General Information
Welcome...
to the Centre for the Study of Theory and Criticism, an established cross-disciplinary forum for research and advanced study in theory, and its problems and practices.
Research at the Centre focuses on the work of such movements as poststructuralism, semiotics, hermeneutics, phenomenology, the Frankfurt School, psychoanalysis, Marxism and feminism, as well as on areas such as continental philosophy that are part of the history of contemporary theory. More broadly, it is concerned with the questions raised by these movements, and with constructing a dialogue both between theory and its history and between the disciplines or discourses that have contributed to contemporary theory.
The Centre was created in 1986 in response to both the growing recognition of theory as an area with its own body of texts, and to the sense that departmental boundaries can limit intellectual efforts in areas where scholars from different disciplines find themselves dealing with similar issues. These include broad philosophical and methodological questions about art, culture, politics, and society not usually addressed except as an annex of disciplinary inquiry.
Housed between the Faculties of Arts and Humanities, Information & Media Studies, and Social Sciences, the Centre has come to be internationally recognized for its approach to “theory” as a distinct object of inquiry with its own intellectual genealogies and discursive history. This focus makes it unique in Canada and places it in the company of a very select group of North American and European centres of research and advanced study. Since the inception of its MA program in 1990, the Centre has been the preferred destination for students of excellent calibre from Canada and from abroad, and this tradition has continued at the doctoral level since the launching of the PhD program in 2002. Through its programs and the work of its accomplished Core Faculty, the Centre has successfully established itself as one of Western’s well recognized and celebrated research intensive graduate programs, one that has been successfully guided by the strength of cross-disciplinary collaboration.
