Theses

Since the inception of its MA program in 1990, and the PhD program in 2002, more than two hundred graduate students have successfully completed the programme in Theory and Criticism. A listing of all graduates and their MA thesis and PhD dissertation titles can be found below. Theses submitted electronically are available through .

2020 to present 

2024

  • Yiling Hu, , Master of Arts. 
  • Spencer Kett, , Master of Arts.
  • Mina Rosefield, , Doctor of Philosophy.
  • Vinay Sharma, , Master of Arts. 
  • Jacob Vangeest, , Doctor of Philosophy.

     

2023

  • M. Curtis Allen, , Doctor of Philosophy.
  • Michael A. Bodkin, , Doctor of Philosophy.
  • Shubhayan Chakrabarti, , Doctor of Philosophy.
  • Mitch de Lange, , Master of Arts.
  • Thomas A. Doerksen, , Doctor of Philosophy.
  • Shakil Malik, , Master of Arts.
  • Anda Pleniceanu, , Doctor of Philosophy.
  • Suarjan Prasai, , Master of Arts.
  • Ryan K. Shea, , Master of Arts.
  • Jeremy R. Smith, , Doctor of Philosophy.
  • Sean Sokolov, , Master of Arts.
  • Heather Twele, , Master of Arts.

     

2022

  • Jeremy Arnott, , Doctor of Philosophy.
  • Christina Elle Burke, , Doctor of Philosophy.
  • Lucas Dvorsky, , Master of Arts.
  • Can Guven, , Doctor of Philosophy.
  • Jennifer Komorowski, , Doctor of Philosophy.
  • Anna Mirzayan, , Doctor of Philosophy.
  • Megan Sherritt, , Doctor of Philosophy.
  • Anna E. Stoutenburg, , Master of Arts.
  • Dylan T. Vaughan, , Doctor of Philosophy.
  • Nicholas Wees, , Doctor of Philosophy.
  • Andrew Woods, , Doctor of Philosophy

2021

  • Robert Halperin, , Master of Arts.
  • Monika Mandoki, , Doctor of Philosophy.
  • Alexander McIntosh, , Master of Arts.
  • Emily Monaghan, , Master of Arts.
  • Liam Morantz, , Master of Arts.
  • Alexander Morgan, , Master of Arts.
  • Kayleigh Shield, , Master of Arts.

2020

  • Deanna Aubert, , Master of Arts.
  • Nicholas A. J. Birmingham, , Master of Arts.
  • Kathryn Carney, , Master of Arts.
  • Austin Chisholm, , Master of Arts.
  • Jessica N. Ellis, , Master of Arts.
  • Matthew Halse, , Doctor of Philosophy.
  • Camilo Hoyos, , Master of Arts.
  • Alexandra M. Hudecki, , Master of Arts.
  • Dylan J. Hughes, , Master of Arts.
  • Won Jeon, , Master of Arts.
  • Michelle Liu, , Master of Arts.
  • Taylor McGoey, , Master of Arts.
  • Justas Patkauskas, , Doctor of Philosophy.
  • Matthew Prokopiw, , Doctor of Philosophy.
  • Ryan Shuvera, , Doctor of Philosophy. 
  • Natalie Treviño, , Doctor of Philosophy.
  • Jacob Vangeest, , Master of Arts.
  • Elden Yungblut, , Master of Arts.

2015 to 2019

2019

  • Colby Chubbs,, Master of Arts.
  • Eva Cupchik, , Doctor of Philosophy.
  • Jonathan Doering, , Doctor of Philosophy.
  • Dillon Douglas, , Master of Arts.
  • Dru Farro, , Doctor of Philosophy.
  • Maryam Golafshani, , Master of Arts.
  • Alexander Harasymiw, , Master of Arts.
  • Maxwell Hyett, , Master of Arts.
  • Shannon Lodoen, , Master of Arts.
  • Adam Mohamed, , Master of Arts.
  • Wil Patrick: , Master of Arts.
  • Anca Radu, , Master of Arts.
  • Elizabeth Song, , Master of Arts.
  • Nicholas D. Tostowaryk, , Master of Arts.

