Virility and the Psychology of the Crowd in Anti-Fascism

Mark Meyers will be giving a public lecture for the Association Francophone pour le Savoir on « La virilité et la psychologie des foules dans l’antifascisme de Georges Bataille des années 30».

Date: Wednesday, 5 December
Time: 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.
Place: Arts 108

Entrance is free and a reception will follow.

For more information or to register, please contact:
Éléonore Daniel-Vaugeois, 966-7943 or eleonore.daniel@usask.ca .

EDITOR'S UPDATE DEC. 5 : This event is being rescheduled for January instead. Details will follow.

Three Cheers for our Alumnae!

Wonderful news from two alumnae this November.

Amanda Shea  (B.A. History Hons., 2012) was awarded the North American Conference on British Studies Undergraduate Essay Prize for her essay, "The Ramblings of a Madman: Narratives of Mental Suffering in Early Modern England". She wrote this excellent essay, discussing the significance of losing language and expressing one's suffering, for "The History of Pain" (History 481), taught by Lisa Smith.

Melanie Racette-Campbell (MA, CMRS, 2007) has just successfully defended her PhD thesis in Classics at the University of Toronto. The title of her thesis is “The Construction of Masculinity in Propertius” and her wider research interests are gender and poetry in the classical world. Besides submitting and defending her thesis this autumn, she has been keeping busy teaching two courses and doing the occasional bit of blogging. I imagine that she's now looking forward to using her own new title of 'Dr.' very soon.

Congratulations and huzzahs all around!

The Chilkoot Trail: Then and Now

On November 15, the Saskatoon Nature Society hosted their November monthly meeting (open to all) on campus in the Biology Lecture Theatre, near the big dinosaurs.

This month's speaker was Bill Waiser, invited for his expertise in western and northern Canadian history, who spoke on "The Chilkoot Trail: Then and Now". In addition to discussing the historical significance of this famous trail, he mentioned what hikers can experience on the trail today.

After a Q and A, homemade cookies, tea and coffee were provided, along with a chance to meet fellow nature-lovers.

A good time was had by all--including the dinosaurs listening from outside the theatre.

Pharaohs & Flappers

Applying to Grad School Workshop

Thinking of Applying to Graduate School in History? Come to this information session for U of S senior undergraduate students in history!

Date: Thursday, November 15
Time: 4:30-5:45 p.m.
Place: Arts 710

RSVP by November 13
to angela.kalinowski@usask.ca and ingrid.mcgregor@usask.ca

Program

4:30 – 4:40 Welcome and Introductory Remarks

(Dr. Angela Kalinowski, Undergraduate Chair)

4:40 – 4:55

Should I do an MA? A student’s view from the trenches.

(Ms. Madeleine Peckham, MA candidate)

4:55 – 5:15

U of S History MA: what’s the program about?

(Dr. Matthew Neufeld, Graduate Chair)

5:15 – 5:30

Applying to Graduate School in the USA

(Dr. Katie Labelle, Term Lecturer)

5:30 – 5:45

Elements of the Application and Doing the Groundwork

(Dr. Angela Kalinowski, Undergraduate Chair)

Sponsored by the University of Saskatchewan History Department

How about a film? A Saskatchewan film!

Attention lovers of film and/or Saskatchewan! Have you heard about the film series on Saskatchewan films being hosted by Broadway Theatre and the Interdisciplinary Centre for Culture and Creativity?

The next film is Billy Bishop Goes to War. This feature film was inspired by the life of the legendary WWI flying ace from Owen Sound. Canadian acting legend Eric Peterson and award-winning writer/composer John Gray reprise their iconic two-man stage play that has captivated audiences for over three decades.

There will be a post-film discussion with a panel (including the broadcaster and author Ted Barris).

Date: Wednesday, November 14
Time: 7 p.m. (Doors open at 6:30.)
Admission: $7 (regular), $5 (seniors, students, Legion members)
Please come, bring a friend, and be part of the post-film discussion!

History in the News!

In case you didn't spot it last week... History Ph.D. student, Victoria Lamb Drover, was featured in a StarPhoenix article.

To learn more about Vickie's exciting research on ParticipAction, you can read the article here:  

http://www.thestarphoenix.com/health/Humour+media+savvy+ParticipAction+success/7461991/story.html

Just do it!

Two Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog)?

History major Matt Kerr went paddling with Bill Waiser on the South Saskatchewan River on the Thanksgiving weekend. Matt had successfully bid for the canoe trip at the annual HGSC Book Pub fundraiser.

