Past Events

Students who are interested in pursuing graduate studies in English or Theatre Studies at the University of Guelph are encouraged to attend a virtual information seminar hosted by Professor Jade Ferguson (Graduate Coordinator, SETS) and Professor Julie Cairnie on Friday, November 6th at 11:30am. During the session, both professors will provide advice on compiling and submitting a successful graduate school application for all aspiring SETS graduate students and answer any pressing questions they might have.

The School of Languages and Literatures presents guest speaker Dr. Olumide Popoola in our upcoming lecture. Olumide is a Nigerian-German writer and her publications include essays, poetry, a novella, a play text, the short story collection breach, which she co-authored with Annie Holmes (Peirene Press, 2016), and the novel When We Speak of Nothing.

Joel Bakan (filmmaker: The Corporation & The New Corporation)  

The School of Languages and Literatures presents Tommy Mayberry (he/she/they), the Manager of Outreach and Recruitment at St. Jerome’s University at the University of Waterloo.

Waubgeshig Rice (author: Moon of the Crusted Snow) Waubgeshig Rice is an author and journalist originally from Wasauksing First Nation. His first short story collection, Midnight Sweatlodge, was inspired by his experiences growing up in an Anishinaabe community, and won an Independent Publishers Book Award in 2012. His debut novel, Legacy, followed in 2014. A French translation was published in 2017. His latest novel, Moon of the Crusted Snow, was released in October 2018 and became a national bestseller.

The School of Languages and Literatures presents guest speaker, Dr. Amara Lakhous, as he discusses Mainstream Identity Is a Golden Cage.

In my life, I have never been part of a mainstream identity. I was born in Algeria to a very Berber family. I lived for 25 years as a minority in this Arabic context. In 1995, I immigrated to Italy and I experienced the challenges of belonging to the Muslim North African minority in Italy, especially after September 11th, 2001. In 2014, I moved to New York. This peripheral identity has pushed me to continually ask myself: How can I reconcile my culture of origin with new cultures?

When the competing murgas of Calle Abajo and Calle Arriba, with their forty-plus horn players accompanied by a cadre of drummers, slowly exit the side streets of their respective barrios and make their way onto the central drag that encircles Las Tablas’s Parque Bellisario Porras, they do so with the aim of out-blowing and out-drumming their rivals

George Lipsitz (critic, author of The Possessive Investment in Whiteness) George Lipsitz is an American Studies scholar and professor in the Department of Black Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and the author of over half a dozen books, including The Possessive Investment in Whiteness. He is a leading scholar in social movements, urban culture, inequality, the politics of popular culture, and Whiteness Studies.

Daina Warren (Cree), Curator and Director of Urban Shaman Contemporary Aboriginal Art Gallery, Winnipeg, MB Lecture: Curating Indigenous Knowledge in the Arts: Implications for Art Schools and Historians