In the Department of Communication Arts, we believe that understanding and experiencing the many facets of performance and communication contribute to a rich and complete humanities education. All our programs integrate academic and practical work to produce the best education in our disciplines.
We currently offer three sets of degree programs and one minor: Communication Studies, Theatre and Performance, Communication Arts and Design Practice and Digital Arts Communication. Our faculty pursue distinct and overlapping areas of work encompassing teaching, research, and creative activity in digital arts communication, theatre theory and practice, and communication as the processes by which people create meaning in communities.
Our most recent addition is the Communication Arts and Design Practice degree. In the Department of Communication Arts, we are working towards futures defined by more just forms of relationality among humans, and between humans and our environments. This new program will communicate concepts that can change discourses and lead to differences in institutional and social or public behaviour. This academic plan is committed to rigorous theoretically-informed practice; project-based, interdisciplinary and collaborative pedagogy; and experiential learning. The central aim of this new program is to integrate critically informed creative design practices with theoretical analysis of multimodal forms of representation and public processes of meaning-making.
The Department of Communication Arts acknowledges that we are on the traditional territory of the Attawandaron (also known as the Neutral), Anishinaabeg, and Haudenosaunee peoples. The University of Waterloo is situated on the Haldimand Tract, the land promised to the Six Nations that includes ten kilometres on each side of the Grand River. Our active work toward reconciliation takes place across our campuses through research, learning, teaching, and community building, and is coordinated within the Office of the Indigenous Relations.
News
Portia's Julius Caesar - ON THIS WEEK
THIS WEEK ONLY!! The Theatre & Performance program is excited to share our production of Portia’s Julius Caesar. This play represents a radical adaption of William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar.
Bringing blackness and freedom to life
Dr. Naila Keleta-Mae’s Black And Free Project is engaging with the public, showcasing Ontario-based Black artists
By Claire Francis
In the Canadian academic landscape, scholar, artist, and professor, Dr. Naila Keleta-Mae (Communication Arts) is a visionary. Her Black And Free Project explores Black expressive culture through various mediums — and this year, Keleta-Mae’s work is going beyond academia and being brought to life for the public. A series of events, classes, and exhibits are planned which explore the themes inherent in her multi-year research-creation project on blackness and freedom.
Vershawn Young, back to the stage after 10 years
Vershawn Young is many things: a professor in the department of Communication Arts and English Language and Literature; the director of the new Black Studies program, a program in which he led in the development; a solo performance artist, translating all of his academic work into stage productions; and a writer of books and articles.
He is now participating in the leading role of Sir Robert Chiltern, in the production of An Ideal Husband by Oscar Wilde at Firehall Theatre.