2018

  • Andrew Case, , Master of Arts.
  • Vladimir Cristache, , Doctor of Philosophy.
  • Richard Dew, , Master of Arts.
  • David Guignion, , Master of Arts.
  • Domenic Hutchins, , Master of Arts.
  • Joseph Leivdal, , Master of Arts.
  • Joshua Livingstone, , Master of Arts.
  • Jonathan Nash, , Master of Arts.
  • Tyler Nash, , Master of Arts.
  • Jacob Norris, , Master of Arts.
  • Averil Novak, , Doctor of Philosophy.
  • John Nyman, , Doctor of Philosophy.
  • Adam Rejak, , Doctor of Philosophy.
  • Alexander Walker, , Master of Arts.

2017

  • Anthony C. Coughlin, , Master of Arts.
  • Lee Fraser, , Master of Arts.
  • Marshall Hill, , Master of Arts. 
  • Jennifer Komorowski, , Master of Arts.
  • Kathryn M. Lawson, , Master of Arts. 
  • Lawrence Liang, , Master of Arts.
  • Dolleen Manning, , Doctor of Philosophy. 
  • Evan Pebesma, , Master of Arts. 
  • Jeffrey M. Ray, , Master of Arts.
  • Thomas M. Szwedska, , Master of Arts.

2016

  • Jeremy Arnott, , Master of Arts.
  • Derek Barnett, , Doctor of Philosophy.
  • Rachel Bath, , Master of Arts.
  • Rebecca Bernstein, , Master of Arts.
  • Kathryn Grant, , Master of Arts.
  • Michael Hajik, , Master of Arts.
  • Mary McLevey, , Master of Arts.

2015

  • Andrew Evans, , Master of Arts.
  • Eric Guzzi, , Master of Arts.
  • Vincent Marzano-Poitras, , Master of Arts.
  • Svitlana Matviyenko, , Doctor of Philosophy.
  • Daniel McFadden, , Master of Arts.
  • David Miller, , Master of Arts.
  • Matthew Prokopiw, , Master of Arts.
  • Mazen Saleh, , Master of Arts.
  • Trevor Smith, , Doctor of Philosophy.
  • Dylan Vaughan, , Master of Arts.
  • Sarah Warren, , Master of Arts.
  • Andrew Weiss, , Master of Arts.
  • Benjamin Woodard, , Doctor of Philosophy.
  • Sheena L. Yates, , Doctor of Philosophy.

2010 to 2014

2014

  • M. Curtis Allen, , Master of Arts.
  • Christopher M. Bomba, , Master of Arts.
  • Grant Dempsey, , Master of Arts.
  • Jonathan R. Fardy, , Doctor of Philosophy.
  • Scott Herder, , Master of Arts.
  • Christopher Langlois, , Doctor of Philosophy.
  • Kate Lawless, , Doctor of Philosophy.
  • Derek Liu, , Master of Arts.
  • Brett Mommersteeg, , Master of Arts.
  • Mikhail Pozdniakov, , Master of Arts.
  • William E. Rankin IV, , Master of Arts.
  • Jarrad Reddekop, , Doctor of Philosophy.
  • Michael Saunders, , Master of Arts.
  • Siobhan M. Watters, , Master of Arts.
  • Thomas Wormald, , Master of Arts.

2013

  • Robbie Cormier, , Master of Arts.
  • Nathaniel Coward, , Master of Arts.
  • Jason D'Aoust, , Doctor of Philosophy.
  • Karen Dewart McEwen, Extra-Capitalist Thought, Master of Arts.
  • Nicholas A. Fagundo, , Master of Arts.
  • Andrew Kingston, , Master of Arts.
  • Claudie Massicotte, , Doctor of Philosophy.
  • Inna Viriasova, , Doctor of Philosophy.

2012

  • Kamran Ahmed, Descartes’ Askesis, Master of Arts.
  • Sarah Brumwell, Temporality, Imagination, and the Right to Have Rights, Master of Arts.
  • Dock Currie, , Master of Arts.
  • Noel Glover, , Master of Arts.
  • Andrew Grant, , Master of Arts.
  • Julian Haladyn, , Doctor of Philosophy.
  • James Hall, , Master of Arts.
  • Mark Jull, , Doctor of Philosophy.
  • Emanuele Leonardi, , Doctor of Philosophy.
  • Marc Mazur, The Cruelty of Reading: Reading and Writing in the Works of Friedrich Schelling, Master of Arts.
  • Malcolm McPherson, Dissident Spaces, Master of Arts.
  • Tyler Miller, Comparing Arche-Writing, Master of Arts.
  • Aarnoud Rommens, , Doctor of Philosophy.
  • Kristen Shaw, , Master of Arts.
  • Sarah Thorne, , Master of Arts.

