University of Rochester

Rochester Review
July–August 2010
Vol. 72, No. 6

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Double Duty As more Rochester students expand their studies to include a second—and sometimes a third—major or degree, we ask a few members of the Class of 2010 why they went that extra step. By Kathleen McGarvey | Photographs by Adam Fenster
Alyea Canada
Dublin, Ohio
Majors: Film & Media Studies and Comparative Literature
double_canada (Photo: Adam Fenster)

After spending the past four years absorbed in film and media studies as well as comparative literature, “I can’t watch anything now without analyzing it,” says Alyea Canada.

Her critical acumen may get in the way of spending an evening unwinding in front of the TV, but it’s made her an astute reader of everything from international classics of screen and page to contemporary pop culture phenomena.

Canada began at Rochester by plunging into the unknown.

“I decided to start college learning about a country I didn’t learn about in high school,” she says—and so she began taking courses on Russia through the Department of Modern Languages and Cultures.

While her study didn’t turn into a Russian major—Canada opted to minor in Russian—it did give her a keen interest in culture, and how it relates to the act of storytelling.

Through her film and media studies major, she learned about Russian films, as well as those of France, Germany, and Britain.

Instead of concentrating on individual directors or genres, she focused on national cinematic traditions. “It was surprising to me how much crosscultural influence there is,” she says.

At the undergraduate research conference sponsored by the Department of Modern Languages and Cultures in the spring, she presented her senior project for comparative literature, an examination of the relation between Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and Francis Ford Coppola’s film adaptation, Apocalypse Now.

Canada says she’s interested in how national film traditions can challenge “official” accounts of history.

“I think the key” to cultural analysis “is getting a solid understanding of history,” she says. “You need to know the historical context.”

Canada took her interest in cultural expression out of the classroom, too, as a member of Radiance Dance Theatre—she has danced since she was three—and UR Concerts, the student group that brings musical acts to campus.

Now that she has graduated, Canada is considering whether she’d like to begin working or continue her studies in graduate school. In either case, she appreciates having been able to develop her interests in both film and literature.

“It’s good to know that if you’re really torn between two areas, you don’t have to choose.”