research interests extend from antiquity to the present, encompassing the material history of literature, the history of 20th-century architecture and design, and the cultural history of science and engineering. Trained as a Romance linguist, Schnapp is the author or editor of twenty books and over one hundred essays. His book Crowds was the recipient of the Modernist Studies Association prize for best book of 2006. He has recently co-authored The Electric Information Age Book: McLuhan/Agel/Fiore and the Experimental Paperback.
Luc Courchesne Based in Montreal, Luc Courchesne is a founding member of the Society for Art and Technology [SAT], and since 1989, professor of design at Université de Montréal, where he teaches media and experiential design. Over the last thirty years he has made a major contribution to the emergence of media arts. His early work on interactive portraiture and landscape contributed to a revolution in these genres with his installations and “panoscopic” images, which transform spectators into visitors, actors and inhabitants of his experiential crafts. His work is part of major collections in North America, Europe and Asia and has been shown extensively in galleries and museums worldwide, including: Sydney’s Art Gallery of New South Wales, New York’s Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo’s InterCommunication Center (ICC), Paris’ La Villette, Karlsruhe’s ZKM/Medienmuseum, Montreal’s Musée d’art contemporain, the National Gallery of Canada, Barcelona’s Fundacion La Caixa and Beijing’s National Art Museum of China.
The Joint Ph.D. Program in Communicationis unique in North America. Created in 1987, this dynamic, inter-university program combines the talents of some 50 professors, a hundred and fifty students, and the staff of three institutions: the University of Montreal, Concordia University, and the University of Quebec at Montreal. One of the challenges and, indeed, strengths of the program is its bilingual nature.
Contact :
Dr. Thierry Bardini, program director, email hidden; JavaScript is required
Dr. William Buxton, Concordia PhD director, email hidden; JavaScript is required
Dr. Éric George, UQAM PhD director email hidden; JavaScript is required
Josée Duranleau, coordinator of the programme, email hidden; JavaScript is required
Telephone : 514-343-6111 poste 5419
Father Marc Gervais, S.J. (Society of Jesus), a celebrated film scholar and much-cherished Concordia professor for four decades, passed away March 25, 2012, at the René Goupil Jesuit Infirmary in Pickering, Ont. He was 82.
Whether rubbing shoulders with cinema nobility in Cannes, France, smoothly impressing on the tennis court, or wowing students in class with his extensive film knowledge, charm, humour and sense of style, Father Gervais confounded the image of a Jesuit priest.
He was born in Sherbrooke, Que., in 1929, the second child of Sylvia Mullins and Superior Court Justice Césaire Gervais. He was raised in a thoroughly bilingual household, where he was first introduced to the world of movies.
In 1950, Father Gervais graduated with a bachelor of arts from Loyola College, one of Concordia’s founding institutions. He then started the 13-year program to become a Jesuit and was ordained in 1963.
Along the way, he earned a Master of Fine Arts in Drama at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., in 1960. He added “doctor” to his titles when he completed his PhD in film aesthetics at the Sorbonne in Paris in 1979.
In 1967, Father Gervais joined Loyola College’s fledgling communication arts program, now the Department of Communication Studies, and stayed until his retirement in 2003. He continued to teach film and religion at Concordia for the next several years.
It was in the 1960s, when Father Gervais honed his understanding of cinema, that he became a regular at the Cannes Film Festival. Indeed, he took part each May for nearly 40 years.
In his courses, which covered Alfred Hitchcock, silent-era Hollywood, 1920s Germany, John Ford and many others, Father Gervais brought a wealth of knowledge as well as his particular style and wit.
“Marc had a special way of communicating with students. He loved what he was doing, he loved being around students, and that came back to him in droves,” says Don Taddeo, BA 67, a former communication studies colleague who remained friends with Father Gervais. The two also served together on the Loyola Alumni Association board of directors.
“He was a pillar of the early communication arts program, and a humanist in every way,” Taddeo adds.
Father Gervais maintained at least one flaw, Taddeo recalls with a chuckle. “He wasn’t always on time in submitting his marks — because when they were due at the beginning of May, Marc was hanging out in Cannes.”