2011

  • Brendan Bruce, The Subject and the Ghost of Immanence, Master of Arts.
  • Galen Crout, Expanding the Bounds of Critique: Kant and Benjamin, Master of Arts.
  • Jennifer Gartner, From Terminology to Ontology, Master of Arts.
  • Owen Glyn-Williams, The Politics of Kants' Aesthetics, Master of Arts.
  • Stephen Gray Jibb, Austerity in America, Doctor of Philosophy.
  • David Janzen, The Right to Politics, Master of Arts.
  • Ian McCausland, Thinking Where I am (k)not, Master of Arts.
  • Jared McGeough, Romantic Anarche: The Philosophical and Literary Anarchism of William Godwin, Doctor of Philosophy.
  • Cristian Melchiorre, The Downward Path, Doctor of Philosophy.
  • Sara Rodrigues, Vaginal Biopolitics, Master of Arts.
  • Laura Rooney, Contemplating Suicide, Master of Arts.
  • William Samson, Rights As Praxis, Master of Arts.
  • Marshall Smith, Touch My Desire, Master of Arts.
  • Hart Walker, Perceiving Cosmopolitanism, Master of Arts.
  • John Vanderheide, Allegory and Apocatastasis, Doctor of Philosophy.

2010

  • Mary Bunch, Outlawry and the Experience of the (Im)possible: Deconstructing Biopolitics, Doctor of Philosophy.
  • Brendon Langer, Literature and its Dimensions, Master of Arts.

2005 to 2009

2009

  • Brock Baines, The Practice of Freedom: Kant and Levinas in Proximity, Master of Arts.
  • Michael Bennett, Sociality and Infinity, Master of Arts.
  • Jason Dockstader, Spinoza's Divine Wisdom, Doctor of Philosophy.
  • Kane Faucher, Oncontology: Plateau 1001, Doctor of Philosophy.
  • Ariel Fuenzalida, Pharmakontologies, Doctor of Philosophy.
  • Laura Krahn, Eat Your Words: The Incorporation of Language and Body, Master of Arts.
  • Alasdair McMillan, Mechanism, Dynamism and Subjectivity, Master of Arts.
  • Laurel Mitchell, Find the Dyke in This Picture, Master of Arts.
  • Catherene Ngoh, Memory and Truth, Master of Arts.
  • Jessica Reilly, Beyond the Spectacle: Rethinking Debord, Master of Arts.
  • Jessica Sherman, Israel and Its Discontents, Master of Arts.

2008

  • Mark Asberg, Go On, Give Up: Cynical Aporias, Doctor of Philosophy.
  • LindaBeth Nichols, Engendering Heteronormativity: A Critical Analysis of Marriage in the United States as a Discursive Site of Cross-Institutional Practices, Master of Arts.
  • Sheena McKay, Taboo, Laughter, Shame in Psychoanalysis, Master of Arts.
  • Gerald McKinley, Tease of the New Earthdivers: Following Native Narrative in Search of New Identities, Master of Arts.
  • Adam Parker, Effective History, Master of Arts.
  • Christopher Shaw, The Mouse That Roared: Information Theory and the Clinamen, Master of Arts.
  • Adrian Sinclair, Thinking the Digital Corporeally, Master of Arts.
  • Kevin Spencer, Swearing: Force and Language, Master of Arts.

2007

  • Kieran Aarons, Time and Intensity in Deleuze's Difference and Repetition, Master of Arts.
  • Leila El Qawas, Thinking Literature, Master of Arts.
  • Shannon Foskett, Speculative Science: Gilles Deleuze, Chaos & the Quantum, Master of Arts.
  • Corey Katz, The Territorialisation of Responsibility: International Relations, Kant, and the Failure of the Levinasian Turn, Master of Arts.
  • Emily Smart, A Grammar of Grey: A Study of Crowds, Clouds and Pronouns, Master of Arts.
  • Joshua Synenko, Uncommon Singularities: Event, Politics and Representation, Master of Arts.
  • Elise Thorburn, The Crude and the Abject: A Psychoanalysis of the Oil Economy, Master of Arts.
  • Sarah Trimble, Monstrous: Action, Life and Citizenship in Science Fiction, Master of Arts.
  • Jakub Zdebik, The Extraordinary Contraction, Doctor of Philosophy.

