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Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in Society and Culture

Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in Society and Culture

Research currents

Humanities PhD projects can be undertaken in any of the many areas of interdisciplinary expertise at Concordia, including the Research Currents listed below. Click on each one to find links to Concordia faculty members whose work has been influential in opening up and charting these fields. 

This list is illustrative, not exhaustive – there are many other potential avenues of interdisciplinary research for you to explore at Concordia, and we welcome your proposals!

Research currents

American Studies is an interdisciplinary field that encompasses not only the many cultures and migrations that have constituted the United States, but also the historical and ongoing relationship between the United States and the world. Faculty within American studies come from a range of fields within the humanities and social sciences and are concerned with questions that touch upon, but are not limited to, the natural and built environment; Indigeneity, migration and settler colonialism; racism and racial formation; gender, sexuality, and disability; labor, class, and capitalism; imperialism and foreign relations.

Concordia's contributions to American Studies date back to 1964, when a group of scholars met at Loyola College to lay the groundwork for the Canadian Association for American Studies. Today, faculty at Concordia work on a wide range of topics from the Colonial period to the present, including U.S. military deployments of cinema, diasporic relationships to settler colonialism, the rise of happiness as a normative cultural value in the 1950s, air pollution as a medium of racialization, transatlantic networks and diasporas, the Early American history of food science, incarceration and the surveillance state, and the role of American development experts in the Global South.

Sample list of faculty members

From the bacteria in our guts to the coyotes in our cities, humans are inescapably entangled with an abundance of diverse nonhumans. Animal studies and posthumanist thought are two rapidly expanding fields that proceed from this understanding of human-nonhuman entanglement. Together, both fields are influencing thought across a broad range of disciplines, directing attention to how humans relate to other-than-human animals, how the figure of the human is defined and by whom, and how human-nonhuman difference and the category of animality intersect with other forms of abstracted difference along lines of race, gender, sexuality, class and ability. Exploring these questions is an urgent part of tackling the current mass loss and extinction of animal life, and the ongoing—in many cases escalating—oppression of both human and nonhuman lives under neoliberal and neocolonial capitalism.

Situated within the humanities, social sciences, and fine arts at Concordia, animal studies and posthumanism draws together a variety of scholarly concerns that intersect with the broad field of animal studies and posthumanist thought.  We encourage research that demonstrates the connections between animal/posthuman-related scholarship and various fields – including feminist studies, queer theory, critical race studies, human geography, cultural studies, postcolonialism, Indigenous thought, and political economy – as well as artistic production. Faculty working in posthumanism and animal studies at Concordia focus in particular on representations of animals in literature and culture, the role of other-than-humans in urban life and sense of place, and the position of animals and animality in local/global politics and economies – historically and in the present.

Sample list of faculty members

Site of related interest

The Society, Politics, Animals & Materiality (SPAM) Centre

Arts in Health studies at Concordia draw from a variety of disciplines including the fine and performing arts, music therapy, drama therapy, art therapy, dance therapy, psychology, creative arts therapies, disability studies, education, health sciences, medicine, gender studies, sexualities studies, social gerontology, social work, and women’s studies. To study the creative arts therapies is to engage in a multidisciplinary endeavour, one that touches on questions central to current thought in a variety of disciplines and methods. For students wishing to conduct research at the PhD level on topics related to arts in health in general and the creative arts therapies in particular, Concordia’s interdisciplinary doctoral programs offer the possibility of devising a research program tailored to each individual student’s interests in consultation with two or three faculty members having expertise in the Arts in Health and related studies. Potential areas include, for example, health, creative practices, community, multiculturalism, violence/trauma, social justice and activism, gender, Guided Imagery and Music, and feminist therapy.

Sample list of faculty members

What is the position of Africa in the world? How do sociocultural, economic, and political processes interact to reproduce and transform African societies? How do these dynamics and the resultant transformations manifest themselves? African Studies recognizes that such changes play out at varied scales, ranging from small-scale social groups to transnational networks and regional institutions. We also share a commitment to in-depth field research that draws on multiple methods, including mining historical archives, ethnography, and interviews. The multi-dimensional approach to the transformations that we are studying and our methodological orientations are inherently interdisciplinary, stretching beyond the departmental homes of associated faculty and graduate students.

