Current students

Much of the contemporary research on race in communication media studies begins with media representations. However, for this talk, Armond R. Towns will focus on the relationship between the modern research university, race, and the development of communication and media studies in the early and mid-twentieth century, with a focus specifically on US and Canadian communication and media studies. Like the modern university, the discipline of communication and media studies, Towns argues, has a difficulty with understanding non-Western life. This talk is a beginning conversation on how to push toward new forms of understanding humanity beyond Western life. The topic of who counts as human is crucial in a context where big tech aims to control the future of so-called humanity and the AI race closes the gap between human and machine communications.

This is a hybrid event and may be attended in-person or online.

The climate crisis calls for a massive and speedy transition away from fossil fuels towards energy systems based on renewable, clean sources like the sun, the wind and the tides. But to date, what we’re seeing is a move towards extractive, large-scale, corporate-owned for-profit models of green energy. These so-called solutions are replicating the social and environmental injustices perpetrated by the fossil fuel industry, including the rampant violation of Indigenous Rights and desecration of their lands and waters .

Upholding indigenous rights and fighting for a climate just future for all requires not just a change in energy sources, but a transformation in the very systems of power, governance, worldviews and values that have driven the climate crisis. In this talk Eriel Deranger and Jen Gobby will share their own visions for what this transformation can look like and open up a discussion about how these visions can inspire and ground the work of those in the tech and innovation world.

In 2002, Ghyslain Raza made a fun video of himself playing a Star Wars character. Later the video was posted on the internet without his consent.
It became the first viral video, with enormous consequences for Raza.
In 2022, Raza broke his silence to speak about his experience and reflect on its meaning today.
Join us in E5 6004 @ 7pm on Feb. 15 to watch this documentary as Raza revisits "The Star Wars Kid."

Free admittance!  Free popcorn!

You’re invited to Research Talks, a public event and panel discussion featuring guest speakers Kesha Bodawala - P & P Optica, Evan Jones - Stitch Media, and Sirisha Rambhatla and Will Zhao - University of Waterloo.

Join us to watch and discuss "Surviving progress" a stunning Canadian documentary about technology, growth and collapse!

December 1 @ 7pm in E5 6006. 

Free admittance!  Free popcorn!

(c) 2011 by the National Film Board of Canada.

Project Ploughshares is hosting a virtual workshop focused on Canada, the growing nuclear threat, and the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW).

There are nearly 13,000 nuclear weapons in existence today. Each presents an existential, yet preventable, risk. Now is the time for decisive Canadian action toward nuclear abolition.