Meet the Profs Night!

HUSA and Comitatus present...

The CMRS and History
Meet the Profs Night

Date: Thursday, October 11th
Time: 4:00 p.m.
Place: Museum of Antiquities, 106 MacKinnon Building

Meet your profs and enjoy delicious food!

SSHRC Graduate Scholarship Workshop

The Department of History is hosting a workshop for history students applying for M.A. or Ph.D. SSHRC grants.

Date: Friday, September 28
Time: 2:30 to 4:30 pm
Place: Arts 710

The speakers inlcude:

• Dr Matthew Neufeld: Qualifications and Important Dates
• Dr Lisa Smith: How Does a Doctoral Fellowships Committee Think?
• Dr Keith Carlson: How Does a SSHRC Review Committee Think?
• Dr Katie Labelle: Elements of a Successful PhD Application
• Ms Claire Thomson: Elements of a Successful MA Application

Please contact Matthew Neufeld, Director of Graduate Studies, if you have any questions (Arts 621; matthew.neufeld@usask.ca)

Demystifying the Academic Job Application

HGSA has organised a workshop on demystifying the academic job application. Topics include:

• Decoding Job Postings; 
• The Application; 
• The Teaching Portfolio;
• and Perspectives from Recent Hires and Hiring Committee Members.

Date: Friday, September 21
Time: 3:00-5:00 p.m.
Place: Graduate Student Commons

Coffee & Snacks Provided
Informal Discussion to Follow at Louis Pub

For more information contact Mandy Fehr (mandy.fehr@usask.ca) or Michael Kirkpatrick
(kirpak@hotmail.com)

Special Thanks to The History Department, Professor Erika Dyck (CRC in the History of Medicine) and
Dr. Matthew Neufeld and the Graduate Committee for sponsoring this workshop.

Book Launch Tonight

Congratulations to Lesley Biggs, one of the editors of Listening Up, Writing Down, and Looking Beyond and Gendered Intersections, 2^nd Ed.

The book is being launched TONIGHT!

Date: Tuesday, September 18^th at 7:00 p.m.

Location: McNally Robinson – Travel Alcove

For more information, see the following URL for information on this book launch: http://artsandsciencelists.usask.ca/attachments/6184/Roy_Gingell_Biggs_invitation.pdf

Summer in the City, Oh the Humidity

By Frances Reilly, Ph.D. Student

Summer in Montreal is hot. The cicadas’ electric buzz was broken only at night by the soft chirp of crickets in the garden across from the apartment where I sat for months, reaming through old RCMP surveillance files. But the process of writing and research, a predominantly sedentary activity interrupted occasionally by revelation, requires rewards and so my otherwise deskbound existence was broken up by historical tourism.

Battle Fields Park, Québec

Among the various sights in Montreal are the remains of Expo ’67, one of the many events celebrating Canada’s Centennial. Visible from Montreal’s Old Port on the St Lawrence is the Île St. Hélène the site of the Expo Pavilions, one of the more iconic structures being the American Pavilion or the Biosphere.

Osheaga Music Festival, Montreal

The city of Québec is a three hour bus ride from Montreal. As many Canadians are aware, 1759’s epic 20 minute battle between the French and the English took place outside of the city. The Plains of Abraham Battlefield now contains the classic historical monuments, along with a Museum of Fine Arts and a green space for community activities like Saturday morning Pilates.

Musée National des Beaux-arts du Québec

Most of my activity however took place at home and as I sorted through last summer’s research I could hear the student demonstrations parading through the downtown streets outside. Printemps Érable, a clever play on the French for “Arab Spring,” began in the winter semester. By May the demonstrations extended to address the right to protest in addition to questioning the current trends of education’s commodification. These concerns have been compounded by local politics and police surveillance, the latter having several parallels to my research on RCMP profiles of communist subversives and the construction of a Cold War enemy. The summer events provided the delicious reminder that historical research is indeed relevant to contemporary concerns.

22 August Student Demonstration, Montreal 

London 2012: A Research Trip in an Olympic Year

By Jason Underhill (Ph.D. student)

The Olympic Stadium

 They all said I was crazy embarking on a research trip to London during the Olympics. “It will be impossible to get around!” they cried. “You’ll never get any research done during the Olympics” others warned. I am happy to report that the naysayers were absolutely wrong.* I went to London this summer looking for alchemical recipes and returned with enough material for my dissertation, a 100 level history course, and a 300 level chemistry course.

