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College News

History: Susannah Ferreira, Catherine Carstairs Awarded SSHRC Grants

This week the History Department congratulates Drs. Susannah Ferreira and Catherine Carstairs on winning Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Standard Research Grants. Dr. Ferreira's research project is entitled, "New Christians in Portugal and the Process of Cultural Assimilation: 1497-1536"; Dr. Carstairs' project: "Communist Conspiracy, Rat Poison or Dental Miracle?: Water Fluoridation in the US and Canada."

Congratulations to College of Arts Colleagues

Ajay Heble      SETS: at a recent awards ceremony, the Student Senate Caucus awarded Professor Ajay Heble its award for Contributions to Teaching. His nominator states: "He has experimented with many really cool ways of engaging students actively in the learning process and is a testament to what a prof can do when [he is] passionate about teaching."

MFA in Creative Writing - Short-lists Announcement

Creative Writing core faculty member Dionne Brand is short-listed for the prestigious Griffin Award for Poetry for her newest collection, Ossuaries (M&S).  Brand is nominated in the Canadian category.  There is also a prize for an international poetry collection.  The shortlists were announced today.

Ossuaries has also been shortlisted for the 2011 Pat Lowther Award for best book of poetry by a Canadian.

History: Sharon Weaver on Back-to-the-Land movements in Canada

For four years, History Department docrtoral candidate Sharon Weaver and her husband lived in an old carriage shed on their 400-acre farm in Cape Breton. “You could see the stars through the walls,” she recalls. “In the winter, we’d be sleeping in the warmest down sleeping bags we could get, but in the morning our boots would be frozen to the floor and my husband’s moustache would be white with frost.” (Read more...)

History: Tools of Masculine Self-actualization - Dr. Rob Kristofferson at Rural History Roundtable

Wednesday, March 23, the next Rural History Roundtable features Dr Rob Kristofferson, who will present a paper based on his co-authored, and soon-to-be published, book: More of a Man: The Diaries of Andrew McIlwraith, Canada West and New York City, 1857-1862. The title of his presentation: “Narrating the Known Story: Mid-Victorian Craftsworker Diaries as Tools of Masculine Self-actualization." The talk takes place in MacKinnon Room 311, 10:00am to 12:00noon in conjunction with Hist4620. There will also be a poster display of the farm diary work being done by the class. 

History: Animals and Entertainment in History

Historian Susan Nance writes about rodeo, and circus elephants as celebrities.
If you’re looking for a little entertainment today, you have hundreds of options: TV, movie theatres, the Internet, video games, radio and more. But in the 19th century, entertainment was created much closer to home and often as an extension of everyday life. History professor Susan Nance says rodeo is a good example. “In western North America, it seems that animals often provided entertainment because they offered the raw energy of the unexpected,” says Nance.  (read more...)

History Professor Alan Gordon shortlisted as a finalist for the Canada Prize in Social Sciences

Congratulations are in order for Prof Alan Gordon (History) who has been shortlisted as a finalist for the Canada Prize in Social Sciences to be awarded by the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences at the Congress in Ottawa on March      26, 2011. His recent book, The Hero and the Historians: Historiography and the Uses of of Jacques Cartier is one of five books shortlisted for the English language prize.