Sample list of participating faculty members

Concordia researchers have developed some unique takes on the consumer society. Research on consumption at Concordia explores the anthropological, economical, historical, psychological, and sociological aspects of desiring, acquiring, using and disposing of things as well as less corporeal practices such as consumers’ engagement with sensory, hedonic, aesthetic and symbolic experiences. The affiliated faculty utilize a wide array of methodologies including experimental design, ethnographic fieldwork, long interviews, historical methods and surveys. The resulting body of work has numerous theoretical implications for interdisciplinary research on consumption, as well as practical and policy applications ranging from retail environment and product design to government regulation.

Sample list of participating faculty members

Recently there has been a rapidly mounting interest in the notion of ‘curating’ as an artistic practice, as a cultural phenomenon, and as an academic discipline. Curating involves the presentation of information and ideas through assemblage, selection, and display or performance of “objects” in a range of media, including artifacts, art, images, sound, stories, media and texts. It also extends to discussion and debates. While the dictionary defines ’curator’ as “one who has the care and superintendence of something, especially a museum, zoo, or other place of exhibit,” the recent explosion of curatorial activity in ever-widening domains of practice make the role of the curator more visible and significant. Curatorial practice, and the analytical study of curating, habitually transcend and dissolve traditional disciplinary boundaries and intellectual fault lines; history, art, ethnology, science and multi-media design are often deployed side by side in a variety of formal and vernacular venues and exhibition spaces. The study of curatorial practice is therefore impossible without wide-ranging interdisciplinary studies in society and culture. At Concordia, scholars from a wide range of disciplines explore the role and significance of curatorial practice and theory for the production, dissemination and canonization of knowledge and ideas in the 21st century.

Sample list of participating faculty members

Site of related interest:

The Milieux Institute for Arts, Culture and Technology at Concordia University invites applications from MA, MFA and PhD students with interests in digital culture, media arts and design, creative computing, and/or technology and culture-related topics.

The Milieux Institute is home to over 130 graduate students and faculty, located on two floors of mixed-use lab and studio spaces in the heart of Montreal. Students accepted in any graduate program at Concordia are welcome to apply to one several research clusters

Prospective graduate students are invited to contact possible supervisory faculty well ahead of any deadlines to discuss your potential as a Milieux member as well as advice on a suitable program application.

For more information about graduate programs at Concordia, including submission deadlines, please visit our graduate programs page.

Milieux research clusters

Indigenous Futures explores how Indigenous people are imagining the future of their families and communities. We are interested in narratives, frameworks, and technologies that help us articulate a continuum between our histories, our present, and the seventh generation and beyond.

Media History is an interdisciplinary research center engaging with the historical development of media change and communication. We focus on nascent, yet robust sub-fields such as media archaeology, variantology, new materialism, circulation theory, and technology writing.

Participatory Media is a hub for research-creation work and co-design concerned with questions of social justice and accessibility. We are committed tinkerers and makers who develop prototypes, devices, workshops and outreach events that bring people together through participatory methods in media creation, discussion and dissemination.

Performing Arts Research Cluster (LePARC) is focused on research and creation in the performing and temporal arts. Our focus includes the creative process, new collaborative practices, sound and music, acting, participatory performance, and intermedia performance, among many others.

Post Image brings together artists and researchers involved in the creation, production, and reflection around current and future image-based media. Our members investigate the many aspects of visual representation around the themes of identity, narrative, history/memory, cultural production and environmental issues.

Speculative Life works to develop the systemic study and creation of emerging technologies with a focus on complexity and futurity. We are artists, designers, ethnographers and scholars engaging with questions related to infrastructure, “smartness,” bacterial technologies, and the planetary-scale transformations currently occurring as a result of human action and technical developments.

Technoculture, Art and Games (TAG) research centre has the mandate to develop and expand methods, models and concepts for the analysis, critique and creation of digital games, gameplay and game cultures, as well as to contribute to broader social, political, technical and aesthetic conversations about the shape and direction of contemporary digital culture.

Textiles and Materiality is a place for critical innovation and research creation in textile arts, wearables and material culture. Our members experiment with methods, processes and transdisciplinary modes of thinking to shape the future of textiles, material objects and the mediated body.

