Simon Fraser University
Engaging the World

Course Outlines

Spring 2026 - CMNS 855 G100

Selected Topics in Communication Studies (5)

Ecologies of War

Class Number: 7021

Delivery Method: In Person

Overview

  • Course Times + Location:

    Jan 5 – Apr 10, 2026: Wed, 2:30–5:20 p.m.
    Burnaby

Description

CALENDAR DESCRIPTION:

Specialized one-time graduate course offerings on topics related to the current research of school faculty of visiting professors.

COURSE DETAILS:

Topic for Spring 2026:  Ecologies of War

Modernity marks the moment when war becomes total, rationalized, and infrastructural.  Late-modern war is distributed across and sustained by information and communication networks; no longer confined to discrete battlefields.  It is reorganized as an apparatus of governance – an integral function of the modern state and its bureaucratic, scientific, and technological systems.  This course begins from the premise that war exceeds its conventional military definition:  it is no longer reducible to a sequence of operations unfolding in remote theatres of conflict.  Instead, it is an extended and diffuse media-ecological environment that shapes and conditions politics, economy, and life itself – globally and locally, in proximity to a frontline as well as at a distance.

 

By tracing the entanglements of imperialism, colonialism, and militarism, this course examines war not as an episodic eruption of violence, but as a sustained milieu of environmental, infrastructural, communicative, and technological transformation.  Drawing on media and communication theory, environmental humanities, science and technology studies, infrastructure studies, and political theory, students will explore how war remakes environments, rewires communication networks, and organizes the labour of witnessing, mediation, and evidence.

COURSE-LEVEL EDUCATIONAL GOALS:

Analyze the relationship between media and war.  Students will explore how wars are produced, represented, and sustained through communication technologies (from print and radio to satellite and digital networks) and how these media shape the visibility and invisibility of violence.

Explore wars as environments and infrastructures.  The course introduces the concept of “wars as milieux", foregrounding how wars reorganize space, air, water, soil, and data, making the environment itself a target and medium of warfare.

Examine the colonial and imperial legacies of modern warfare.  Students will situate current conflicts within the longue durée of empire, resource extraction, and infrastructural domination.

Understand the new regimes of cyber and nuclear war.  The class will explore how cyberwar and nuclear deterrence intersect as twin logics of contemporary global militarism.

Students will reflect on war’s afterlives – its trauma, memory, resilience, and the forms of solidarity that emerge, or fail to emerge, during military conflict and in its aftermath.

Grading

  • Participation 30%
  • Project Proposal 20%
  • Mid-Term Presentation 10%
  • Peer Review Work 10%
  • Final Research Paper 30%

NOTES:

The School expects that the grades awarded in this course will bear some reasonable relationship to established university-wide practices.  In addition, the School will follow Policy S10.01 with respect to Academic Integrity, and Policies S10.02, S10.03 and S10.04 with regard to Student Discipline.  For further information visit:  www.sfu.ca/policies/Students/index.html.

Materials

REQUIRED READING:

Required readings will be available as PDFs on Canvas. Any material that is not on Library Reserve can be found online in an academic journal through the Library’s website.


REQUIRED READING NOTES:

Your personalized Course Material list, including digital and physical textbooks, are available through the SFU Bookstore website by simply entering your Computing ID at: shop.sfu.ca/course-materials/my-personalized-course-materials.

Graduate Studies Notes:

Important dates and deadlines for graduate students are found here: http://www.sfu.ca/dean-gradstudies/current/important_dates/guidelines.html. The deadline to drop a course with a 100% refund is the end of week 2. The deadline to drop with no notation on your transcript is the end of week 3.

Registrar Notes:

ACADEMIC INTEGRITY: YOUR WORK, YOUR SUCCESS

At SFU, you are expected to act honestly and responsibly in all your academic work. Cheating, plagiarism, or any other form of academic dishonesty harms your own learning, undermines the efforts of your classmates who pursue their studies honestly, and goes against the core values of the university.

To learn more about the academic disciplinary process and relevant academic supports, visit: 


RELIGIOUS ACCOMMODATION

Students with a faith background who may need accommodations during the term are encouraged to assess their needs as soon as possible and review the Multifaith religious accommodations website. The page outlines ways they begin working toward an accommodation and ensure solutions can be reached in a timely fashion.