SOLAL: SoLaL's Leave for Change Volunteers 2013
After the laudable examples of Stephanie Nutting, Dorothy Odartey-Wellington, and Clive Thomson. Two more SoLaL members are participating in the UoG's Leave for Change program. Giving up their vacation time to help make a difference this summer are faculty members Frédérique Arroyas, who will spend three weeks in Burkina Faso to help organize an agricultural conference, and Denise Mohan, who will be working in Guatemala for three weeks.
Please read Denise Mohan's blog about her experiences in Guatemala here:
Dr. Matthew Hayday's research into the origins, politics and meaning of Canada's national symbols and celebrations is mentioned in a recent National Post article by Allen Levine. Read the story at the 
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.”
In a feature article in Montreal's Le Devoir, PhD student Marc-André Gagnon talks about la Fête St-Jean-Baptiste, also known as the Fête Nationale. The event is celebrated on June 24 thoughout French Canada, with particularly large celebrations in the province of Quebec, and has become the national holiday for French-speaking Canadians. Gagnon discusses the origins and evolution of Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day, and the various forms of meaning people have ascribed to a holiday that currently has strong overtones of separatism in Quebec, but which has always been politicized as a day of affirmation of French-Canadian culture.
U of G History student Jason Wilson, who defended his PhD in May, was interviewed by CBC's The National on the Sunday, June 16 broadcast. Wilson's book, Soldiers of Song: The Dumbells and Other Canadian Concert Parties of the First World War, which is based on his U of G MA thesis, was the focus, with his look at the comedic troupe that entertained soldiers during World War I and audiences after the war. Well done Jason!
With 150 years of history come a number of stories, images and successes, and the Ontario Veterinary College (OVC) will celebrate all of these with the release of a new book this Alumni Weekend. Milestones: 150 Years of the Ontario Veterinary College includes photos and details from the opening of the first veterinary college in Canada and the United States to today’s OVC. The book will be available for purchase during Alumni Weekend, and later on Amazon.com. Co-authors Lisa Cox, a PhD history candidate, and OVC associate dean Peter Conlon dug through the University archives and interviewed former faculty and donors to find the 150 most interesting stories. “I think the biggest challenge when creating a book like this is to determine the balance between historical and modern,” said Cox. “We’re talking about a school that was so critical to the professionalization of veterinary medicine, so there are many historical achievements. But we also have some great modern successes, so a significant issue is finding ways to integrate both into the book.”
They didn’t really wear helmets with horns on them, and they weren’t really much taller than other Europeans. The reality of who the Vikings were is actually more interesting than the myths in popular culture. History professor Christine Ekholst explores what we know about the lives, culture and history of Vikings in her new course for third-year U of G students. She taught the course for the first time in the winter 2013 semester: “It was immensely popular; it filled up immediately.” That’s not surprising. Because of movies like Thor and the History channel series Vikings, these explorers have become part of popular culture and sparked interest in learning more about them. There’s lots to learn, says Ekholst.