New Course

The Department is pleased to be offering an exciting one-time only course in term 2: History 395, "Metis/Mestizo: Mixed Ancestry Peoples in Comparative Context" (taught by Camie Augustus). The course considers the question of why Canada is the only country to recognize an indigenous mixed-ancestry population as a distinct cultural group.

Contact Camie Augustus (camie.augustus@usask.ca) for more information on the course and how to register.

Image: David Garneau, "Cross Addressing", Collection of the Museum of Civilization

The Department is very pleased to see Akira Peters return in September. Akira will complete the final year of a Combined Honours degree in English and History, which she had to defer after a hemorrhagic stroke in June 2008. The cause of her stroke was a rare disease, moyamoya, which affects arteries in the brain.

After many months of recovery at the Glenrose Rehabilitation Hospital in Edmonton, Akira went on to help other brain injury survivors through her volunteer work at Networks Activity Centre (Edmonton). Her good sense of humour and willingness to help others, as well as her perseverance, are being recognised by two awards: the Glenmore Award of Courage and a Brain Injury Association Bursary.

For a few days at least, you can watch an interview (see the Health Matters page for the "Akira Peters" file) with Akira by Su-Ling Goh of Global.

Welcome back, Akira!

Better late than never...

This spring and summer has brought a bumper crop of History graduate students. At May convocation Jonathan Anuik and Byron Plant received Doctor of Philosophy degrees, while Sarah Nickel and Christopher Paige took Master of Arts degrees.

Three more students successfully defended their theses over the summer and will walk the stage in the autumn: Amanda Harrigan (M.A. candidate), Alice Glaze (M.A. candidate) and Jason Zorbas (Ph.D. candidate).

The recent theses of these (former) students show the diversity of research interests within the department, ranging from political activism (Harrigan and Nickel) and identities (Anuik, Glaze and Zorbas) to Canadian policy and administration (Paige and Plant).

Belated congratulations to all of these graduates for their hard work -- and best wishes for future successes!


List of Recent Theses

Jonathan Anuik, "Métis Families and Communities and Christian and Public Schools: The Affirmation and Reclamation of Métis Identities in Saskatchewan, 1885-1979."

Alice Glaze, "Women Before the Kirk: Godly Discipline in Canongate, 1640-1650."

Amanda Harrigan, "Patriotism and Treason in the Life and Thought of Jean Paulhan."

Sarah Nickel, "'The Right to be Heard': Saskatchewan First Nations Political Activism, 1922-1946."

Christopher Paige, "Canada and Chemical Warfare, 1939-1945."

Byron Plant, "The Politics of Indian Administration: A History of "Indian Affairs" in British Columbia, 1945-1969."

Jason Zorbas, "Diefenbaker, Latin America and the Caribbean: The Pursuit of Canadian Autonomy."

Please see the department website for further details.

Congratulations are in order for Dr. Jon Anuik. Besides being a newly minted History PhD (Spring 2009), he was hired just last week to a two-year limited term appointment in Canadian History and Interdisciplinary Studies at Lakehead University. But let us not stop the list of his successes there: Dr. Anuik's research was featured in July's edition of On Campus News. Well done all around, Jon.

Dr. Anuik will be teaching at Lakehead's Orillia campus, so we look forward to hearing dispatches from "smallish" town Ontario and wish him well as he embarks on his first year of full time teaching!

JURIST, the University of Pittsburgh Law School's Web-based forum for legal news and research, invited our department's very own Pam Jordan to write a piece on prospects for legal reform in Russia. She finds that, so far in Dmitry Medvedev's presidency (since May 2008), "it remains unclear whether he truly supports full governmental transparency and accountability or encourages reforms that would check the power of the Kremlin, two necessary ingredients for legal reform." For the full text, posted this month, please see the following link:
http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/forumy/2009/07/strong-arm-rule-or-rule-of-law.php .