2022-23 Courses
SPRING
GENG-7105-001 CAPSTONE (3 credits)
Prof. B. Cornellier
Wed 1:00pm-4:00pm
Course Description TBA
GENE-7820-001 CULTURAL STUDIES (3 credits)
Prof. C. Enns
Tue and Thurs 1:00pm-4:00pm
Course Description TBA
FALL/WINTER
GHIST-7831-001 Practicum in Curatorial Studies (6 credits)
Prof. C. Mattes
Wed 2:30pm-5:15pm
This course combines the theory and practice of curatorial work, public history and experiential learning for students interested in achieving a university credit by working with a local museum or art gallery. The Practicum provides opportunities to explore a range of placements with host institutions in order to learn about being a curator. Students are expected to work 6-8 hours a week in the host institution. Program partners will provide training for the students who have chosen to work with them. Partnership opportunities may include, but are not limited to, the Winnipeg Art Gallery, Manitoba Museum, Buhler Gallery, and other local galleries and museums.
GENG-7103-050 Research Methods and Practices (3 credits)
Wed 6:00pm-9:00pm
This course aims to equip students with an understanding of advanced research skills and methodologies that are relevant to the critical, academic, and political project of cultural studies. It also includes discussions of some of the contemporary ethical, political, and material challenges (and potentialities) affecting the work of scholars, artists, and intellectuals in 21st Century academe (as well as other public institutions of knowledge production and dissemination).
FALL
GENG-7104-001: Concepts in Cultural Studies (3 credits)
Prof. C. Anyaduba
Tue 2:30pm-5:15pm
This course is an advanced introduction to cultural studies. Through readings in theories, criticisms, cultural texts, and practices, we will explore the academic field/discipline of cultural studies as story. We will think with the dominant story of cultural studies often told in the Western academia. This story is a quintessential Christian tale: it tells us that the gospel of cultural studies originated in Britain sometime in the 1950s-60s and subsequently evangelized in the US (through such apostolic figures as Stuart Hall) in the 1980s and from there to the rest of the world. As this has become an influential tale, we will give it its due as a fine story. We will think with and beyond the concepts and parameters made visible by this tale. We will consider at least two other tales about cultural studies: one based on the struggles against slavery and colonization in Africa and elsewhere, and the other on indigenous struggles against the colonial state (e.g., Canada). As this is a seminar course, readings will be complemented by seminar presentations, class discussions, and lectures, all of which will be addressed to illuminating the radically critical and contextual projects of cultural studies. Key concepts, themes, and topics covered may include: representation; ideology and hegemony; the dis/articulations of gender, race, and sexuality; indigeneity; popular cultures and protest movements; colonialism and genocide; necropolitics; decolonization; mbari; amikwag. Among other things, we will explore these concepts and themes in (and in conversation with) texts and cultural practices in order to interrogate the economy and politics of and the obsession with difference that have defined the fields, practices, and projects of cultural studies.
GENG-7740-001 Topics in Local, National, & Global Cultures: Social Justice and Writing the City (3 credits)
Prof. S. Pool
Mon 2:30pm-5:15pm
The aim of this course is for students to experience the city of Winnipeg via space and place theory and a variety of ideas pulled from humanistic geography. Students will be led on ‘tours’ of the city of Winnipeg by a variety of different ‘experts’ including artists, writers, cultural leaders, architects and others. Students will write both creatively and academically about the city, and will also participate in volunteer activities in the city that promote social justice. The aim of the course is to introduce students to new understandings of humanistic geography, art and architecture and partake in a social-justice oriented performance of ‘place-making’ in the city of Winnipeg. Fundamental texts include “Place” by Tim Cresswell and a variety of literary and academic texts about place and place-making. Active in-person participation is a crucial component of this class. Students will also need to use Zoom for some classes.
GENG-7820-001: Topics in Visual Cultures: South Asian Diasporic Film (3 credits)
Prof. S. Ruprai
Fri 11:30 am-2:15 pm
This course explores South Asian diasporic experiences and stories through an examination of film and feminist theory. After a discussion of key terms and considering our frames of reference, we will address the development of South Asian women’s film, blogs, and other controversial pieces by artists from the diaspora. The course will focus on the ways in which South Asian people have articulated their subjectivity, challenged, or reformulated societal and familial roles, negotiated traditions, responded to political and cultural demands, and formulated new South Asian feminist aesthetics. Specifically, we will explore the identities which the second-and third-born generations and/or those raised in the diaspora are cultivating.