Follow Milieux on social media

From global climate change and mass extinctions to the pesticides and microplastics in our bodies, the changing environment has become the vital concern of our times. While environmental issues are often viewed as problems for environmental scientists and policy experts, these fields are entangled with the historically and culturally varied ways in which humans have represented, interacted with, and produced the “natural” world. The Environmental Humanities draws on a range of disciplines—including environmental history, ecocriticism, ecomedia, science and technology studies, cultural geography, gender studies, race studies, and Indigenous studies—in the effort to understand how contested histories and representations of the environment shape our perceptions of energy extraction, climate change, food systems, environmental injustice, and the web of life.

At Concordia, Environmental Humanities research comprises a range of interdisciplinary topics, including postcolonial ecologies to Early American perspectives on climate change, African conceptions of animality, the philosophical problems posed by nuclear waste, the role of smell in environmental justice narratives, late nineteenth-century constructions of "nature" in the tropics, and sustainable urban landscape design. For potential PhD students, Concordia’s interdisciplinary doctoral programs offer the possibility of devising a research program that spans the humanities and other modes of knowledge production, such as biology, climate science, anthropology, Indigenous studies, and research creation.

Sample list of participating faculty members

Concordia University has a tradition of research and inquiry on matters related to Indigenous peoples. As befits the inherently interdisciplinary nature of First Peoples Studies, Concordia researchers working in this area come from a variety of disciplines and blend different methodologies and theoretical frameworks both to reveal the richness and complexity of Indigenous peoples’ ways, and to develop new analytical and interpretive perspectives inspired by them as well as engaging with Indigenous research methodologies and decolonization of knowledge. The creation of a First Peoples Studies research current at the graduate level complements the undergraduate program in First Peoples Studies housed in the School of Community and Public Affairs. Concordia University is also a member and partner institution of DIALOG – Aboriginal People Research and Knowledge Network. Financially supported by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council and the Fonds de recherche du Québec - société et culture, this network offers Concordia faculty and students numerous opportunities for research, research development and interaction with other researchers interested in First Peoples Studies in Quebec, Canada and internationally.

Sample list of participating faculty members

The study of food and foodways has emerged as a vital topic of interdisciplinary research. Beginning a few years back with the creation of the Food Studies Research Group, Concordia faculty have been meeting regularly to exchange ideas on a wide range of food-related subjects, including:

  • food’s role in the construction of identity, and national, religious, and geographic affiliation, as demonstrated through case studies, historical data, folklore, literature, popular culture, etc.
  • investigation of various stimuli, for example notions of comfort or of culinary supremacy, that create and characterize the eating (and drinking) experience, and also of the means through which such stimuli are valorized and promoted in a given place and time
  • food-related visual and material culture—recipes and cookbooks; appliances and kitchen tools; furniture and eating implements—as major elements of consumer practices
  • the architecture and design of the home, of restaurants, and of kitchens specifically, as interactive spaces that themselves both reflect and contribute to eating habits both positive and problematic
  • food, health and sustainability in terms of agriculture and production, including a consideration of organic versus factory-farming practices, the concept of terroir, buying local, fair-trade ingredients, adhering to Slow Food ideals, and other aspects of responsible eating.

Sample list of participating faculty members

The recently established Fonds Quebecois de Recherche en Société et Culture (FQRSC) Research Chair in Gambling is based in the Lifestyle and Addiction Research Lab. It is held by Sylvia Kairouz of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology. The Chair aims to generate a multi-dimensional and multi-level framework for gambling research, integrating individual, contextual and socio-cultural elements in sustaining prevention. Research into the effectiveness of diverse actions to prevent gambling addiction will be carried out in conjunction with key stakeholders at the provincial, federal and international level. Central to the Chair’s mission is developing a highly qualified next generation of researchers. Substantial resources for recruitment and training are reserved for this purpose in the Chair’s budget. Students interested in becoming players in this very dynamic new area of social scientific research should contact the Chair.

Sample list of participating faculty members

Site of related interest

Drawing on the expertise and resources of the Concordia research centre in Technoculture, Art and Games as well as numerous other departments across campus Game Studies and Design is a SIP current focused on the emergent interdisciplinary fields of game studies and game design. The home “base” for students working in this area is TAG, a collaborative-project based research centre with strong links to the Montreal game design community as well as Canadian and International digital culture and game studies research networks.

