Every IS Student does a Thesis, and all theses are published as "Electronic Theses & Dissertations" and are public documents. You can find all of the program's theses here at this link: YORKU INTERDISCIPLINARY STUDIES ELECTRONIC THESES
Have a look below for a small sampling. Also look under the creative initiatives section under research.
Name | Areas | Supervisors | MA Thesis Title |
Alexandra Anderson | Film, Latin American Studies, Politics | Scott Forsyth, Harry Smaller, Judith Hellman |
Reflecting on Reality: The Place of Truth in Cuban and Canadian Documentary |
Rhett Andrew | Visual Arts, Humanities, Philosophy | Tim Whiten, Jamie Scott, Claudio Duran |
"Respect: The Parabolic Quest for Self–Realization” |
Madeline Ashby | Jennifer Brayton Wendy Wong Suzie Young |
"Transformation Bodies: Anime, Fandom, and Cyborg Sub–cultures" | |
Natalie Azzi | David Noble Tony Turrittin Livy Visano |
"Canada’s Prison Privatization Experiment: A Critique." | |
Gord Barentsen | Romanticism, Psycho-analysis, Cultural Theory | Ian Balfour, Robert Bowman, Elizabeth Seaton |
‘Where is the Anti–Nowhere League?’ English Romanticism and Punk Subculture |
Annette Bazira Okafor | Barbara Evans, Pablo Idahosa, Modupe Olaogun |
"African Women in Documentary Films on Africa (1992–2006): North–South Representations" | |
Adam M. Cantor | Anthropology, Classics, English | David Paul Lumsden, Jamie Scott, James Rives |
Pig/Human Transformations in The Odyssey and Animal Farm |
Tracy Clemenger | Science & Technology, Philosophy, Theology | Malcolm Blincow, Martin Fichman, David Noble |
Co–Creators with God: The Intersection of Genetics and Religion in U.S. Public Policy |
Lynn Cunningham | Business, Economics, Cultural Studies | Fred Fletcher, Julia Creet, Liora Salter |
Culture Wars: How Canada Lost the Battle to Protects its Magazines |
Beth Cutts | Women’s Studies, Sociology, Law, Social and Political Thought | Joanne Stuckey, D. Orr, R. Schlesinger |
Women and Euthanasia: An Interdisciplinary Approach |
Lee Davis Creal | Women’s Studies, Creative Writing, English Literature | Marlene Kadar, Susan Ehrlich, Douglas Freake |
Dancing with Fire: A Family Life Writing Narrative |
Lauren DiMonte | Art History, Cultural Studies, Anthropology | Steve Bailey, Jennifer Fisher, Yvonne Singer |
Telling It Like It Is: Harold Cromwell And The Black Nova Scotian Folk Art Tradition |
Rachel Dubrofsky | Sociology, Gender Studies, Psychoanalysis | A. Pitt, E. Hewitt, D. Khayatt |
All Consuming Selves: Women Reading Popular Psychology |
John Edwards | Bob Adolph, Tom Cohen, Dorothy de Val |
Poets, Musicians and the Etiology of English Melancholy 1586–1651 | |
Lisa Ellenwood | Women's Studies, Media Studies, Video Production | Elizabeth Seaton, Barbara Evans, Ted Magder |
“Smart, Confident, Yet Feminine”: Paradoxes and Contradictions in Women’s Television. A Case Study of the Women’s Television Network |
Sandra Fahy | Women’s Studies, Irish Historical Literature, Creative Writing | Susan Ehrlich, John Unrau, Richard Teleky |
Writing Great Hunger: Ireland in 1845–50 and Irish Potato Famine. |
Nancy Fillion | Feminist Anthropology, Women's Studies, Asian Studies | Penny Van Esterik, Theresa Hyun, Douglas Freake |
Reproductive Technology, Disciplinary Technology: Exploring Empowerment and Birth Control Use in New Order Indonesia |
Aubie Golembek | Photography, Philosophy, Art History | Tom Cohen, Patrick Gray, Don Snyder (Adjunct) |
Christ Before Christians: The Christological Incarnation of Renaissance Perspectives |
Alison Gordon | Women's Studies, Communications, Philosophy, Linguistics | Susan Ehrlich, Elizabeth Seaton, Michael Gilbert |