GENG-7820.002: Cultures of the Past: Practices of collecting, documenting, and inventorying Pre-Modern Art & Artefacts (3 Credits)
Prof. C. Labrecque
Fri 2:30pm-5:15pm
This course brings students into firsthand contact with selected art objects from the past centuries. Students are introduced to the concepts of periodization and conservation of old artistic objects, and learn how to document, analyse, and write about the art objects which are kept in private collections or public institutions. The class examines works in their social, historical, and artistic contexts, using primary and secondary sources and technical resources available locally. Students learn the practical aspects of art historical work, and how to document and write about art historical material in the perspective of an exhibition project. The group may be divided in two to facilitate access to private collections and handling of art historical objects.
WINTER
GENG-7112-001: Topics in Cultural Theory: Advanced Topics in Disability Theory (3 Credits)
Prof. M. Owen
Th 11:30am-2:15pm
Disability theory, like disability studies, is dynamic. This course will provide a space to read, reflect on, and discuss current interdisciplinary writings. Particular attention will be given to disability theory produced by those who occupy marginalized identities. We will consider questions such as what is disability theory? Is all disability theory critical? Is disability theory, or should it be, emancipatory? Who is theorizing disability? Who has been left out? What is the relationship between disability theory and disability studies?
GENG-7740-002: Topics in Local, National, & Global Cultures: Indigenous Literatures and Cultures (3 Credits)
Prof. P. Depasquale
Mon 2:30pm-5:15pm
Course description TBA
GENG-7740-003: Topics in Local, National, & Global Cultures: Advanced Studies in Canadian Social History: Food History (3 Credits)
Prof. J. Thiessen
Fri 2:30pm-5:15pm
Seminars in this course will address the interpretations and debates that have arisen in the literature on Canadian social history. Students will also undertake a research project using primary sources to explore a problem of relevance to the course.
For 2023, the course will focus on Canadian food history and oral history, and include both cooking activities and field trips. The research project will be a digital public history project on Manitoba food history that incorporates archived oral history interviews.
GENG-7820-003: The Idea of the Museum (3 credits)
Prof. S. Borys
Th 2:30pm-5:15pm
Museums and galleries do more than collect and exhibit objects; they participate in the packaging and presentation of the materials and ideas of culture, engaging with a diverse public and multiple stakeholders. Students examine the collecting, exhibiting and presentation practices of European and North American museums and galleries over the last two centuries with the goal of understanding their evolving role. The class explores how museums developed in response to the ideas of collecting and connoisseurship, the disciplines of art history and museology, and how these institutions reflect or relate to different ideologies, such as nationalism and colonialism.
GENG-7901-001: Topics in Genders, Sexualities, and Cultures: Queer Theory (3 credits)
Prof. H. Milne
Tue 2:30pm-5:15pm
This course introduces students to some of the key thinkers, issues, and concepts in the field of Queer Theory. We will begin by reading Judith Butler’s Gender Trouble, Michel Foucault’s The History of Sexuality, and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick’s Epistemology of the Closet, three texts that helped to lay the foundations of the field. We will also examine how queer theory has evolved over the past twenty-five years in relation to social and cultural changes that have occurred within 2SLGBTQ* culture. The course will be divided into five interconnected modules: Foundations of Queer Theory; Queer Temporalities; Critiques of Homonormativity and Neoliberalism; Homonationalism; and Queer Affect.
Special Studies Forms
Directed Study Application Form
Course Outline Template: Instructors will use their department's template for the appropriate term.
*Please note that there are multiple time formats for Spring/Summer courses; your outline should indicate which one you are adhering to. See academic dates here.
The deadline for submitting final grades for Spring/Summer courses vary in accordance with time format, another fact to keep in mind as you design a special studies course. Faculty members are typically given two weeks after the end of the course to submit final grades, but they should consult the Coordinator for specific dates.