Please note that room locations and schedules are subject to change and all details should be confirmed before the start of the class.
Fall 2025
COMS 616 (CRN 2477)
Staff-Student Colloquium 1 (3 credits)
Prof. Alex Blue
Tuesdays, 2:35pm-5:25pm, Arts W-220
This seminar is only open to incoming MA and PhD students in communication studies. Its format varies from week to week, ranging from workshops on writing grant applications, to lectures by faculty members, to visits to libraries and archival resources on and off campus.
COMS 630 (CRN 2026)
Readings in Communications Research 1 (3 credits)
Reading programs supervised by a member of staff; topics will be chosen to suit individual interests.
Note: Instructor's approval required.
COMS 639 (CRN 2479)
Interpretive Methods in Media: "Research for Social Transformation" (3 credits)
Prof Carrie A. Rentschler (She/Her)
Wednedays 2:35-5:25 Arts W-220
This is a course in how to think about and practice interpretive methods and critical inquiry in media studies, science and technology studies, and cultural studies for the purposes of social change. COMS 639 aims to demystify the processes that shape critical inquiry: from how we transform scholarly intuition and gut feeling into inventive research questions that, with the help of theory, we build into concrete objects of study and purposeful interpretations and analysis of them. It aims to help students build their imaginations of, and capacities for, what research can be, and what they want it to be. It centers questions of what makes for interesting research, and research that matters (to you, and to other people). Readings draw from Cultural Studies, gender and sexuality studies, STS, media studies, affect theory, Black studies and indigenous studies. Our texts engage with concepts and research practice that center relationality, collectivity and transformation in the context of study, including oppositional research from Black Studies and social movement studies, “articulation” and “the conjunctural” in Cultural Studies, and affect and the “felt” as key sources of queer and feminist inquiry, among several others. The seminar works against default, ready-made objects of study and forms of analysis in our field(s), turning to key theories and texts on methods and methodologies that model inter-disciplinary inquiry, the significance of empirical, interpretive research (note: all research is interpretive), and the practice of scholarly experimentation. Come to the seminar with an open mind, a willingness to try things out (even if they don’t work in the end), a desire to explore new ways of thinking and doing things, and a deep curiosity about what research on culture, media and technology can be.
COMS 646/EAST 560 (CRN 2480)
Popular Media (3 credits)
Prof. Yuriko Furuhata
Thursdays, 2:35 pm-5:25 pm, Arts W-220
This course explores the modern and contemporary screen environments and media technologies, analyzing media forms such as photography, cinema, television, digital media, and architecture through historical and theoretical frameworks. Emphasis will be placed on comparative approaches to media practices in Asia and beyond.
This seminar is cross-listed with EAST 560 Screen Cultures and Media Arts.
Winter 2026
COMS 500 (CRN 6854)
Special Topics in Communications Studies 1 (3 credits)
Prof. TBA
Mondays, 11:35AM-2:25PM
COMS 647 (CRN 1901)
Emerging Media (3 credits)
Remix and Algorithmics Cultures
Prof. Sara Grimes
Mondays, 2:35PM-5:25PM
This course explores remix and algorithmic cultures and the complex relationship between these two areas of practice and inquiry. Topics include: the histories, theories, and methodologies used to understand remix and algorithmic cultures as genres, as analytic frameworks, as forms of creative and/or cultural practice, and as technosocial systems of production and (re)distribution that challenge traditional ideas about art, creativity, copyright, and cultural rights. Examples include: Hip Hop, Queer fandoms, social media feeds/recommenders, DeviantArt and DreamUp, Roblox AI Assistant.
COMS 683 (CRN 1902)
Special Topics in Media and Politics (3 credits)
Infrastructure
Prof. Darin Barney
Fridays, 11:35AM-2:25PM, Arts W-220
Among the conditions of possibility for communication are the availabilities and affordances of infrastructure. This seminar will investigate the recent (re)turn of attention to infrastructure in the field of communication and media studies, in the context of similar turns in related fields of anthropology, geography, sociology, architecture and environmental studies. What counts as infrastructure, and what are the limits of this category? How is power materialized, mediated and contested as, by and through infrastructure? What role does infrastructure play in the configuration of urban, rural, local, national, colonial and imperial materialities, economies and geographies? Drawing on work on infrastructure in communication studies and beyond, this seminar will explore theoretical and empirical studies of the social, political and environmental dimensions of infrastructure across the terrains of media, resource extraction, energy, storage, disposal, transportation, labour and logistics.
For a preview of the themes of this seminar, see the interview with Professor Barney here.