(Re)Constructing the Discourse of Women’s Magazine’s Mediation of Medicine |
Leeat Granek | Humanities, Psychology, Women’s Studies | Mariam Mongrain, David Rennie, Douglas Freake |
Depression as Synergy: A Relational, Identity and Existential Experience |
John Greyson | Barbara Balfour, Barbara Godard, Ilan Kapoor |
"PILS SLIP: The making and unmaking of a doc–op about AIDS Activism (or, How do we sing about AIDS?)" | |
John Harvey | Communication, Political Science, Linguistics | Harris Breslow, Susan Ehrlich, David Bell |
The Vicissitudes of Political Debate: The Career of the Terms Politically Correct and Political Correctness in the Toronto Area Press in the 1990s |
Finn Harvor | Creative Writing, Visual Arts, Video | Penni Stewart, Douglas Freake, Susan Swan |
A Light in the Face/Skin Gallery |
Gita Hashemi | Digital Interactive Media, Narrative Theories, Social & Political Thought; Iranian History; Gender Studies | A. Buturovic, Renate Wickens, H. Moghissi |
Between Parallel Mirrors: Foucault, Atoussa and Me, On Sexuality of History (paper) and of Shifting Shadows (CD-ROM) |
John Irwin | Criminology, Philosophy, Law | Dianne Martin, Margaret Beare, Marie Christine Leps |
Undercover Police Work in Canada and the Rule of Law |
Anna Isacsson | Women’s Studies, Education | Didi Khayatt, Rishma Dunlop, Sharon Rosenberg |
The Geography of Female Courtship: Life and Work of Jane Bowles |
Gurbir Jolly | Postcolonial Literary Theory, Social Memory Theory, Feminist Cultural Studies/Methodologies, On–line Performativity | Patrick Taylor, Ada Testaferri, Arun Mukherjee |
Subjectivity and Agency: An “Ethnographic” Contextualization of Six Indian Post–Immigrant Women’s Texts Gurbir’s Publications: Bolo Bolo, Desilicious |
Carwyn Jones | Law, Environmental Studies, Maori Studies | Peter Cole, Brian Slattery, Linda Tuhiwai–Smith (Adjunct) |
Tino Rangatiratanga and Sustainable Development: Principles for Developing a Just and Effective Resources Management Regime in Aotearoa/New Zealand |
Evan P. Jones | Surrealism, Creative Writing, Classicism, Modern Greek Poetry | Richard Teleky, Matthew Clark, Yvonne Singer | Returning to an Original Source: The Surrealist Recovery of Classical Greek Poetics by Modern Greek Poets Evan’s Publications: Nothing Fell Today But Rain |
Michael Kozierowski | History, Humanities, Autobiography Studies | Tom Cohen, Jamie Scott, Heather Campbell |
Seeking Stability in the Unknown World of Michel De Montaigne |
Francesca L'Orfano | Italian Canadian Studies, Film and Video, Visual Arts, Women's Studies, Education | Brenda Longfellow, Yvonne Singer, Franc Sturino |
Challenging Exclusion: Film, Video, Women, Memory, Identity and the Italian Canadian Immigrant Experience |
Walter Lake | Creative Writing, Anthropology, Environmental Studies | Richard Teleky, Naomi Adelson, Joe Sheridan |
Writing the North: Fiction, Place and Culture |
Tracey Lloyd | History, Sociology, Environmental Studies | Patricia Evans, Percy Anderson, David Trotman |
Planning and the Politics of Race |
Katie MacDonald | Barbara Heron, Carlota McAllister, Patrick Taylor |
Unarticulated Spaces of Difference in Development: Finding Room for Radical Change in Spaces of Invisibility | |
Heather Mains | Anthropology, Women’s Studies, Fine Arts | Gail Linday, Becky Lee, Andrea O’Reilly |
The Art of Giving Birth: The Power of Ritualizing |
Rosemary Mantini | Folklore, Social/Political Thought, History, Education | Carole Carpenter, Rinaldo Walcott, Nick Rogers |
Subversive Dialogues: Folklore Children’s Culture and the Gang |
