Faculty Research Expertise
Professors in the Department of Communication and Culture come from a variety of disciplines and perspectives and have strong records of achievement in scholarship and professional activity. Many are internationally known. All are committed to the critical analysis of communication and cultural phenomena. Our approach is primarily qualitative and many professors and graduate students are involved in research that offers a return to both the academic and the general communities.
Our faculty and programs focus on the following areas of research:
- Social contexts of science and technology
- Media and film studies
- Sociocultural approaches to communication
- Critical health studies
- Social and global justice
Chloe G. K. Atkins: PhD (political theory) University of Toronto
Vulnerability, trust and human rights (disability, gender, sexuality); auto-ethnography & narrative scholarship; applied political, feminist and legal theory; ethics; biomedical ethics; qualitative research
Maria Bakardjieva: PhD (Communication) Simon Fraser University; PhD (Sociology) Bulgarian Academy of Sciences
New media and society; Internet use in everyday life; social uses and implications of information and communication technologies; media and democracy
Doug Brent: PhD (English) University of British Columbia
Writing studies (aka composition theory and practice), professional and technical writing, rhetoric, post-secondary educational practices
Lyndsay Campbell: PhD (Jurisprudence and Social Policy) University of California, Berkeley
Regulation of expression; legal history (Canadian, American, English); normative and extralegal regulation; labour, employment and human rights
Lee Carruthers: PhD (Film Studies) University of Chicago
Film theory, Film history, Classical Hollywood cinema, Contemporary cinema, Global art cinema, Film phenomenology, Philosophical hermeneutics
Regina Cochrane: PhD (Political Theory) York University
Feminist theory; critical theory; globalization; social justice; ecopolitics, feminist/environmental activism in the global justice movement
Geoffrey Cragg: MA (English) McMaster
History of communication and transportation and their respective technologies; rhetoric, classical and contemporary; rhetorical criticism of public discourse
Edna Einsiedel: PhD (Communication) Indiana University
Biotechnology; genomics and nano-biotechnology applications; public participation on technological issues
Charlene Elliott: PhD (Communication) Carleton
Food marketing, policy and branding; obesity and public health; taste and communication; intellectual property; sensorial communication; children and media studies
Marcia Epstein: PhD (Medieval Studies / Musicology) University of Toronto
History and sociology of music; history of ideas; acoustic ecology; auditory culture; music therapy
Lorry Felske: PhD (History) University of Toronto
Western urban culture; cultural history of the Calgary Stampede Parade
Patrick Feng: PhD (Science and Technology Studies) Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Science and technology policy; politics of international standards-setting; health informatics and health policy; philosophy of technology; social innovation; technological governance
Max Foran: PhD (History) University of Calgary
Western Canadian urban and agricultural history; Calgary culture and politics
Ronald Glasberg: PhD (History) University of Toronto
Interdisciplinary theory; knowledge unification strategies; popular culture; history of ideas; world history
Richard Hawkins: PhD (Political Economy) University of Sussex
Science, technology and innovation policy, innovation theory, knowledge translation and application
Margo Husby: PhD (Education) University of Calgary
History and theory of rhetoric; women's roles in Christianity; medieval mystics; history of ideas; hermeneutics and ethics in post-secondary teaching
Dawn Johnston: PhD (Communications Studies) University of Calgary
Food culture; gender and sexuality in popular culture; queer theory and activism; post-secondary pedagogical practices
Michael Keren: PhD (Political Science) University of Minnesota
Political communication; political literature; online life-writing; media and journalism
Cooper Langford: PhD (Chemistry) Northwestern University
Innovation studies and research policy; cluster studies; knowledge flow between academia and users; social dimensions of innovation systems
George Melnyk: MA (Philosophy) University of Toronto, MA (History) University of Chicago
Alberta literary history; Western Canadian identity; Canadian Peace Studies and Canadian film history, film genre, and the urban film
David Mitchell: PhD (Communication) McGill University
Communication theory, communications policy, social context of information and communications technology; broadband networks and community development
Aradhana Parmar: PhD (Political Science) Delhi University
Development studies with a focus on gender, South Asia, women and India; gender, race and ethnicity; immigrant women in Canada
Brian Rusted: PhD (Communication Studies) Northwestern University
Art and visual culture of the Canadian west; folk material culture and performance; ethnography and visual research methods
Barbara Schneider: PhD (Education) University of Calgary
Critical studies of health and illness; media representations of homelessness; participatory mental health research; discourse analysis
Lloyd Sciban: PhD (Philosophy) University of Toronto
Confucian ethics, influence of Chinese culture in Canada, and East Asian culture
Tania Smith: PhD (English) Ohio State University
Rhetoric (theory, practice, education, history); professional and organizational communication; digital and online communication; mentorship; collaboration; teaching and learning in higher education
Charles Tepperman: PhD (Film Studies) University of Chicago
History of motion pictures; motion picture technology and audiences; amateur media; fan cultures and new media; home movies; media archive and film preservation