Sample list of participating faculty members

Site of related interest

Engineers and information scientists shape and are shaped by the social world in which they practice, and that world is becoming smaller and more interconnected. This observation opens a variety of research questions in the newly emerging field of global engineering. Global engineering research is focused in many areas, among them the following:

  • Global competency: Communication skills; cross-cultural communication; management
  • Social impacts of global technology: Equity; effects of technology on social, political, and cultural practices; research agenda; ethics and practices of technological development aid
  • Globalization of technology: Function of multinational and international firms, international business and engineering codes, legislation, and regulation

The SIP Global Engineering current invites students to explore questions bearing on the relationship between society and technology, economics and engineering.

Sample list of participating faculty members

The health humanities is an interdisciplinary field that entangles the arts, humanities, and social sciences with broad approaches to critical health research. Acknowledging the emotional, political, and relational aspects of illness, and care, health humanities researchers use theoretical discourse and research-creation methodologies to imaginatively interrogate the diverse dimensions of illness, disability, health and well-being. To this end, we also value the formation of non-hierarchical collaborations between health humanities researchers, health professionals, and community partners to boldly question issues of representation and knowledge structures within healthcare. The criticality of care encompasses allied fields such as critical disability studies, gender studies, queer studies, critical race theory, indigenous studies, sensory studies, food studies, health sciences, medicine, creative arts therapies, anthropology, philosophy, education, fine art, digital humanities and more. In solidarity, the health humanities aims to creatively articulate the meanings of medicine and methods of well-being.

Participating faculty

Iranian Studies at Concordia are interdisciplinary, drawing on faculty expertise and student interests in the fields of religion, history, literature, linguistics, sociology, anthropology, women’s studies, art and architecture. The wide scope of Iran-related research and teaching at Concordia reflects the extraordinarily broad impact of Iranian civilization on the world’s diverse cultures, from the Balkans to China and India, over a span of some three thousand years.

For students wishing to conduct research at the MA or PhD levels on Iran-related topics beyond the scope of existing departmental concentrations (such as Religion, or Film Studies), SIP offers the possibility to devise a program tailored to the student’s individual interests in consultation with faculty having exertise on Iran. Faculty strengths include Iran’s cultural history, including literature, art, and mythology, as well as contemporary Iranian society. In addition, Concordia is the only university in Canada to offer instruction in pre-Islamic Iranian languages such as Avestan, Pahlavi, Bactrian and Sogdian.

Core faculty

  • Dr. Lynda Clarke (Religion)
    Persian Language and Literature, Shi‘ism, Sufism, Islamic Law, Women’s Studies.
  • Dr. Richard Foltz (Religion)
    History of Religions, Iranian History, Persian Language and Literature, Iranian Art and Architecture.
  • Dr. Mark Hale (Classics, Modern Languages, and Linguistics)
    Old Iranian Languages, Comparative Indo-European Linguistics.
  • Dr. Homa Hoodfar (Sociology and Anthropology)
    Contemporary Iranian Society, Women’s Studies.

Ireland’s rich culture and its complex history of two evolving linguistic, religious and social traditions offer opportunities to engage in a genuinely interdisciplinary study of a broad spectrum of topics. In studying Ireland’s literature, politics, ethnomusicology, dance, language, film, theatre, landscape, folklore, economics, women’s studies, religion, material culture and the visual arts, students will inevitably encounter a spectrum of larger issues. These include: colonialism and empire; nationalism and post-colonialism; cultural nationalism and linguistic preservation; rebellion, partition and political devolution; famine, emigration and exile; diasporic settlement and integration; mass trauma, cultural memory and public commemoration; sectarianism, conflict resolution and the politics of peace and reconciliation; the role of place, landscape and memory in identity formation; shifts in national and religious affiliations; and the transformation of regional economies within transnational political structures and the forces of globalization.

To study Ireland, therefore, is not only to learn about a unique culture and a complicated history but, through a multidisciplinary framework, to become familiar with intellectual issues, academic debates, critical methodologies and research findings that can be relevant to, and instructive for, other national and immigrant groups.

