The history of Vietnam lies in this bowl, for it is in Hanoi, the Vietnamese heart, that pho was born, a combination of the rice noodles that predominated after a thousand years of Chinese occupation and the taste for beef the Vietnamese acquired under the French, who turned their cows away from ploughs and into bifteck and pot-au-feu.��The name of their national soup is pronounced like this French word for fire, as Hung’s Uncle Chien explained to him long ago…��

from The Beauty of Humanity Movement
by Camilla Gibb

While most people come home from vacations with inspiring photographs, writers often return with the inspiration for their next novel.��This is what happened to Camilla Gibb (right)��when she traveled to North Vietnam for a much-needed holiday. The result was The Beauty of Humanity Movement, a novel that was on the short list for the Giller Award.��Gibb recently shared her thoughts on this book and the writing experience at the Canadian Writers in Person series.

Gibb��said she��was initially "blown away" by the youth culture of Vietnam.��Her first point of contact was a young man named Phuong who became her tour guide and friend.��In some ways, she said,��he was not much different than a North American person in his mid-20s: he wore Nikes, watched MTV, and was up to date on Western pop culture.��Unlike those of previous generations, he had grown up with a different frame of reference, one based not on war but on consumer desire and entrepreneurial spirit.��As one of her characters states, "we’re not looking for forgiveness, we’re looking for a way forward."

Gibb said that Phuong was nonetheless aware that many Western visitors come with expectations based on the war of��40 years ago.��As a tour guide, he had to take the resulting feelings of guilt and discomfort and make his guests feel at ease.��In fact, Vietnam has a thriving war tour industry, where one can visit old battlegrounds, fire an old Kalashnikov rifle, or even crawl through the same tunnels the Vietnamese soldiers had used.��Gibb recounted to students with some amusement that the tunnels are not exactly the same because they have since been widened to accommodate the North American posterior.

When Gibb began to write her novel, she deliberately didn’t make it about the war: "When you set aside the war, you realize you know nothing. I wanted to start from nothing because then opportunities for other stories open up,"��she said. One of these stories is about Hung, an elderly pho-maker who bridges the gap between the present and the past.��Through his eyes, the reader experiences the vibrant cafe culture of 1950's Hanoi where artists and intellectuals discussed art and politics.��Because of the lack of resource material, Gibb found herself liberated to explore and imagine how this world was rendered.����

Gibb nonetheless had to do some research on the traumatizing land reforms that affected village life in North Vietnam.��She did this because she said that she��"needed Hung to go back, to witness the aftermath.��Otherwise, it would read like a news story and I needed to personalize the history and politics by putting him there."��By doing this, the reader also feels the impact and the story is not felt from the "top down but from character out."

The story has a reasonably happy ending as does the real-life friendship between Gibb and her tour guide Phuong who became the template for a similar character in her book.��As he consulted on the details of her novel, she helped him fulfill his dream of opening his own family pho restaurant.��When he had his first child, he asked Gibb for an English name and he likewise offered a Gibb a Vietnamese name when her child was born, cementing the link between their two cultures.

Through this friendship and the process of writing her novel, Viet Nam became for Gibb��“a country I love.��I can’t claim to know it or its history but I know the characters very well, my ultimate defense as a novelist.��They feel very, very real to me.��Hung in particular is a man I love.��I hope he’s still there, doing what he does, and serving pho.��He feels like everyman to me, every man who has a right to have a story.”

The Canadian Writers in Person series of public readings at 91��ɫ, which are free and open to the public, is also part of an introductory course on Canadian literature. It is sponsored in part by the Canada Council for the Arts.��Readings take place on Tuesdays at 7pm in Room 206 of the Accolade West Building.��On Feb. 7, poet and author Sheniz Janmohamed will read from her first book Bleeding Light (TSAR Publications, 2010).

For more information and a detailed schedule, visit the Canadian Writers in Person website.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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�ٳܲԱ��DZ�’s Home, Roses, Hauntings and Smith-McGregor’s The Infinity Pool are both vying for top spot in the non-fiction category, along with 24 other finalists. In the poetry category, Smith-McGregor’s Body Temperature is competing against 23 others. The third category in the contest is for short stories.

Right: Kilby Smith-McGregor. Photo by Laura Jane Petelko

Last year, Smith-McGregor won the Writers’ Trust of Canada (see YFile, July 23, 2010), for writers under 35 who have yet to be published in book form. Her work has appeared in Brick, A Literary Journal, the Dublin Quarterly International Literary Review and The Cyclops Review.

She won the Tarragon Theatre’s inaugural , and while at 91��ɫ, the President’s Creative Writing Award for Poetry and the Sylvia Ellen Hersch Memorial Award, both in 2009, and the Sorbara Award in Creative Writing in 2008.

Left: Rishma Dunlop

A finalist for the CBC Literary Awards in 1998 and again in 2009, and winner of the Emily Dickinson Prize for Poetry in 2003, is a poet, playwright, translator and essayist. She has several poetry collections, including Metropolis (Mansfield Press, 2005), Reading Like A Girl (Black Moss Press, 2004) and The Body of My Garden (Mansfield Press, 2002). White Album (Inanna Publications, 2008) combines �ٳܲԱ��DZ�’s poems with paintings by Suzanne Northcott. Her radio play, The Raj Kumari's Lullaby, was commissioned by CBC Radio in 2005.

