May 2014

Doug Junke

Despite hard-fought gains over the years, the Canadian labour movement knows that it is not a time to stand still and be complacent.

That was evident at the Canadian Association for Work and Labour Studies (CAWLS) plenary session at Congress 2014 on Thursday, entitled “The past, present and future of work and labour studies.”

In her wide-ranging talk, Stephanie Ross, founding president of CAWLS and a political science professor at York University, said there “has been a real thirst for progressive research” but that it has been “a struggle to get labour studies into universities and to keep them there.”

Joining Ross on the panel were Bryan Palmer of Trent University and Winnie Ng of Ryerson University.

Ross said that existing university programs – many developed in the 1960s at a time of rank and file...

Samara Bissonnette

HIGHRISE. An incredibly modern, collaborative, inspiring digital project connecting voices from high rise buildings all over the world. These big concrete mammoths of architecture are "containers of human experience", and this interactive web documentary allows users to discover "the towers in the world, and the worlds in the towers".

The National Film Board, with an extensive team of researchers, creators, academics, digital artists, volunteers and high rise residents, has made the idea of one Katerina Cizek come to life in a project called Highrise that has successfully challenged and reinvented the language of storytelling.

In this...

Terry Soleas

Genome Canada presented a draft brief that they have been refining as a part of their GE³LS (Genomics and its Ethical, Environmental, Economic, Legal and Social aspects) Series at Congress 2014 entitled  “Feeding the Future: Can Scientists, Regulators and Activists agree?”. Genome Canada is a not-for-profit organization founded in 2000 to administer and foster large-scale genomics research in Canada. Thus far, Genome Canada has invested...

Terry Soleas

Dr. Michelle McGinn in an extension of her role as the Associate Dean of Research and International Initiatives led a workshop on helping research assistants deepen their engagement with the research process, improve their skillset as well as improve their marketability. The workshop began with a reflective exercise to determine what each attendee knew, wanted to know, and had learned.

Those present participated in case studies, interactive discussions and collaborative activities to explore some common dilemmas, challenges and opportunities often faced by research assistants. The groups then nominated one member to present their group findings.

Being a research assistant, I found the workshop extremely helpful. Some common themes included discussions of what research assistants do, what are the benefits...

Liz Smith

Recent events in Russia are certainly at the forefront of a number of important geopolitical conversations. Things that might stand out include: the detaining of the 'Arctic 30' Greenpeace activists, granting temporary asylum to American whistleblower Edward Snowden, as well as the recent military intervention in the 2014 Ukrainian Revolution. Of course, the international spectacle of the 2014 Olympic Winter Games was, indeed, on the public radar, and Putin's enactment of the so-called 'anti-gay propaganda law' immediately before the Sochi Opening Ceremonies caught the attention of the masses. It was this topic that constituted the framework for a vibrant discussion by a roundtable of political and historical experts at Sunday night's Congress panel put on by the Canadian Historical Association (CHA), entitled "...

Doug Junke

For David Plotz, the advent of digital journalism has been the best of times and the worst of times, to borrow from Charles Dickens.

Slate editor Plotz addressed Tuesday’s Congress 2014 Big Thinking crowd of 125 at Brock University with his engaging speech, “Fast, cheap and out of control: How the Internet has made journalism  better than it’s ever been.”

But by way of background first, Plotz grew up and still lives in Washington, D.C., graduated from Harvard in 1992 and has been a writer with Slate – an online current affairs and culture magazine -- since its inception in 1996, becoming editor in 2008. Slate has won two U.S. National Magazine Awards.

He has published two books: The Genius Factory and Good Book.

Plotz got his start in journalism by being rejected by 91 out of 92 newspapers to...

Visit Innovation.ca for more stories about humanities and social science research supported by the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI). By funding state-of-the-art research infrastructure in all disciplines and across the full spectrum of research from discovery to applied, the CFI gives researchers the tools they need to think big and innovate.