The participating faculty members include:

Site of related interest:

Law affects all aspects of our lives. It structures our social, economic and political relationships, it allocates and protects property entitlements, it defines and punishes crime and deviance, and it frames controversial ethical, moral and political debates. Research into "law and society" involves interdisciplinary inquiries into law not as a set of rules, but rather as a panoply of discursive practices which are both structured by and contribute to the structuring of the social context. Concordia researchers in various disciplines in the humanities and social sciences have opened up exciting new vistas in socio-legal studies, exploring such topics as front-line justice, cross-cultural jurispridence, the judicialization of politics, alternative perspectives on human rights,international immigration, and the evolution of environmental law.

Sample list of participating faculty members

Site of related interest

In recent years, the study of religion has undergone an important shift, as a growing number of scholars foreground the role of diverse forms of media, technology, material culture, embodiment, and the senses in research on religious experiences, practices, affiliations, and forms of public-making. Such research has generated new bases for studying key dimensions of religious life -- such as ritual practice, communal identity, knowledge formation, or ecstatic experience -- in local settings, both historically and today. This 'material turn' in the study of religion has also facilitated the re-evaluation of a range of phenomena not always classified as religious but that merit comparison, from magic and occultism to politics, theatre, art, science, consumer culture and popular entertainment.

Sample list of participating faculty members

Concordia University has emerged as a global leader in oral history and community-engaged research-creation, learning with communities and not simply about them. Faculty members in this research stream are committed to participatory approaches to personal and place-based storytelling and pedagogy, exploring the points of connection between oral history, performance, digital media, public memory, architecture and the built environment, community art education, life writing, and other approaches. As performance studies theorist Della Pollock has written, the interdisciplinary field of oral history is the process of "making history in dialogue": it is "co-creative, co-embodied, specially framed, contextually and intersubjectively contingent, sensuous, vital, artful."

Sample list of participating faculty members

Site of related interest

Performance Studies takes performance as an organizing concept for the study of a wide range of behavior both on stage and off, with a focus on embodied cultural practices and live events. Founded at the crossroads of 20th Century interdisciplinary and intercultural creation in the performing arts, and the “performative turn” in cultural, aesthetic, and political theory, Performance Studies draws on theories of embodiment, event, and agency much the way Cultural Studies emphasizes literature, media, and the concept of “text” in its analysis of a broad range of phenomena. A lens through which to view any social, cultural, political, or aesthetic process – from local, vernacular phenomena of everyday life to collective representations and formations of identity – performance has become a useful tool for Anthropology, Folklore, Sociology, Linguistics, Communications, Media Arts, and even Law, as well as in the more familiar fields of Theatre, Dance, or Music Studies. In more recent performance scholarship, the line between human and non-human performer has been decisively blurred, and Performance Studies has investigated the performing object, installation arts, immersive entertainments, and techniques of museum and exhibition display. The breadth and diversity of Performance Studies scholarship encourages crossover between the arts, humanities, and social sciences – between research and creation – even as it questions boundaries between subjects and objects of study, as well as the foundation and development of the academic disciplines themselves.

Sample list of participating faculty members

Perspectives on Dance encompasses practical and reflexive approaches to choreography, creative process, movement training, dramaturgy, performance, research and scholarship that are particular to dance. Objects of study and exploration related to dance include movement based arts, forms of embodiment, aspects of production, digital media and technology, dance traditions, dance histories and theory, philosophy, anthropology and sociology of dance and dance ethnography. Perspectives on Dance at Concordia encourages cross – and interdisciplinarity focusing on, but not limited to Contemporary Dance, performing  arts and studio arts, art history, art education, Communications and Media Studies, Film Studies and Film Production, the humanities and social sciences.

Participating faculty members

Risk seems to be omnipresent in contemporary everyday life. From the moment we wake up to the moment we go to sleep (and even when we are asleep!) we may be engaged in some form of risk-taking or risk-management. What to wear, what to eat, who to befriend, what to watch on-line, how much to wager on that game, how fast to drive, how long to put off that assignment, how to feel, how much to drink at the pub—in all of these decisions we may make more or less conscious calculations about the kinds of risk we will take, and their consequences for us down the line. Sometimes we may be oblivious to the apparent risks we face in our daily lives. We may not think twice before jumping on our bikes without wearing a helmet, or basking in the sun without a hat. Equally, we may develop an inflated sense of the risks that surround us—we may be anxious about flying for example, when statistical data tell us that it is much less risky than driving.