The British Library

I love the British Library. I think it’s one of my favourite buildings in the world. It’s one of the few places where, just by entering, you stand upon the steps of tomorrow. A place in which something innovative is always being developed that will take the world by surprise. Contained within the holdings of the library, however, are manuscripts that allow you to sink into the past and discover all the plans and schemes that have led to the dreams of all mankind.

Letter from William Medley to Lord Burleigh, process for transmuting iron into copper (1572)

The staff at the library were exceptional even during a time when the library was overrun with a combination of tourists, scholars, and literary fanatics visiting the “Writing Britain” exhibit. I was able to finish my research in only two days and obtain copies of the five recipes I needed, plus a few letters that I'd missed last year.

The first of these recipes was one that detailed the process by which Edward Kelley (John Dee’s skryer) coated copper with silver in such a way that it would convince all those watching that it had been transmuted. The second is the process that William Medley used to supposedly transmute iron into copper, copperas and alum. This recipe would form the foundation of the Society of the New Art which attracted many prominent Elizabethan nobles including secretary of state Thomas Smith, Lord High Treasurer William Cecil, the queen’s favourite Robert Dudley, the poet Edward Dyer, the Countess of Pembroke Mary Sidney Herbert and her husband and brother. The final recipes were by Raymond Lully and detailed ways in which to manipulate lead, antimony, silver, mercury and other metals to become potent medical treatments for various diseases.

These will be used for my dissertation, as part of a potential publication--and my joint project with the Chemistry Department this term: to test alchemical recipes in theory, which may lead to practical tests of these recipes in the future.

That, of course, was not the end of my work. Knowing that I would be teaching History 110 this fall I visited the British Museum to take advantage of their Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Greek, Chinese and Roman exhibits.

                      

At the British Museum

I look forward to using images like these in my teaching when we examine ancient art and architecture. Of course, my experiences at the London 2012 Olympics will also be used to lecture on the Ancient Greek games. In all, this turned out to be one of my most promising and productive summers yet despite all of the doom and gloom forecasts for London 2012!

* The editor, having spent the summer in London, agrees with Jason. The centre of London was very quiet--and reading rooms at various libraries, nearly empty.

Research Tales: Remembering That You're Not in Charge

By Sarah York (M.A. student)

When I started research for my thesis three months ago, I was mistaken. I believed I was in charge. The truth is I’m only partly in charge.

It first struck me while I was speaking with a librarian on the telephone. I was trying to arrange a date to visit his library’s archive when he explained, “We’re a small library with only a handful of staff. Since it is the summer most of our staff is away on holidays. You can try to come do research but I can’t guarantee anyone will be able to retrieve anything for you.” Since this library is in a community several hours away, I was not going to show up and hope someone could help me.

I watched helplessly as the days I planned to do ‘out-of-town’ research passed by. I kept myself busy reading newspapers on microfilm and visiting local archives. But then I hit a roadblock. I was running out of sources and I did not know where to look for new ones.

My supervisor suggested I e-mail James Gray’s daughter, Patricia Fennell. James Gray’s book Red Lights on the Prairies is the first investigation of the early sex trade in Canada’s Prairie Provinces. I coveted Gray’s sources. Not only did he use newspaper articles and police reports, he had access to first-hand accounts of the early sex trade – sources that were impossible for me to acquire today. I learned from Patricia that Gray had destroyed these accounts to protect his informants. However, Patricia’s husband, Bill Fennell, had some information he wanted to share with me.

Bill is the great-nephew of Walter Johnson, a name I immediately recognized. Johnson was the Police Chief and subsequent mayor of Moose Jaw during my period of study. Bill wrote:

When he [Johnson] was Police Chief, he used to park his vehicle in front of the Police Station with one of the windows rolled down a bit. Every Friday afternoon, weather permitting, the Ladies of the Night would stroll by and, somehow, they would drop a few envelopes into Chief Johnson's vehicle through the window, containing their political contributions to his cause.

Moose Jaw’s sex trade workers wanted to see Johnson become Mayor.

Bill’s family history was the human element I was searching for. But I came across it in an unexpected and serendipitous way. Our e-mail ‘conversation’ showed me again how much I am not in charge. I’ve learned to cope with this disconcerting fact by surrendering to it and by recognizing that sometimes relying on other people isn’t so bad.