David McIntosh | Film and Video, Science and Technology, History of the Nation–State | Brenda Longfellow, Joan Steigerwald, Don Yon |
Nation, Nation–State, National Cinema and Free Trade: Shifting Canadian and Mexican Film Cultures Since 1989 under FTA and NAFTA |
Andrea Monahan | Sociology, Women's Studies, Environmental Studies | Desmond Ellis, D. Kehoe, Patricia McDermott |
Power in Divorce Mediation |
Tanita Muneshwar | Kamala Kempadoo, Jamie Scott, Patrick Taylor |
“(Her) Stories Written: The Construction of Identity Through Politics, Culture and Education in the Novels of Contemporary Indo–Guyanese Women” | |
Caroline O'Brien | Julia Creet, Norma Sue Fisher–Stitt, Yvonne Singer |
Between the Seams: The Making of a Princess | |
Nikole Pascetta | Don Dippo, Susan McGrath, Belarie Zatzman |
"Making Meaning Through Movement: A Theatre Pedagogy for English Language Learning in Refugee Youth Settlement" | |
Jutta Raithel | Classical Studies, Art History, History, Rhetoric | R. Schneider, J. Edmonson, G. Metraux, K. Stanworth |
In a Mirror, Brightly: The Didactic Value of Visual Imagery in an Early Icon and an Ekphrastic Sermon (The Enthroned Virgin of Mount Sinai and Pseudo–Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 35) |
Shaun Richards | Nineteenth–century French Literary Studies and Social History, Postcolonial Studies, Women's Studies | Nicholas Rogers, Elizabeth Cohen, Sergio Villani |
"Baudelaire's "Black Venus": Alterity, Identity and the Modern Muse |
Robin Rowland | Law, Philosophy, Refugee Studies, History, Theatre | Craig Scott, Howard Adelman, Robert Fothergill |
Command Ability and Command Responsibility – Lt. Col. Hirateru Banno and the “F Force” Trails |
Julie Senna | Art History, Visual Arts, Psychology | Raymond Fancher, Gordon Flett, Anne–Marie Lewis |
A Psychobiographical Analysis of William Blake: His Life and Work |
Meera Sethi | Cultural Theory, Visual Art Theory, Feminist Theory, Postcolonial Theory | Arun Mukherjee, Nancy Nicol, Ramabai Espinet |
Critical Art Practices: The Visual Art of Jamelie Hassan, Sarindar Dhaliwal, and Jin–me Yoon |
Donald Sinclair | Fine Arts, Cultural Studies, Mass Communication, Computer Science | Jerry Durlak, C.K. Peng, Nina DeShane |
Examining an Interactive New Media Object: Laurie Anderson’s “Puppet Motel” |
Christopher Smith | Warren Crichlow, Janine Marchessault, Leslie Sanders |
"Thinking Otherwise: The Politics of Black Queer Filmmaking." | |
Sara Thompson | Fairytales, Popular Culture, Drama | Carole Carpenter, Renate Wickens, Christopher Innes |
The Words that Remain: Two Theories of Performance and the Question of Identity in Contemporary Variations of “Sleeping Beauty” |
Anna Vandenberg | Humanities, Psychology, Education | Matthew Clark, Jill Rich, Celia Haig–Brown |
Communication, Ethics, Learning: The Lost Contexts of Memory Arts |
Giselle Vincett | Anthropology, Religious Studies, Women’s Studies | Andrea O’Reilly, Jordan Paper, Joanne Stuckey |
Resacralizing the Profane: Symbols in Feminist Goddess Worship |
Danielle Vriend | English Literature, Women’s Studies, Political Science | Douglas Freake, Arun Mukherjee, Wenona Giles |
Identity Watershed: The Work of Sri Lankan Writer Jean Arasanayagam |
Amy Wanounou | Minoo Derayeh, David Dewitt, Haideh Moghissi |
Female Palestinian Suicide Bombers: Causes and Motivations | |
Shawn Whitney | Humanities, Social Science, Political Science | Marlene Kadar, Robert Fothergill, John Allett |
Radical Theatre: From Theory to Practice |
Daniel Zanth | Richard Teleky, Jill Bell, Teresa Hyun |
Teaching English in South Korea: Studying, Shaping and Representing my Expatriate Experiences–Theory and Original Fiction |