2006

  • Timothy August, The Edible Plebiscite, Master of Arts.
  • Matthew Austin, Critical Studies on the Subject, the Genius Figure and Faust, Master of Arts.
  • David Collins, Physical and Artistic Taste in Hegel, Nietzsche and Huysmans, Master of Arts.
  • Averil Farrar, Toward a Critical 'Ontology of the Present', Master of Arts.
  • Petra Hroch, Puppet Masters: Aesthetics and Politics of the Marionnette, Master of Arts.
  • Darren MacDonald, (En)counter Dialogues, Master of Arts.
  • Martin McCallum, Trauma and Metaphor: Lacan, Lacapra, and the 'Poetic Spark', Master of Arts.
  • Andrew Robb, Hegemony and Governmentality, Master of Arts.

2005

  • Dustin Atlas, Kierkegaard's Grotesque, Master of Arts.
  • Christopher Bundock, Ethics and Writing, Master of Arts.
  • Shea Coulson, Adorno's Aesthetics of Critique, Master of Arts.
  • Andrea Dumbrell, A History of Care in the Work of Michel Foucault, Master of Arts.
  • Jason Dockstader, Gigantomachia: Spinoza vs. Heidegger, Master of Arts.
  • Tara Kachroo, Under the Sign of Transparency, Master of Arts.
  • Joshua Lambier, Justice, Community and the Romantic Political Unconscious, Master of Arts.
  • Dolleen Manning, Anishinabemowin: Language that Gives to the Eternal Impasse, Master of Arts.
  • Christopher Morrison, Post-Heideggereanism and the Co-Ontological Horizon, Master of Arts.
  • Alexei Procyshyn, 'Silence': Towards a Critical Theory, Master of Arts.
  • Kathryn Simpson, Minerva's Owl, Master of Arts.
  • Carolyn Veldstra, Subversive Postmodern Humour in the Era of Its Impossibility, Master of Arts.

2000 to 2004

2004

  • Dana M. Broadbent, Outside of All Places?, Master of Arts.
  • Fiona Coll, Writing Without Authority in the Practice of Everyday Life, Master of Arts.
  • Timothy De Vries, Passage Atlas: Benjamin and the Arcades, Master of Arts.
  • Selena Horrell, "Worlding" Corporeality, "Dis Placing" Globalization, Master of Arts.
  • Lila Knighton, Expressive Marks: Women's Self-Injury and Communication, Master of Arts.
  • Allison Mackey, The Gift That Keeps on Giving: Guilt Language and Reparation, Master of Arts.
  • Maureen Melnyk, Monstrous Expressions: On the "Style" of Tattooed Women, Master of Arts.
  • Jonathan Murphy, Onto-Epistemology after Metaphysics, Master of Arts.
  • Jeremy Proulx, Non-Contemplative Idealism, Master of Arts.

2003

  • Heidi Arsenault, Basic Cable: Notes Toward Digital Ontology, Master of Arts.
  • Darryl Biedron, Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Hannah Arendt: The Intersection of Institution, Natality, and Birth, Master of Arts.
  • Elana Commisso, Simulate This! Figurations of Simulacra: The Truth(s) that Belie Representation, Master of Arts.
  • Siobhan Corr, The New World: (Re)mapping the Globe, Master of Arts.
  • Heather Egger, A Glittering Set of Things: Performing Postmodern Subjectivities, Master of Arts.
  • Rachel Hancock, The Violence of Aesthetics: Benjamin, Kane, Bolaño, Master of Arts.
  • Timothy Kaposy, The Claim of Errancy: Psychoanalysis and Ideation, Master of Arts.
  • Cristian Melchiorre, Affect and Transference in Theoretical Discourse, Master of Arts.
  • Steven Millar, New Abolitionism, White Abjections, and the Cooption of Antiracism, Master of Arts.
  • Tara Mimnagh, Living Dead Girl: Death, Representation and Repetition, Master of Arts.
  • Andrew Pendakis, Hegel's Unconscious: Analyzing Matter in the Philosophy of Nature, Master of Arts.
  • John Reed, Life Beyond Politics: Toward the Notion of the Unpolitical, Master of Arts.