Public Lecture: Baseball and Race in Canada

Baseball fan? Interested in race? Canadian history buff? Then mark your calendars now for John Herd Thompson's (History, Duke University) lecture “Baseball and Race in Canada: The Case of Jackie Robinson”. 

Discussing the intersections of sport and race in Canada from the late 19th Century through the 1940s, Thompson will focus on baseball and Robinson's year in Montréal to consider changing conceptions of "race" in the city, the province, and in Canada. He will consider Canada's role in creating, maintaining, and (eventually) breaking Organized Baseball's "color line" during Jackie Robinson's year with the Montréal Royals from October 1945 until the end of the 1946 International League season. 

Date: Monday, September 24, 2012 

Time: 7:30 pm 

Place: Arts 241 (Neatby-Timlin Theatre)  

For more information, please contact Bill Waiser (bill.waiser@usask.ca). 

The lecture is sponsored by the Interdisciplinary Centre for Culture and Creativity and the Department of History. 

History Slam! With Vickie Lamb Drover

Back in May, we heard news that Vickie was interviewed by The National Post . But her fame continues! Check out her fun "History Slam" interview at Active History for revelations about the personal lives of Body Break people, the problems of doing academic history, the pleasures of her research -- and so much more!


(And if you're looking for some summer diversion, Active History has lots of other posts and podcasts, ranging from "Historical Fiction as a Gateway Drug" to clothing history and happiness in the past...)

It's that SSHRC time of year!

Congratulations to Mark Geldof (alumnus), Jason Grier, Jennifer Jozic, Claire Thompson, and Sarah York! They recently learned that they were successful in the graduate funding competitions for SSHRC (Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada). 

Back in August 2011, Mark Geldof defended his M.A. thesis on late-medieval and early-modern English works of martial instruction (supervisor: Sharon Wright). He will start a DPhil at Oxford (Merton College) in the autumn, studying the changing attitudes towards violence and the value of prowess amongst fifteenth and sixteenth century English elites and gentry. This past May, Mark presented a paper at the 47th International Congress on Medieval Studies on "It's Not Over Until it's Overkill: Mixed Messages from the Archaeology of Violence."

In his M.A. thesis, Jason Grier analyses a scientific dispute between Newton and Robert Hooke during the 1670s ("Hypothesis non fingo: Isaac Newton's Literary Technology", supervisor: Larry Stewart). His case study reveals the process by which scientific authority and credibility was constructed in early modern natural philosophy. Jason's SSHRC grant is for his doctoral research at York University where he will examine the means by which 'science' came to be seen as an objective authority and tool for hegemony in eighteenth-century Britain.

Jennifer Jozic is writing her Ph.D. dissertation (supervisor: Bill Waiser) on "Data-mining the Legacy of Natural History on the Northern Great Plains". Her dissertation looks at nineteent-century collections of plants, birds, and animals to measure temporal and geographic change in diversity. She is using statistical and modelling work to analyse the  climatic cycles, changes in flora and fauna populations, human migration paths, and land use methods in the Missouri Coteau. These results will be compared with existing narratives, emphasizing concurrent landscape use by aboriginal groups. The interaction between naturalists, government, universities, museums, and herbaria will be emphasized.

Claire Thomson's M.A. research will consider the history of the Lakota people at Wood Mountain, Saskatchewan, with a focus on the Lakota women. Her supervisor is Jim Miller.

Sarah York is writing her M.A. thesis on the social responses to and histories of Saskatchewan's early sex trade in Moose Jaw, Regina, Prince Albert, and Saskatoon, 1885-1930. Her supervisor is Bill Waiser.

Exciting--and diverse--research topics all around! Best of luck to all of you, whether you'll be staying with us or continuing your studies elsewhere!

Faculty Successes!

Congratulations to both Jim Miller and Keith Carlson who have recently been recognized at national and institutional levels!

Jim Miller is a Queen's Diamond Jubliee Medal Recipient.  The medals were given to the past presidents of the Canadian Historical Association to recognise their significant contributions to the study of history in Canada and commitment to the CHA.  Thank you, Jim, for your scholarship and service!

Keith Thor Carlson received a Distinguished New Researcher Award at the University of Saskatchewan Spring Convocation. This award recognises Keith's contributions to scholarship, professional and university service, and graduate teaching. An excellent all-rounder!