Although his film expertise was vast and he wrote a scholarly book on Italian director Pier Paolo Pasolini in 1973, Father Gervais held a special place for the late Swedish auteur Ingmar Bergman.
“He is a figure in cinema who revealed to us that film can be a voice in culture, like any great art,” Father Gervais told Concordia’s Thursday Report in 1999, the year he published Ingmar Bergman: Magician and Prophet (McGill-Queen’s University Press).
Father Gervais played important roles outside the classroom as well. He helped establish the Lonergan University College (1975) and Loyola Jesuit Institute for Studies in International Peace (1988) at Concordia.
From 1981 to 1986, he was a member of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission. He also consulted on several Catholic-themed films including Agnes of God (1985), The Mission (1986) and Black Robe (1991).
“The passing of Father Marc Gervais feels like losing a member of the family,” says Concordia President and Vice-Chancellor Frederick Lowy. “He touched the lives of so many Concordia students, fellow professors, alumni and others in a memorable way. He was also Concordia’s last Jesuit professor, which makes this loss even more poignant.”
Father Gervais is survived by his brother, P. André Gervais, L BA 64, former chair of Concordia’s Board of Governors, and his sister, Constance M. Moisan.
Anyone wishing to contribute to the Marc Gervais Prize in Communication Studies in Father Gervais’ memory may contact Maggie Borowiec at 514-848-2424, ext. 2093, or email hidden; JavaScript is required.
Gifts can also be made securely online. Under “Gift Information” and “I would like to support,” choose Marc Gervais Prize in Communication Studies.
Information for the services for Father Marc Gervais:
Wakes
When: Wednesday, March 28 from 7 to 9 p.m., wake service at 8 p.m. Where: Chapel at Manresa Retreat House, Pickering, Ont.
When: Thursday, March 29 from 2 to 4 p.m. and from 7 to 9 p.m. Where: Loyola Jesuit Hall and Conference Centre, Loyola Campus (7141 Sherbrooke St. W.), Concordia University, Montreal, Que.
Funeral Mass
When: Friday, March 30 at 11 a.m. Where: St. Ignatius of Loyola (4455 West Broadway St., Montreal, Que.)
A reception will follow at the Loyola Jesuit Hall and Conference Centre, Loyola Campus (7141 Sherbrooke St. W.), Concordia University, Montreal, Que.
Burial
When: Saturday, March 31 at 2:30 p.m. Where: Jesuit Cemetery, Guelph, Ontario
On Friday March 16th at 2:30 pm (doors open at 2:00 pm), Communication Studies will be hosting “A Conversation with Pierre Even”, another distinguished alumni (Graduate Diploma 1990) who is returning to spend some time with our students, faculty and staff.
Pierre Even is the producer of numerous critically acclaimed feature films such as C.R.A.Z.Y., Une vie qui commence, Café de Flore and Rebelle. Even’s productions have been winners of many prestigious awards and prizes, including Rebelle‘s recent win at the Berlin International Film Festival 2012 (Silver Bear Award, Best Actress for Rachel Mwanza). Even owns and works out of the Montréal production company, Item 7.
Our ‘conversation’ with Pierre Even will be facilitated by another distinguished alumni, Brendan Kelly, CBC Radio and The Gazette. This event takes place in CJ 1.114 and there will be a reception in Pierre Even’s honour, in the Atrium, immediately following the ‘conversation’.
We are very excited about Pierre’s visit and urge you to join us in ‘conversation’.
A Conversation with Pierre Even
Friday, March 16, 2012 at 2:30 PM
Loyola Campus
Communication and Journalism – CJ Building,
CJ 1.114
7141 Sherbrooke Street West
Montreal, Quebec
Modern consumers of mass media have long been swayed by the notion that secret, invisible messages are embedded in everything from radio commercials to Hollywood blockbusters. With his new book, Charles Acland takes an in-depth look at the complex history of subliminal influence, and questions what the lasting implications may be for our information-saturated modern world.
For communications professor Charles Acland, the idea of subliminal influence indicates an “extraordinary faith in the power of even the most fleeting words, sounds and images to shape our unconscious.” In Swift Viewing: The Popular Life of Subliminal Influence, Acland, a professor and research chair in Concordia’s Department of Communication Studies, traces the evolution of subliminal influence from a concept in experimental psychology to a mainstream belief about what he calls “our vulnerability to manipulation in an age of media clutter.”
