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
Renowned Director and Actor Tanja Jacobs to Direct Fall 2022 Production
The Theatre and Performance program is excited to announce that Award-winning Canadian director and actor, Tanja Jacobs is directing the Fall Production,
EVERYBODY by Black American playwright, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins.
EVERYBODY is a fourth wall defying contemporary adaptation of the 15th-century morality play, EVERYMAN. Jacobs-Jenkins’ secular take on the idea of morality and the journey to one’s demise is brilliantly written as a comedic adventure to the afterlife, where the protagonist, EVERYBODY, must answer to DEATH and bring a presentation of their life to GOD. EVERYBODY, terrified of completing this endeavour alone, seeks out the help of various figures in their life to accompany them into the unknown potential afterlife.
Prof. Gerald Voorhees Wins SSHRC Connections Grant
Gerald Voorhees is the principle applicant on a successful SSHRC Connections Grant, “ADE for Games Communities: Enculturing anti-racism, decolonization, equity, diversity, and inclusion (ADE) in games research and creation” that has been awarded $47,300. The grant will fund a year-long knowledge mobilization initiative in collaboration with the Games Institute at the University of Waterloo that consists of a series of 8 speakers and 8 workshophanas (including in-person and online events) taking place over the course of the 2023 academic year.
Liza Balkan to direct Winter production
The Theatre and Performance program is excited to announce that Ontario-based multi- disciplinary theatre artist, Liza Balkan, is the director of our winter production of Mustard by