2002

  • Mary Bunch, Mapping the Secrets of Life, Master of Arts.
  • Camilla Eckbo, The Iterable Sublime: Towards a Theory of Communication, Master of Arts.
  • Cynthia Leighton, Mechanics of Thought and Its Relation to the Concept of Life, Master of Arts.
  • Bernard Lesawich, Towards a Politics of the Posthuman, Master of Arts.
  • Margaret Macpherson, The Politics of Thereism, Master of Arts.
  • Ursula Misztal, The Elemental Coding of Sexual Difference, Master of Arts.
  • Andrea Schwam, Mis entre parenthèses, Master of Arts.
  • Surti Singh, Negativity in Hegel, Master of Arts.
  • John Vanderheide, On Ideology and the Ideological Ritual of Allegory, Master of Arts.
  • Jakub Zdebik, A Diagram of Allegory: Benjamin, Deleuze and the Space of Language, Master of Arts.

2001

  • Christopher Bradd, On the Fields of Emergence: Towards a Politics of Time, Master of Arts.
  • Elizabeth Guerrier, The Promise of Justice: Interpreting Mi'kmaw Treaties in an Ever-Changing World, Master of Arts.
  • David Patrick, Chemistry at Work: Drugs, Mysticism, Theory, Master of Arts.

2000

  • Keith Bresnahan, Nothing, Really: Absence, Negativity, and the Last Word (On Theological Remainders in Post-Heideggerian Thought), Master of Arts.
  • Kevin Davis, Hypnogony: The Sleep of Philosophy-An Art of Sleep, Master of Arts.
  • Jared Hunt, Image (Gesture) Text: Toward an Aesthetic of Gesture in William Hogarth and Walter Benjamin, Master of Arts.
  • Randy Innes, Architecture at Sea: Desire, Rhythm, and the Poetic Image, Master of Arts.
  • Katherine Kiloh, A girl, being, a sculpture: Eva Hesse, Emmanuel Levinas, and the ethical image, Master of Arts.
  • Zahra McDoom, Unsettled Identity: Rhizomes, Home and Diaspora in the West Indies, Master of Arts.
  • Julie Petruzzellis, Anti-Optant: First Nations Rights, Citizenship, and Radical Democracy, Master of Arts.
  • Heather Snell, Spacing the Event: The Theoretical Performance of Jean Baudrillard, Master of Arts.
  • Graeme Stout, Vienna-Berlin-Frankfurt: The Fragmenation of Subjectivity in Weimar Germany, Master of Arts.

1992 to 1999

1999

  • Mark Asberg, Towards a Kantian Ethics of (In)decisive Obligation, Master of Arts.
  • Brett Buchanan, Who is Nietzche's Philosophy?: Psychological Remainders of Post-Kantian Anthropology, Master of Arts.
  • Neil Gohill, "Spirit" in Schelling's Freedom Essay, Master of Arts.
  • Nathaniel Leach, The Ethical Face and the Tragic Mask: Levinas and the Responsibility of Tragedy, Master of Arts.
  • Kim Olynyk, Suffering, Master of Arts.
  • Stephen Schryer, Discourses of Delinquency: Language and Power in a Canadian Juvenile Court, Master of Arts.
  • Dorian Stuber, Waving, Drowning: Trauma, Representation, Corporeality, Master of Arts.

1998

  • Colin MacPherson, The Spirit, Grace, and the Soul of Science, Master of Arts.
  • Laura Penny, Spent, Master of Arts.
  • Cynthia Thoroski, Re/Collective Narratives: Relational Economy in the Confessional Ethnography of Michel Leiris and Eric Michaels, Master of Arts.

1997

  • R. Scott Bakker, Supernaut: An Assay into the Temporalities of Performance and Representation, Master of Arts.
  • Jennifer Caruso, Towards a Theory of the Threshold: Levinas, Benjamin, Proust, Master of Arts.
  • Jennifer Dyer, The Theory of Repetition: Rothko and Kierkegaard, Master of Arts.
  • Maria Lundin, Spiral/Translation/Skin: An Aesthetic History of the Video Image, Master of Arts.
  • Allyson Lunny, Queerying Homosexuality as Inversion: The Trope of Inversion and the Heterosexualizing Imperative, Master of Arts.
  • Gary Peters, Martin Heidegger and the Ethics of Deconstruction, Master of Arts.
  • John Sawicki, Towards a Politics of Apathy: Baudrillard, Bartleby and Adorno, Master of Arts.