Since theories of subliminal influence first found their way into mainstream culture in the late 1950s, public opinion surveys have shown that up to 70 per cent of respondents think that advertisers use subliminal techniques, whether the message is to buy a particular product or to confirm to a certain way of thinking. For Acland, the idea of subliminal influence, regardless of its existence or direct effectiveness, indicates an “extraordinary faith in the power of even the most fleeting words, sounds and images to shape our unconscious.”
By providing a broad survey of examples ranging from Marshall McLuhan’s media theories to representations of mind control in sci-fi movies, Acland examines the subliminal as “both a product of and balm for information overload.” In so doing, he creates what acclaimed author Fred Turner calls a “much-needed and frighteningly contemporary history.”
Through the historical sweep of Swift Viewing, Acland shows that the concept of subliminal influence has its origins as far back as the late 1800s. His detailed chapter on the tachistoscope, a tool used to quickly slide images past a viewer’s eye to measure the length of exposure necessary for perception, demonstrates that we have had “a fascination with the rapid arrival and departure of texts” for more than a century.
By tracing this fascination through its mainstream adoption and subsequent debunking that there are any actual effects, and following its continued traction in everything from presidential campaigns to episodes of TV’s Family Guy, Acland proves that this concept has staying power and is specifically connected to the way we understand our audiovisual surroundings.
Ultimately, Acland shows that the continued engagement with the concept is one way “individuals share scepticism about their environment,” a scepticism prompted by the daily barrage of information that defines present-day media culture.
February 8, 2012 – Ottawa, Canada – The Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences is pleased to announce the short list of nominees for the Canada Prizes in the Humanities and the Canada Prizes in the Social Sciences. Awarded annually to one work in French and one in English in each category, the prizes are a benchmark for outstanding scholarly work in the humanities and social sciences.
“On behalf of the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, I want to congratulate the 18 authors shortlisted for The Canada Prize, which recognizes outstanding scholarly works in the social sciences and humanities, and their thoughtful contribution to society,” said Graham Carr, president of CFHSS. “We are proud to support exceptional French and English authors who shed new light on intriguing topics ranging from Bethune to women and Canada’s cultural history to the artistry of Tom Thomson and Jean-Paul Riopelle.”
The four prizes are each valued at $2,500 and will be presented at a special award ceremony on Friday, March 30, 2012 at the Musée des beaux-arts in Montreal. The nominees are chosen from works supported by CFHSS’s Awards to Scholarly Publications Program and winners are selected by a jury of scholars from across the country.
Shortlisted Titles for the Canada Prizes
Canada Prize in the Humanities
FISHER, Susan R. Boys and Girls in No Man's Land: English-Canadian Children and the First World War (UTP)
GERSON, Carole Canadian Women in Print, 1750-1918 (WLUP)
MCKAY, Marylin J.. Picturing Land: Narrating Territories in Canadian Landscape Art, 1500-1950 (MQUP)
STEWART, Roderick, STEWART, Sharon. Pheonix: The Life of Norman Bethune (MQUP)
TREMBLAY, Tony. David Adams Richards of the Miramichi (UTP)
Canada Prize in the Social Sciences
HENDERSON, Stuart. Making the Scene: Yorkville and Hip Toronto in the 1960s (UTP)
LEDUC, Timothy B.. Climate, Culture, Change: Inuit and Western Dialogues with a Warming North (UOP)
REGAN, Paulette. Unsettling the Settler Within: Indian Residential Schools, Truth-telling and Reconciliation in Canada (UBC Press)
STRONG-BOAG, Veronica. Fostering Nation? Canada Confronts Its History of Childhood Disadvantage (WLUP)
VAN WYCK, Peter C.. The Highway of the atom (MQUP)
Prix du Canada en sciences humaines
BROUILLETTE, Marc André Spatialité textuelle dans la poésie contemporaine (Éditions Nota bene)
CELLARD, Karine Leçons de littérature : Un siècle de manuels scolaires au Québec (PUM)
SAINT-JACQUES, Denis et ROBERT, Lucie La vie littéraire au Québec, tome VI (1919-1933) (PUL)
VIGNEAULT, Louise Espace artistique et modèle pionnier. Tom Thomson et Jean-Paul Riopelle (Éditions Hurtubise inc.)
