Interdisciplinary Programs

Cultural Studies researchers investigate values, beliefs and belongings, cultural processes and cultural objects, economic and social relations, institutions and identities. Comprising 85 distinguished faculty from 21 disciplines to offer an innovative program at the MA and PhD levels that includes opportunities for cultural production and community-activist fieldwork, Cultural Studies at Queen's is committed to a diversity of students and faculty and to the global expertise that they bring to the cultural and academic fields.

Without its visual media, the modern world would be unimaginable. In undergraduate Film Studies, we approach many varied types of visual medias as means for understanding and participating fully in that world. The concentration includes historical inquires into the forces that have shaped the cinema and media; critical analysis of films and television and video productions; theories that explore the principles and functions of film; and the methods of making film and video. In most Film Studies courses, a film or video is used like a textbook in any other course, or like a specimen in a biology lab.

Global Development Studies offers students critical insights into development theory and practice. They explore contested meanings of ‘development’ and analyze the institutions that are integral to the apparatus of development at local and global levels. They provide students with the analytical perspectives needed to understand how inequality is produced and reproduced, how resources are distributed, and how hierarchical relationships are maintained and challenged over time. Our courses cover economic and political systems, cultural norms, physical environments, and status differences. The nature of interactions between and within the countries of the North and the South extend to issues such as poverty, cultural imperialism, human rights, social policy, and trade relations. Courses on Aboriginal communities in Canada further help students appreciate ‘development’ as a relationship rather than as a characteristic of particular places and people.

The Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures is a multidisciplinary unit that offers students the opportunity to learn languages, develop an understanding of literary and cultural traditions, and pursue studies in the field of Linguistics.  The Department offers language courses in Anishinaabemowin, Arabic, Chinese, German, Hebrew, Inuktitut, Italian, Japanese, Mohawk, Portuguese, and Spanish, and Degree Plans in German Studies; Indigenous Studies; Italian; Languages, Literatures and Cultures; Linguistics; Hispanic Studies; Spanish and Latin American Studies; and World Language Studies.