The shopping spree of the future will be nothing like the crowded, stuffy gauntlet of today, according to Brian Greenspan, director of Carleton University’s Hyperlab. Greenspan and his students research the implications of a Big Brother culture that inevitably comes about when we live in the cloud. In this podcast, Greenspan takes listeners on a tour of the mall of the future, describing how marketers mine the data we continuously generate through our mobile devices to shape the way we shop. Music: Ambient-M by Antony Raijekov, courtesy of the Free Music...

Liz Smith

Important and fascinating research in 3 minutes or less. READY. GO! Out of roughly 150 submissions, the top twenty-five postsecondary students from across Canada gathered at the Congress Centre Expo Event Space yesterday to showcase their diverse research projects in the second annual Social Science and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) “Research for a Better Life: The Storytellers” challenge. The aim? To convey the relevance and importance of their SSHRC-funded research, each covering a different societal issue, through a compelling story in a 3 minute segment.

“This initiative is part of a larger ambition to showcase how SSHRC research is helping us understand the world around us towards a better future”, said the keynote speaker.

The success of the Storytellers initiative to pitch a diversity of...

Terry Soleas

Tim Cook, a renowned Canadian Historian of the First World War, spoke today at the Congress of the Social Sciences and Humanities at Brock University. His lecture, “The borders between life and death: Stories of the supernatural and uncanny among Canada’s Great War soldiers“ discussed the superstition of soldiers and their relationship with death. Cook explained that he would be discussing the supernatural through the eyes of a historian. 

Soldiers in World War I fought in trenches that were subject to mortar bombardment, gassing, machine gun fire, and frequent incursions by enemy troops. These trenches were also subject to rampant pest infestations like rats, lice and pathogen outbreaks. Approximately half of all Canadian soldiers in the war became casualties, by it wounded in action, grievously disfigured, or outright killed. Quite simply, soldiers were...

Visit Innovation.ca for more stories about humanities and social science research supported by the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI). By funding state-of-the-art research infrastructure in all disciplines and across the full spectrum of research from discovery to applied, the CFI gives researchers the tools they need to think big and innovate.

Theresa Garvin, a University of Alberta geographer, is looking at how to improve the quality of life of Alberta's elderly suburban population:

Theresa Garvin will be attending the 2014 Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences to participate in a panel, “Researching Environmental Health in Canada – Is That the Death Knell I Hear or the Sound of Opportunity Knocking?” as part of the Canadian...

Doug Junke

Lyse Doucet, veteran BBC reporter, presenter and chief international correspondent has seen man at his worst.  It wasn’t pretty. She shared a tiny slice of that with the Congress 2014 Big Thinking audience Saturday afternoon.

It wasn’t for the weak-kneed.

The Bathurst, N.B. native and Queen’s University graduate has captured a Peabody Award, a David Bloom Award and several honorary doctorates for a spectacular 30-year journalism career that has in recent years centred on the world’s hotspots: Libya, Syria, Afghanistan.

“This is Canada’s biggest gathering of scholars across all disciplines …. big ideas, big brains,” Doucet said.

So, it was a good time...

Jessica Dixon

Many of my formitive years were spent in front of the television set watching a show that allowed me to learn about the world I live in. The MakerBus reminds me that it will never be a normal field trip. Kim Martin, Ryan Hunt and Beth Compton have poured their combined efforts into one magic bus in order to bring the ‘why’ into the conversation. I was privileged to make their acquaintances and ask about the bus that has everyone talking.

“We all know that the humanities are important," they each agreed; “we want people to think about how they are, and what that means to them.”

Having purchased a bus in 2013 with the help of the London (...

Looking at the legacy of thousands of black slaves who fled to Canada in the 1800s

Laura Czekaj, Canada Foundation for Innovation

Visit Innovation.ca for more stories about humanities and social science research supported by the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI). By funding state-of-the-art research infrastructure in all disciplines and across the full spectrum of research from discovery to applied, the CFI gives researchers the tools they need to think big and innovate.