Prix du Canada en sciences sociales
BLAIS, Agnès Une ONG en Rusie post-soviétique (PUL)
DUCHARME, Michel Le concept de liberté au Canada à l'époque des Révolutions atlantiques, 1776-1838 (MQUP)
FYSON, Donald Magistrats, police et société : la justice criminelle ordinaire au Québec et au Bas-Canada (1764-1837) (Éditions Hurtubise inc.) JOLIVET, Simon Le vert et le bleu. Identité québécoise et identité irlandaise au tournant du XXe siècle (PUM)
More Information:
Alison Hebbs Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences 613-282-3489 email hidden; JavaScript is required
Representing more than 85,000 researchers in 79 scholarly associations, 79 universities and colleges, and 5 affiliates, the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences is the national voice for the university research and learning community in these disciplines.
The Media Gallery in the Department of Communication Studies
proudly presents the exhibition
Fanciful: Small Media Moments
curated by Kim Sawchuk and Rae Staseson
Featuring the work of Margaret Murphy, Emily Pelstring, Kelly Thompson and Karen Trask, this exhibition plays with our notion of scale and challenges us to reconsider intimacy, domestic display and the role of whimsy in communication.
The artists all use a combination of old technologies in conjunction with new media, in highly unique ways, to create surprising connections.
February 10th – April 13th, 2012
Media Gallery
CJ Building 1.419
Concordia University’s Loyola campus
7141 Sherbrooke Street West, Montreal
Gallery hours are Monday-Thursday 9:00 – 4:45pm and Friday 9:00 – 12:45pm
For additional information please call Rae Staseson at 514-848-2424 x2535 or x2555.
M.E. Luka receives the notice that she is one of this year’s Vanier scholars. | Image courtesy of M.E. Luka
“There are those moments when you put things beside each other, and you know they fit together, but you have to really look closely, because you’re not sure how,” says M.E. Luka.
She’s reflecting on the path that has led her to earn Concordia’s most recent Vanier Scholarship, one of 166 allocated this year across Canada.
“In a funny way, this [PhD] project connects all the different parts of my life.”
Given that Luka has studied fine arts, communications and education, and has worked as a television producer, arts fundraiser and teacher, common threads are not obvious. But then, her experience does reflect the Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship criteria, which balance academic excellence and research rigour against leadership, community engagement and outreach.
Luka came to Concordia’s Department of Communication Studies two years ago to research the potential and role of digital media in the development of arts, cultural community and cultural citizenship.
Her decision to return to school came when the CBC cut funding for Artspots, a television and Internet program she founded and produced at the network’s Halifax studios from 1997 to 2008.
The program developed from a mandate to establish community ties. “It was an opportunity to really create partnerships at a deep level,” adds Luka who worked with artists, curators, arts administrators and gallery directors.
Through Artspots, Luka produced 1,200 short videos featuring 300 artists from across the country. In the process, she produced 10 documentaries. Luka had not intended to create the definitive catalogue of contemporary art production by Canadians for Canadians.
When Artspots ended, Luka realized it was time to explore another centre of creative production and Montreal beckoned.
Using Artspots as a starting point, Luka plans to study the relationship between new media production and the creation of online or digital communities.
“Concordia is exactly the right place for this research,” she says, pointing to the Faculty’s equal commitments to production and theoretical knowledge, with particular expertise in the arts and television.
Luka is interested in the specificity of different communities and audiences, rejecting the notion of a single, broad audience. “Media is about personal networks, about what makes life interesting.” She sees possibility for creativity and community formation through collaboration between artists, producers and audiences. It’s a kind of relationship-building that moves far beyond simply creating a Facebook page and waiting for a response. “That seems fairly instrumental,” says Luka. “I want to ask how do you crack that open? Think more broadly and deeply?”