Risks also abound beyond our individual orbits. Organizations expend considerable energy to try to know and off-set risks. National governments, for example, attempt to risk-manage the economy by tweaking macro-economic levers. Cities zone areas according to whether they might be at risk of flooding, or fire, or other calamities. Some companies downplay risks associated with their products (think of tobacco companies, for instance). Others have a vested interest in amplifying the collective worry over this or that risk (think of media companies vying for audience attention, and insurance companies seeking to insure us against increasing numbers of uncertainties).

Starting with the formation of  the CISSC Risk Research Working Group in 2015, scholars from across the disciplines of anthropology, applied human sciences, geography and sociology, as well as the fine arts, have turned their attention on studying and theorizing risk, and transformed it into one of the most dynamic areas of cross-disciplinary inquiry at Concordia.

Sample list of participating faculty members

Site of related interest

The study of the senses and perception has traditionally been the preserve of psychologists. In recent years, scholars of other disciplines have “come to their senses,” and converged on the sensorium as an object of study. Concordia is at the forefront of this shift, which has resulted in the emergence of such subfields as the sociology, anthropology, and philosophy of the senses. Sensory studies is the name commonly ascribed to this emergent domain of inquiry. 
Concordia researchers in the humanities and social sciences ask such questions as: Do men’s and women’s senses differ? How might the number and order of the senses vary across cultures? Why the “race to embrace the senses” in contemporary marketing? How can the philosophy of mind be enriched through taking the moving, sensing body as its point of departure? 
Concordia is also at the leading edge of much research in the development and application of new sensing technologies. From the design of sentient buildings and clothing to the incorporation of sensors and elaborate computerized programs into “live” performances, Concordians are constantly expanding the bounds of sense.

Sample list of participating faculty members

Site of related interest

Sexuality studies at Concordia draw from a variety of disciplines including psychology, political science, history, communications, literary studies, sociology and anthropology, film studies, art history, health sciences, medicine, social work and women’s studies. Sexuality has been shown to have intimate links with questions of epistemology (Sedgwick), political and social regulation (Foucault), culture, technology and representation (de Lauretis), creative process (Bataille), and the very sources of the psyche (Freud). To study sexuality, therefore, is to engage in a multidisciplinary enterprise, one that touches on questions central to twentieth- and twenty-first-century thought in a variety of disciplines and methods. For students wishing to conduct research at the MA or PhD level on topics related to sexualities, the Special Individualized Programs and/or Humanities Doctoral Programs offer the possibility of devising a research program tailored to each individual student’s interests in consultation with two or three faculty members having expertise in sexuality studies. Potential areas include, for example, health, the body, work, sexual diversity, and sex and artistic and cultural production.

Core faculty

Social justice has to do with the distribution of wealth, power, opportunities, and privileges within a society as well as across societies. It is closely connected to economic and socio-political issues such as distributive justice, poverty, income and wealth inequalities, political participation and representation, social marginalization, as well as discrimination faced by people because of their gender, ethnicity, citizenship, religion, disability, age or sexual orientation. Because of its complex nature, understanding the 'What?', 'Why?' and 'How?' of social justice requires a multidisciplinary perspective. At Concordia, the Social Justice Centre is a hub of researchers from a variety of academic disciplines addressing these questions and looking for paths forward.

Sample list of participating faculty members

Sites of related interest

Social justice has to do with the distribution of wealth, power, opportunities, and privileges within a society as well as across societies. It is closely connected to economic and socio-political issues such as distributive justice, poverty, income and wealth inequalities, political participation and representation, social marginalization, as well as discrimination faced by people because of their gender, ethnicity, citizenship, religion, disability, age or sexual orientation. Because of its complex nature, understanding the 'What?', 'Why?' and 'How?' of social justice requires a multidisciplinary perspective. At Concordia, the Social Justice Centre is a hub of researchers from a variety of academic disciplines addressing these questions and looking for paths forward.

Sample list of participating faculty members

Sites of related interest

How would the world be different if we started from the position of “the Other” rather than from Self? What could be created and built if we started from a place of difference and diversity, rather than our commonalities? What would happen if we talked more about our aspirations, hopes and dreams instead of our problems or deficits? Participatory action researchers engage communities and organizations in positive generative dialogues to craft real solutions to real problems, and at the same time contribute to new social scientific knowledge, social well-being, and social justice. The Centre for Human Relations and Community Studies is a university hub for such interdisciplinary yand transdisciplinary issue-driven community-engaged scholarship.