In the 19th century, the feet of former American black slaves wore a path from captivity to the southern Ontario settlements they saw as places of freedom and deliverance, a land of promises fulfilled.

The journey of thousands of fugitive slaves and free North American blacks along the Underground Railroad created communities in areas such as Chatham-Kent County, where powerful ideologies of...

Rachel Hirsch, Projects Facilitator, Social Justice Research Institute, Brock University
Jeffrey Sinibaldi, Media Relations Manager, Marketing and Communications, Brock University

At Congress 2014, Brock’s Social Justice Research Institute (SJRI) will be creating a transdisciplinary space to foster dialogue and galvanize colleagues from the social sciences and humanities around themes of social justice.

A key priority for the newly created institute is to break down boundaries and connect the threads of social justice scholarship taking place across various disciplines. To do this at Congress, SJRI is helping to promote the social justice events of 21 academic and community organizations, including co-sponsoring 11 high profile events.

SJRI was established Fall 2013 as a leader in advanced transdisciplinary social justice scholarship,...

Stuart Reid, director/curator, Rodman Hall Art Centre, Brock University

As hosts of Congress 2014, all of us at Brock have been busy preparing an engaging and thought-provoking “Congress Plus” program for both our out-of-town and local guests.

As part of this made-at-Brock academic and cultural line up, Rodman Hall Art Centre is pleased to present The Source: Rethinking Water Through Contemporary Art, which will debut during Congress at our University.  

Echoing the theme of this year’s gathering, “Borders Without Boundaries,” water, of course, defines the boundaries between nations and peoples. But, in the greater scheme of things, water also erases and wipes away those differences.

Water is the...

Rowland Lorimer, Director, Master of Publishing Program and Canadian Centre for Studies in Publishing, Simon Fraser University

Sunday May 25
14:45 to 16:15
Schmon Tower Boardroom 13^th Floor

It would be difficult to find a Canadian researcher in the humanities and social sciences who would not agree to having his or her work openly accessible to the world. The principle, whether you call it freedom of information or open access, is very much in keeping with public education, public funding for research, and the public interest.

The nobility of this principle has led to a worldwide embrace of open access especially in such areas as health research and physics....

Guest post by Michael Adams The Environics Institute and Environics Research Group

The following is a speech given by Michael Adams at the 2014 Canada Prizes award ceremony at York University’s Glendon College Campus on May 7, 2014, where the Federation celebrated this year’s four winners.

Good evening, everyone. It is an honour for me to have been asked to be deliver the keynote address for this year’s Canada Prize Awards, especially as I served on the jury with two distinguished scholars: Janice Stein of the University of Toronto’s Munk School and professor Greg Kealey...

Chaque année, les associations qui participant au Congrès lancent des appels de propositions d’articles illustrant toute perspective disciplinaire ou interdisciplinaire. Tout comme les années précédentes, la Fédération se réjouit de voir une augmentation continue de séances qui sont en français !

In addition to getting your French fix from the list of highlighted events below that are free and open to Congress attendees, there will also be events in Spanish and with ASL interpretation.

Pour une dose de français, d’espagnol et pour connaître les événements où l’interprétation en langage des signes sera disponible lors du Congrès, assurez-vous de profiter des séances énumérées ci-dessous.

Les nouvelles frontières de l'histoire du livre
Samedi 24 mai, 11 h 00...

By Daniel Drolet

Canada’s parliamentary system is in good shape, and its opposition is generally healthy, says a professor who has just completed a major study of opposition in Canada.

But David E. Smith, author of Across the Aisle: Opposition in Canadian Politics, warns that our political system, like a good relationship, needs constant nurturing to remain...

By Daniel Drolet

Sandra Djwa, author of a new biography of P.K. Page, says the Canadian poet is a role model for any young woman contemplating a career in literature.

Years before it was fashionable or even common, Page created for herself a brilliant career in which she was recognized internationally as one of Canada’s outstanding  poets and visual artists.

Ms. Djwa is the author of...