Keith Thor Carlson also received a CHA prize for Best Article or Book Chapter on Aboriginal History (2012).  “Orality about Literacy: The ‘Black and White’ of Salish History,” in Keith Thor Carlson, Kristina Fagan, and Natalia Khanenko-Friesen, eds., Orality and Literacy: Reflections across Disciplines (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2011). And this was just the sprinkles on the ice cream...
 

Directions West Conference News

Valerie Korinek reports that twelve U of S students and faculty presented at the Third Annual Directions West Conference at the University of Calgary.


Jon Clapperton spoke "Unmaking a hunter's paradise: Rocky Mountains Park, the Stoney Nakoda, and Game Conservation" as part of the closing plenary session (which also featured Dr. Merle Massie, currently a post doctoral fellow at SENS at the U of S, and former History grad), Jon was awarded the NiCHE award for the best graduate or postdoctoral paper on environmental history presented at this conference.  


This is super news! And as Valerie notes, "Fantastic to see the U of S students do so well, and, naturally, see Jon's work awarded this distinction."

ParticipACTION

The days of ParticipACTION and Body Break will sound familiar to many readers, as a fond (or perhaps not so fond) memory. Turns out, it was a distinctly Canadian movement, as Vickie Lamb Drover (supervisor: Valerie Korinek) has been finding. Her doctoral research was recently profiled in The National Post ("The cure for national disunity: chinups and sneaker days"). You should read it.

And until then, keep fit and have fun!

With sadness

The department announces the death of Peter Burnell, whom many of you will know. The following is a tribute to Peter given by Frank Klaassen before the University Council.

I am here today to celebrate the life of my friend and colleague, Peter Burnell who died of cancer on the 7th of May, 2012.

Peter was born and raised in Cardiff, Wales. He took his BA and MA degrees at the University of Wales before coming to do a PhD in Classics at the University of Toronto in 1969. He taught at several universities in Canada and the United States before joining the Department of Classics here in 1983. He served as Department Head from 1994 until 2000. Subsequently, he moved to the Department of History where he was Full Professor until the time of his death. He was an internationally respected scholar; he wrote articles on classical literature and theology, and two books on St. Augustine, the second of which was written while he lived with cancer.

Raised on the classics from boyhood, Greek and Latin literature flowed in his veins in a way that they do for few modern intellectuals, and I never ceased to learn from him. When I asked for his assistance with translations, Peter’s suggestions were like epiphanies: unadorned yet poetic and elegant witnesses to the original texts. As a teacher, Peter was demanding, but this was wound inextricably with his charm, pointed humour, and his deep commitment to the humanistic enterprise.

In first-year Latin, Peter would routinely begin by putting a few English sentences on the board for the students to translate into Latin. One day a student raised his hand to ask a point of vocabulary: 

“Professor Burnell, what is the Latin word for “toga”?

Without hesitating Peter responded “Hmmm. What is the French for “Je ne sais pas?” He then went on to explain kindly that the Latin word for “toga” is “toga.”

Peter was a true intellectual and humanist. He had an insatiable, wide-ranging curiosity and a great moral passion. One colleague quoted F. Scott Fitzgerald in reference to him: “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.” The coincidence of many sorts of opposites were somehow resolved in Peter’s mind. He was at once a devout Catholic dismayed by modern innovation (by which Peter sometimes meant medieval ones) and a great interpreter and student of St. Augustine. At the same time, he was profoundly engaged by popular culture. He valued truth wherever he found it, whether in The City of God, or David Lynch’s Eraserhead, Virgil’s poetry or South Park. 

And it was with infectious delight that he would leap from the miles gloriosus of classical literature to Flash of the Black Adder television series. Another colleague remarked that at times Peter reminded him of Woodehouse’s Bertie Wooster, not for the latters silliness or inanities, but rather for his boyish innocence: “his utterly charming enthusiasm for, and delight in, things.”

Peter’s many friends were his family, and in those relationships he also embraced remarkable differences. Among the closest of these were those with whom he fundamentally, sometimes tumultuously disagreed on the most basic issues, whether intellectual or professional.  This speaks to his honesty, his intellectual passion and depth of conviction every bit as much as it speaks to his essential courtesy and civility, his fundamental good will, and ultimately, his capacity for love. These and friendship were, for Peter, inseparably wound up with the life of the mind. 

I ask you to join me in a moment of silence to remember and celebrate the life of Professor Peter Burnell.

(Substantial portions of this were drawn from the suggestions of John Porter and Bill Bartley.)

Happy News

This just in from the proud grandpapa himself...

