Professor Cairnie's research examines childhood in Zimbabwe focusing on its literature. The country's most pressing problems—AIDS, orphans, education, food and water, healthcare, or law and order—pivot around children who have played key roles in a tumultuous history: Cecil Rhodes' invasion of Mashona and Ndebele land in 1890 was achieved by teenaged boys and motivated by a desire to place white families there; Robert Mugabe's invasion of titled white farms in 2000 used boys and young men as warriors and proved detrimental to millions of
Featured Researcher
The Digital Haptic Lab, a CFI-funded joint project between the School of Fine Art and Music and the School of Engineering, is a unique initiative allowing researchers to realize public projects that have very real effects on communities. Working in the wide realm of public sculpture is exciting and frightening because it affords a chance to assert aesthetic desires into a public discourse that can have a real impact on people's daily lives. These works will be assessed for years to come by communities that can't be fully
Not the zombies you were thinking of…
Taking an interdisciplinary approach, Professor Bailey is asking the big questions about the nature of consciousness. In conjunction with neuroscientists, experimental psychologists, and linguists, among others Andrew Bailey is pursuing a testable, empirical, scientific theory of how consciousness arises, how it is related to the brain, and what one might discover in the zombie paradigm if
The Social Network, à la française
The prix Femina is one of most prestigious literary awards in France and plays a central role in modern French cultural life. Despite this, little is known about the creation of the prize in 1904. Professor Irvine’s inquiry explores for the first time the complex nature of the networks that existed between the women of letters who went on to found the prize, convinced that they were excluded from the forms of consecration of literary talent open to their male
"French on a box of Corn Flakes! Quelle horreur!"
Bilingualism provokes vigorous debate in Canada. Advocates tout its contributions to national unity and its benefits for career advancement. Critics see it as a waste of money in an English-dominated world or part of a French conspiracy to take over the country. Matthew Hayday's research examines the history of bilingualism in Canada: its promotion by government agencies, civil society groups and keen individuals; its reception in English-
My research entails both my own creative practice in theatre and film design as well as the study of theatrical design in Canada as an art form. This involves investigation into theatrical design in its social and historical context and the place of scenography in the creation of a theatrical performance. As a new field of research, it entails the reanimation of archival material using a variety of new and traditional media.
Dorothy Odartey-Wellington’s research examines the literature that was published in the colonial press of Equatorial Guinea, the former Spanish colony which used to be known as Spanish Guinea with a view to producing an anthology of the primary sources as well as critical essays on the colonial literary culture and its socio-political climate.
She became aware of the need for this project while researching contemporary Equatorial Guinean writers currently living in exile in Spain. References to Equatorial Guinean colonial literature were limited to the two novels that were published by Africans,