Already the Vanier is having an impact. Luka recently spent a week in Porto, Portugal at the joint University of Texas at Austin University of Porto Gary Chapman International School on Digital Transformation. A small group of researchers spent intensive 13-hour plus days discussing citizenship in the digital era. “This is one of the great outcomes of receiving the Vanier – having the resources to meet face-to-face with others doing research in similar areas” she says.
The Department of Communication Studies invites applications for 4 limited-term appointments in the following areas: Media Production (two positions); Media Criticism, Policy, and Public Discourse (one position); and Communication/Media History, Critical Theory, and Media Futures(one position).
Media Production (2 positions): we are looking for one individual who will teach intermediate 16mm film, advanced intermedia or advanced video, and foundation courses in film/video; We are looking for another individual who will teach advanced intermedia or advanced video, foundation courses in film/video and foundation courses in sound production. Successful candidates will have an appropriate advanced terminal degree, an active creative practice and portfolio, prior teaching experience and the ability to teach within a Humanities context.
Media Criticism, Policy, and Public Discourse: the successful candidate will teach one section of Media Criticism (core foundation course), and courses at the 300 and 400 level such as: Media Institutions and Policies, Media Policy in Canada, Visual Communication, Definitions of Media and Technology I, and Sexuality and Public Discourse. The successful candidate must have a PhD in Communication Studies or a cognate field (or be very near to completion), and prior teaching experience in a Humanities context.
Communication/Media History, Critical Theory, and Media Futures: The successful candidate will teach both sections of the core foundation course History of Communication and Media, and courses at the 300 and 400 levels such as: Media and Cultural Theory, Media and New Technology, Perspectives on the Information Society, and Media Forecast. The successful candidate must have a PhD in Communication Studies or a cognate field (or be very near to completion), and prior teaching experience in a Humanities context.
Applications should consist of a cover letter, a current curriculum vitae, a statement of teaching philosophy, and evidence of teaching effectiveness. Candidates should arrange for three letters of reference to be sent directly to:
Prof. Rae Staseson, Chair
Department of Communication Studies – CJ 3.230
Concordia University
1455 de Maisonneuve Blvd.
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
H3G 1M8
These positions are subject to budgetary approval and department/unit need. Individuals holding limited-term appointments may be reappointed, given continued funding and need, as well as satisfactory job performance. Together, initial appointments and subsequent reappointments may not exceed 36 months or a span of three consecutive years. They are normally at the rank of Lecturer or Assistant Professor, beginning August 15, 2012 and ending May 31, 2013. Successful candidates will normally be expected to teach three courses per semester.
All inquiries should be directed to Professor Rae Staseson at email hidden; JavaScript is required
Review of applications will begin as they are received and will continue until the required positions have been filled.
All applications must reach departments no later than March 1, 2012. Electronic applications will not be accepted
All qualified candidates are encouraged to apply; however, Canadian citizens and permanent residents of Canada will be given priority. Concordia University is committed to employment equity.
The Departments of Communication Studies and
Journalism will be holding an information session on Friday, December 2, 2011 at 11h00
Loyola Campus
Communication and Journalism – CJ Building,
CJ 1.114
7141 Sherbrooke Street West
Montreal, Quebec
The event aims to introduce students to the different
programs and review the various entry requirements.
For more information you may call the Department
of Communication Studies at 514-848-2424
ext. 2555 or the Department of Journalism at
514-848-2424 ext. 2465
Dr. Mia Consalvo has been awarded a Canada Research Chair (Tier 1) in Games Studies and Design. We congratulate Dr. Consalvo on this prestigious appointment and we look forward to her new research lab and extended research program that will accompany this CRC. Congratulations Mia!
The Department of Communication Studies is pleased to present Midi Onodera’s Vidoodles: Intimate Cinema at the Media Gallery located in the CJ Building on the Loyola campus (CJ 1.419). The exhibition is curated by Monika Kin Gagnon and Matt Soar.
Onodera’s exhibition features two mediaworks: Tabletop Viewables (2011) is a multi-screen miniature cinema installation, and her 2009 Movie of the Week will be presented on an interactive touchscreen.
