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History News

Two Teaching Awards for History!

Our own Dr. Norman Smith has won the College of Arts Teaching Excellence Award for Faculty Members, and Jodey Nurse, a PhD Candidate in the Department, has won the same award for Graduate Students. Congratulations to both of them for these well-deserved awards from all of us!

The Rural History Roundtable is Back!

Get ready for another season of the Rural History Roundtable!
The Fall 2013 Series is excited to present:
Jodey Nurse, “‘Exhibiting Great Taste and Skill’: Women’s Work at Fall Fairs in Ontario, 1846-1980.”
Alice J. Hovorka, “The Lives of Women and Chickens in Botswana: Intersections, Hierarchies, and Everyday Lives”
Sean Graham, “A Thousand Miles from the City: Early National Radio and Rural Canada”
Bruce Muirhead, “Dairy Supply Management: History, Challenges and Opportunities for a Resilient and Sustainable System”
Mark down your calendars now, and visit our website for more information about our speakers’ series or ‘like us’ on Facebook. www.uoguelph.ca/ruralhistory/ Get the flyer .pdf

Colonial Science and Residential Schools: Ian Mosby Talk Sept. 25

On September 25, as part of the University of Guelph interdisciplinary talk series The Ethics and Politics of Food, Dr. Ian Mosby will discuss his recent research on mid-20th century government nutritional studies in First Nations communities. Dr. Mosby's findings have recently been in the news and raised a public discussion about the ethics of government-funded scientific activity in those years. The talk takes place in MacKinnon 304 from 12:00 - 1:30. Light lunch provided. All welcome! Get the flyer: .pdf

Dr. Kevin James on the Secrets of Irish Hotels

In 1911, Irish dentist Shenstone Bishop petitioned for divorce from his wife, Ethel. He cited adultery – or, as he had stated in a petition filed two years earlier, his wife’s “doings with a gentleman.” When the jury failed to agree on a verdict, the Bishops wrote a deed of separation. Ethel then took rooms in several venues: Dublin’s Imperial Hotel, the North British Hotel in Glasgow and a Belfast railway hotel. In each place, staff members saw her accompanied by a man named Harry Raphael. Indeed, the guest book at the Belfast hotel recorded them as husband and wife – even as Mr. and Mrs. Bishop. Far from trying to keep the affair quiet, they had intended to be seen. They were hardly the first lovers to have selected grand hotels for a not-so-clandestine tryst, says U of G history professor Kevin James.
Read the rest of the story @Guelph

Growing Response: Mosby's Research on Government Nutritional Studies with First Nations

Ian Mosby, a post-doctoral researcher in the Department of History, continues to make headlines with his research that shows hungry aboriginal children and adults were used in nutritional experiments by Canadian government bureaucrats between 1942 and 1952. In addition to generating news reports around the country, the research has prompted calls for action. CBC published a story today quoting former prime minister Paul Martin urging the government to disclose all records about the situation. Numerous other articles quote Aboriginal leaders asking for apologies and reviews.

Mosby was featured in the lead story on CBC's The National Wednesday night. The story was also reported in the Globe and Mail, the National Post, on CTV news, CBC Radio's As It Happens, Yahoo! news, and on Global News, among others. The research appeared in the May edition of Social History, published by the University of Toronto Press. A graduate of York University, Mosby researches and teaches about politics, culture and science of food in Canada during the 20th century.

(from UofG newsfeed)

Ian Mosby in Globe & Mail on Post-War Government Nutritional Studies

Ian Mosby, a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of History, is featured today in a news report by the Canadian Press, which appears in the Globe and Mail. Mosby published historical research that says hungry aboriginal children and adults were once used as unwitting subjects in nutritional experiments by Canadian government bureaucrats between 1942 and 1952. His work appeared in the May edition of Social History, published by the University of Toronto Press. A graduate of York University, Mosby researches and teaches about politics, culture and science of food in Canada during the 20th century. (from UofGuelph.ca)

UPDATE, JULY 19: More on the media, government and First Nations' response to Dr. Mosby's paper

Wade Cormack Documenting the History of Golf in Scotland

 Wade Cormack, a recent U of G graduate, has been making international headlines recently. He was recently entrusted with the task of documenting the origins of golf in Scotland as part of a unique, three-year doctoral research position. Golf is a pillar of Scottish identity and one of the country's most distinctive contributions to global culture. News articles about his project have appeared in the Ottawa Citizen and in the The Scotsman, one of Scotland’s leading newspapers. The story was also covered by BBC news. Cormack completed both his master's and undergraduate degree at Guelph. (from UofGuelph newsfeed)

Recent PhD Jason Wilson on Humour in the Trenches: from the Globe & Mail

Growing up in the cheek-by-jowl townhouses of Keele and Finch in the 1970s, Dr. Jason Wilson couldn’t accept that his Scottish-Canadian pastiness was a bad fit with his Jamaican neighbours’ music. In a city where the gifts of ethnicity are there for the taking, the budding keyboardist ignored the funny looks and grew up to be a Juno-nominated reggae artist. So when this genre-bending 43-year-old took the stage at Hugh’s Room recently and made the Great War his theme, he naturally went looking for the laughs. Stereotypes about what’s appropriate just don’t seem to apply. “People say I’m fearless,” he says, with a strong strain of self-denial. “But that’s not it. I just don’t consider the idea that I’m offending anyone.” If you want to know about the key role played by female impersonators on the front lines, Mr. Wilson’s your man. As the centenary of the First World War approaches, he has devised a tribute show to weird wartime comedy troupes that were the forerunners of modern satire. Or, as Mr. Wilson puts it in his accompanying book, The Soldiers of Song, “The seeds of black humour that inspired the likes of Monty Python, Saturday Night Live and SCTV were sown in the trenches of the Great War.”
Read the rest of the story at the Globe and Mail