The salient features of modernity — subjectivity, urbanization, migration, new technologies, war — remain pressing issues in today’s world. Covering literatures from the seventeenth to the twenty-first centuries, Ryerson’s new MA program explores the rich variety of literary forms and theories surrounding and shaping different understandings of modernity. Known for its innovative approaches and its cutting-edge scholarship, the Department of English offers a graduate program leading to a Master of Arts (MA) degree in Literatures of Modernity. Unique in Canada, the program begins in 2008.  Students interested in writing a Major Research Paper on Modernism, the avant-garde, the city, gender and sexuality, or women’s literature should contact Dr. Irene Gammel.

Read the program brochure.

 Winter 2009 course: Unreal Cities: Reading the Metropolis.

 
The metropolis has been central to the experience of modernity for millennia. Topics include the personalities of cities, the literary representation of architecture and space, cosmopolitan imagination, the gender of city, nostalgia, the divided city, the racialized and gendered city. Unreal Cities: Reading the Metropolis may adopt an historical focus, examining the city as a space of modernity from the Bible, through the Iliad and the Aeneid, to The Wasteland; or it may focus on the literature of a particular city such as London, New York, or Paris; or it may focus on the city within a specific literary movement such as Romanticism, Realism, or Modernism.

Communication and Culture

The Communication and Culture MA and PhD Programme brings together perspectives from the social sciences, humanities and fine arts, and communication- and media-related professions.  It aims to encourage innovative thinking, research, and practice. The curriculum reflects the view that advanced work in this field requires not only a thorough grounding in theory and method but also a grasp of the practices, processes, and technologies in contemporary communication and cultural production. Within the Media and Culture stream, students interested in pursuing graduate studies in Modernism, the avant-garde, life writing, or women’s literature should contact Dr. Irene Gammel.

  Fall 2008 Course:  Modernist Literary Salons