The Media Gallery exhibits the dynamic creative media work produced in Communication Studies as well as hosting innovative exhibitions by local, national and international media artists.
Midi Onodera’s Vidoodles: Intimate Cinema opens on Thursday Sept 15 2011, with a public reception from 16:30-18:30. The exhibition runs from September 15–December 9th and the Media Gallery hours are: Monday-Thursday 9:00 to 4:45 and Fridays 9:00 to 12:45. Details about the artist and the exhibition can be found at: http://mobilemediagallery.org/exhibitions/. The Media Gallery is located on the Loyola Campus, CJ Building, Room 1.419.
For further information contact:
Rae Staseson, Chair of Communication Studies
514-848-2424 x2535 email hidden; JavaScript is required
or
Monika Kin Gagnon
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Congratulations to our fulltime faculty, who in the last 1.5 years, have successfully received external research funding for research, research-creation, and media arts from agencies including SSHRC, FQRSC, NCE Grand, CFI, CIHR, Canada Council, CALQ, and the Reynard Program, among others. Internal research projects and initiatives have also been awarded from numerous programs through the Vice-President Research and Graduate Studies and the Faculty of Arts and Science. Through these various competitive awards, Communication Studies Faculty are developing innovative scholarly and creative projects that are making major contributions to communication studies, cultural studies, media studies and the fine arts.
Dr. Mia Consalvo has recently joined Communication Studies as an Associate Professor and she is the author of Cheating: GainingAdvantage of Videogames. Consalvo is currently writing a book about Japan’s influence on the videogame industry and game culture. She has published her work in Critical Studies in Media Communication, Games & Culture, Game Studies, Convergence, and many other journals. She has presented her work at professional as well as academic conferences including regular presentations at the Game Developers Conference. Consalvo is the President of the Association of Internet Researchers, and has held positions at MIT, Ohio University, Chubu University in Japan and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
Dr. Krista Geneviève Lynes is an Assistant Professor and she holds a PhD in History of Consciousness from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and held a previous position at the San Francisco Art Institute. Her work has appeared in the journals Third Text and Signs. A book chapter will appear this fall in Space (Re)Solutions: Interventionand Research in Visual Culture (Peter Mörtenböck & Helge Mooshammer, Eds.), and her book, tentatively entitled Experimental Media, Transnational Circuits: PrismaticVisions and Feminism without Guarantees is forthcoming with Palgrave.
The faculty, staff, and students of our Department are deeply saddened to announce the unexpected death of our colleague and friend, Dr. William Lambert (Scot) Gardiner.
He passed away on the night of June 15 at his home, his “electronic cottage,” in Hudson. For the past several years he had been struggling with health problems, and it appeared that he was winning this battle. Clearly this was not meant to be.
Scot first began work at Concordia (then Sir George Williams) in 1965, in the Psychology Department. After publishing a very successful textbook (Psychology: A Story of a Search, 1970), he “retired.” In 1984, in the wake of a fifteen-year sojourn to think-tanks, alternative communities, and beaches, Scot returned to Concordia, this time to the Department of Communication Studies. As his many devoted students will attest, he cared passionately about teaching, about access to education, and the free and democratic exchange of ideas. His openness and generosity to both students and colleagues was as much his signature as his boundless curiosity, warm-hearted spirit, and his big, joyful laugh.
We invite you to share with us your thoughts and reminiscences about Scot. Please send them in to:
Father Marc Gervais, S.J. (Society of Jesus), a celebrated film scholar and much-cherished Concordia professor for four decades, passed away March 25, 2012, at the René Goupil Jesuit Infirmary in Pickering, Ont. He was 82.
Modern consumers of mass media have long been swayed by the notion that secret, invisible messages are embedded in everything from radio commercials to Hollywood blockbusters. With his new book, Charles Acland takes an in-depth look at the complex history of subliminal influence, and questions what the lasting implications may be for our information-saturated modern world.
February 8, 2012 – Ottawa, Canada – The Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences is pleased to announce the short list of nominees for the Canada Prizes in the Humanities and the Canada Prizes in the Social Sciences. Awarded annually to one work in French and one in English in each category, the prizes are a benchmark for outstanding scholarly work in the humanities and social sciences.