1996

  • Nandita Biswas, The Anxiety of Conscience: On the Non-Concept of Community, Master of Arts.
  • George Conway, Spivak/Bhabha: Re-Reading Foucault, Power- Knowledge and Said's Orientalism, Master of Arts.
  • Amanda Gryzb, Jacques Derrida and the Holocaust: Cinders, Deconstruction and Excessive Responsibility, Master of Arts.
  • Gordon Hughes, Scare Marks: Towards an Ontology of Anti-Semitism, Master of Arts.
  • Christine Tetrault, All that is Sol(i)d: Cultural Capital, Private/Public Intellectuals and the Politics of Pedagogy, Master of Arts.
  • Tyler Tokaryk, Ontoepistomologies and Ethicopolitics within Canadian Multiculturalism, Master of Arts.
  • Richard van Oort, Speech-Act Theory and Generative Anthropology: The Performative Context of Language, Master of Arts.
  • Timothy Wood, The Eleventh Thesis: Strategico-Theoretical Integrations of Jean Beaudrillard & the Situationist International, Master of Arts.

1995

  • Michelle Amlin, Thoroughly Modern Millennium: Articulating Discourses of "Otherness", Master of Arts.
  • James Brouwer, Over & Over: From Derrida to Hegel and Beyond, Master of Arts.
  • Robert Diab, The Crisis of Modernity: Husserl and Heidegger, Metaphysics and Science, Master of Arts.
  • Jonathan Singer, Sign(all)ing the Subject: A Critique of the Baudrillardean Subject, Master of Arts.
  • Linda Wayne, The War of Position in Canadian Universities, Master of Arts.
  • Karen Wirsig, Pass/Fail? Resistance and University Work, Master of Arts.

1994

  • Lynn (Adam) Hughey, (De)Composing Derrida's Mourning, Restitution, and the Sublime, Master of Arts.
  • Jean M. Bruce, Feminism and Postcoloniality: The Postmodern Ethnographic Cinema of Trinh T. Minh-ha, Master of Arts.
  • Catherine Hobbs, Postmodern Feminist Parody: An Alternative Cultural Mode for Postmodern Feminism, Master of Arts.
  • Terry Hoople, The SM Ascetic Practice of Resistance: A Critical Ethnography, Master of Arts.
  • Matrix, Sidney (M. Reynolds), (Un)Authorized Disclosures: Lesbian: Theory, Master of Arts.
  • Kym Pruesse, Reader in Crisis: The Performative Tensions of Transgressive Theory: Theoretical Premises of Hybridization in the Work of Georges Bataille, Julia Kristeva, and Jacques Derrida, Master of Arts.
  • Mark Rozahegy, Levinas and the Architecture of Alterity, Master of Arts.

1993

  • Sheila Butler, Psychoanalysis, Agency and Androgyny: The Work of Meret Oppenheim, Master of Arts.
  • Nina Bombier, The Politics of Hermeneutics: Agency, Objectivity and Feminist Theory, Master of Arts.
  • Michael C. K. Ma, The Completely Buried Woodshed: Some Problems of Self-Reflexivity and Historicity in the Interpretation of Postmodern Visual Art Work, Master of Arts.
  • William McConnell, Figuring Paul de Man: (Literary) History and the Indeterminacy of the Reading/Writing Subject(s), Master of Arts.
  • Daniel Mellamphy, Master of Arts.
  • Susan K. Varney, Putting Love into Words: Kristeva's Heretical Ethic of Signs, Master of Arts.

1992

  • D. Grant Stirling, Psychoanalysis and Grammatology: Freud (Lacan) Derrida, Master of Arts.
  • Michelle K. Owen, Simone de Beauvoir and the Radicalization of 'Woman': Identity Politics and Politics and Political Action, Master of Arts.
  • Imre Szeman, Critics, Ironists, and Agents of Love: Richard Rorty's Intellectuals, Master of Arts.