Chris Kent and Mary Marino are thrilled to (belatedly) announce on behalf of her parents, Andrew and Leslie, the birth of a grand daughter, Lily Jane Elizabeth Kent, on February 23, 2012.

Happy news, indeed!

If you're in Waterloo on May 29th...

The presentation of Jim Miller's Queen's Diamond Jubilee Medal by the Canadian Historical Association will be held on Tuesday, May 29th. If you are going to be at Congress at that time (or will be in Waterloo for any other reason), please come out to congratulate Jim.

Time: 6:30 pm.

Place: Mathematics 3 Building, Room 106  (University of Waterloo) 

A Supernatural Trip

In History 333 ("Defining Boundaries: Natural and Supernatural Worlds in Early Modern Europe"), we studied all sorts of strange and fascinating supernatural creatures (like vampires) and curious happenings (such as a woman giving birth to rabbits). Despite our focus on early modern Europe, we took a field trip to the Museum of Antiquities on campus, where Director Dr. Tracene Harvey gave us a private tour. Our goal: to think about the continuities and differences in supernatural beliefs over time.

History 333 Students, with Tracene Harvey and her assistant Carla Watson at the front
 and the Rain Miracle god behind.

Dr. Harvey began by introducing us to the Assyrian god Pazuzu (the forerunner of the Devil) and his wife Lamashtu (who appears as a donkey on the Hell Plaque). We then moved to Egypt to look at the protective sphinx who would kill you if you couldn't answer riddles, the false tomb door to allow easy passage between the worlds, and the small faience charms to ensure safe passage after death. Next stop was the Rain Miracle Scene that commemorated Marcus Aurelius' defeat of barbarian tribes with the aid of timely rain sent by a god. Not surprisingly, pagan and Christian accounts differ on which god was involved. We rounded off the visit by looking at medieval gargoyles. Then we returned to our classroom to discuss beliefs about the devil and possession in early modern England, Netherlands, and Spain.

What struck the class is the continuance of certain practices and images over time: the use of charms to ward off sickness or evil and the persistent belief in half-human and half-animal creatures with supernatural powers. There were some changes, though. Pazuzu, for example, was a neutral deity for the Assyrians, although his appearance was co-opted in the later Christian ideas of Satan. The rain miracle reveals the differing interpretations of events by competing groups (much as possession was by sixteenth-century Protestants and Catholics).

Each week, two questions haunted our course:

• Why did certain supernatural explanations make sense more during different periods, and how did they shape peoples' experiences? 
• Why was there a growing rejection of supernatural beliefs during the late-seventeenth and eighteenth centuries by the educated elite who had previously believed?

At the start of the sixteenth century, a cultural shift away from the supernatural world was unimaginable. At the end of the eighteenth century, by contrast, supernatural entities such as ghosts and vampires were considered mere figments of disordered imaginations (at least by the educated elite).

Arguably, there never was a complete change, given the continued modern beliefs in ghosts. But perhaps this is to be expected. The move away from supernatural beliefs in the eighteenth century is, after all, relatively recent in the wider historical frame. As our visit to the Museum highlighted, the idea of supernatural entities regularly interacting with humans and the natural world has a long and fascinating history.

The Museum of Antiquities is open Monday to Friday, 9:00-4:00, but public tours and additional opening hours can be arranged.

Finding a Way to the Heart

The University of Manitoba Press is hosting a book launch for Finding a Way to the Heart: Feminist Writings on Aboriginal and Women’s History in Canada, edited by Robin Jarvis Brownlie and Valerie J. Korinek.

The book is a "Provocative examinations of race, gender, and identity from fourteen new and established writers." Books will be available for purchase at the launch, although you can pre-order them from McnallyRobinson.com.

Date: Tuesday, May 8, 2012
Time: 7:00 pm
Place: Travel Alcove, McNally Robinson Booksellers
(3130 8th Street East, Saskatoon)

Light refreshments will be served.

Please RSVP to miki@cc.umanitoba.ca

Blue Sky Thinking on Shelterbelts

Ph.D. student Andrew Dunlop (supervisor: Geoff Cunfer) was recently interviewed on the CBC’s Blue Sky program about his master’s research related to the history of shelterbelts in the prairies. To listen to the 10 minute interview, clicking on the Audio button half way down the page:

www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/story/2012/04/12/sk-agriculture-cuts.html

The interview is part of a larger news story about the Canadian government’s recent decision to close the shelterbelt centre at Indian Head after nearly 120 years of operation.