Sample list of participating faculty members

Sites of related interest

In the course of the last thirty years, a number of scholars in cinema and media studies, as well as in the humanities and social sciences at large, have challenged the centrality given to “the visual” in our social and cultural lives by pointing out that sound plays an equally important role in our experience and understanding of the world. The choice of multidisciplinary approaches is required by the parameters of this domain of inquiry, as the object of study is never sound alone, but rather the relationships that hold or emerge between sound and the visual medium with which it comes into interaction.

Sample list of participating faculty members

At Concordia University, sustainability is more than just “the capacity to endure.” Sustainability is the study of dynamic social and ecological systems, focused on the intersection of social, economic, and environmental needs, and striving for the integration of science, policy and values. It is a solutions-oriented response to the most pressing global issues of the 21st century, including: climate change, biodiversity, environmental degradation, and community development. This field crosses many areas of study, requiring broad knowledge of biology, environmental management, business, organizational change, green technology, ecological design, public policy, community development, sociology and ethics among others.

The SIP Sustainability and Environmental Studies Research Current cultivates a holistic, integrated perspective while allowing students to focus on the specialized disciplinary knowledge of their choosing. Concordia is home to experts across the faculties engaged in research that advances the field of sustainability, and the university has established a reputation on the ground as an active leader of campus sustainability management.

Participating faculty members

Sites of related interest

In a post-9/11 world, violence in our relationships, institutions, communities and collective memory has drawn new attention. Scholarship,accordingly, is attempting to find order in the chaos emerging from many global horrors. The Concordia researchers who participate in this current examine the impact of violence on individuals, communities, organizations, and societies. Research in this field promises to increase our understanding of: trauma, resilience and reconciliation at an individual and systemic level; individual and community capacity and social capital to process, memorialize, seek justice, and heal; the resources and supports that enhance the capacity of individuals and communities to create or restore a livable balance after violence; explore provocative public memory-work, community interventions, and arts-based methods of healing.

Sample list of participating faculty members

The study of human settlements has long been a preoccupation of researchers, policy-makers, and activists. Under what circumstances do people organize themselves in permanent locations? How does this organization typically take place? How does life in such settlements differ from life outside them? These very general questions have given rise to much more specific ones under current circumstances. Which of these living arrangements are most sustainable? What are the governance challenges emerging within them? or How are settlements interdependent – at regional, national, or international levels? The internal dynamics of urban places are increasingly the focus of researchers, grappling with economic and demographic changes, globalization and new technologies. The Urban/Rural Research Current provides a framework for examining all of these types of questions. By virtue of its focus this Current integrates work from a large number of disciplines and research areas, including sociology, anthropology, urban studies and planning, economics, political science, history, environment, and communication studies.

Sample list of participating faculty members

Site of related interest

Women’s Studies at Concordia are interdisciplinary, drawing on faculty expertise in fields such as history, anthropology, sociology, community and public affairs, education, political science, and communications. The wide scope of this research reflects the broad impact of feminism and the increasing attention paid to questions of social justice, which are at the core of women’s studies. Women’s studies are underpinned by an understanding that social inequality is produced through interlocking systems of oppression and that the State, nationalism and imperialism are central in producing and sustaining asymmetrical power relations, such as those between men and women or those between people in the global north and those in the global south. Women’s studies, therefore, extends beyond the study of “the condition of women” to provide theoretical and methodological tools to better conceptualize a wide array of social issues as well as to fight for progressive change. The research strengths of Concordia’s faculty cover such topics as reproduction, sexuality, violence, health, work, poverty, militarism, media and cultural productions, politics, community organizing, development and globalization.

Core faculty

Youth are important actors in our society. Research on “youth in society” involves interdisciplinary inquiries into how youth are being shaped by their environment, and in turn shape society. Concordia researchers in various disciplines have developed keyl approaches to studying the diversity of youth experiences, the challenges and opportunities in transitioning from childhood to adulthood, and the various mediums used by youth to define and contribute to social change such as popular theatre, environmental action, and community development.

List of participating faculty members

 
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