Coordinator of 91��ɫ's Creative Writing Program, Dunlop was also the 2009-2010 Canada-U.S. Fulbright Research Chair in Creative Writing at the Virginia Piper Center for Creative Writing at Arizona State University.

The CBC Literary Awards short list of finalists in each category will be announced next Monday, Feb. 28, with the final winners announced by Shelagh Rogers March 24, on CBC Radio One’s "Q", hosted by Jian Ghomeshi.

The first place winner in each of the three categories will come away $6,000 richer, while the second place winner will take home $4,000, courtesy of the Canada Council for the Arts.

To view the complete list of finalists, visit the website.

Republished courtesy of YFile – 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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Two 91��ɫ-led industry-academic partnerships have received a total of $1,237,136 through the 's (NSERC) Strategic Projects Grants program.

Sergey Krylov, professor in the Faculty of Science��& Engineering and Canada Research Chair in Bioanalytical Chemistry, has received $773,200 over three years to explore new therapies to treat metastatic cancers��– secondary tumors that originate from a malignant primary tumor and subsequently invade different organs.

Right: Sergey Krylov

Laurie Wilcox, associate professor in the Faculty of Health’s Department of Psychology, is co-principal investigator on Depth in Motion with Ali Kazimi, associate professor in the Faculty of Fine Arts’ Department of Film. Theirs will be the first research project to rigorously assess human responses to moving content in stereoscopic 3D film (S3D), while challenging current practices and intuitions filmmakers have garnered through 2D and static 3D experience. The grant is provided through a collaborative initiative between NSERC and the ; NSERC has provided $286,836 while the Canada Council has provided $177,100 for a cumulative three-year total of $463,936.

Left: Laurie Wilcox

Krylov has partnered with , whose Canadian offices are based in Concord, Ontario, to create personalized diagnoses and therapy monitoring for metastatic cancers. Current difficulties in detecting and eradicating these tumors significantly contribute to cancer mortality rates; therapies that are efficient for one patient often do not work for others. Their research uses "aptamers"��– short DNA strands capable of selectively binding molecules on cell surfaces�� to serve as tracers for metastatic cancer tumors and, potentially, as vehicles to deliver drugs to metastatic cells.

Wilcox and Kazimi will collaborate with , associate professor in the Faculty of Science & Engineering’s Department of Computer Science & Engineering and member of the , to create an independent S3D film installation based on a piece of dance choreography and presented in both a large-scale S3D projection format and on multiple S3D displays. Audience members will move through a gallery space and choose to view the large-scale screen or one of the alternative displays containing different motion in depth sequences. The project will evaluate movement’s effect through depth on observer preferences, determine if these preferences are contingent on the nature of the movement, and determine if pacing differences exist between 2D and S3D film content.

Right: Ali Kazemi

Jim Mirkopolos, vice-president of operations for Toronto-based , is the project’s industry collaborator; Cinespace's Kleinburg studios are providing space to set up and test the installation later in the project.

“These projects build on 91��ɫ’s expanding expertise in digital media and life science research, and our value-added industry-academic partnerships,” said Stan Shapson, vice-president Research & Innovation. “Depth in Motion is a natural next step in the 3D film research 91��ɫ began through the in partnership with Toronto-based industry leaders, and demonstrates the innovation unleashed when the creative arts and science converge. Professor Krylov’s work with in 91��ɫ Region has a six-year history that involves two past successful collaborations and will further contribute 91��ɫ’s scientific expertise to the region’s growing and vibrant biotech sector.”

91��ɫ’s projects were among 120 chosen to receive a total of $55 million in funding under��NSERC’s Strategic Project Grants program, which aims to turn the results of academic research into real benefits for Canadians.

The announcement was made by��Gary Goodyear, minister of state (Science��& Technology) in Waterloo, Ontario. “Supporting science and research is critical to Canada’s future economic growth,” said Goodyear. “This investment will bring together 100 teams of some of the world’s top researchers to work with industry on promising new projects that will help strengthen our economy, create jobs and bring other benefits to communities.”

“These Strategic Project Grants show that the NSERC community has risen to the challenge and is putting the federal S&T strategy to work,” said NSERC President Suzanne Fortier. “We received a high number of quality submissions, and the peer review committees were impressed with the research teams’ excellence, their proposals’ importance and potential impact, and the strong support from partners.”

For a complete list of NSERC recipients, visit the website.

By Elizabeth Monier-Williams, research communications officer.

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Bialystok, a Distinguished Research Professor in 91��ɫ’s Department of Psychology in the Faculty of Health, is known internationally for her research on language, bilingualism and cognitive development. The award was announced in April by the Canada Council for the Arts, which administers the .

One of the most important research prizes in the world, the Killam Prize is awarded annually to five eminent Canadian scholars for their distinction in health sciences, engineering, humanities, natural sciences and social sciences. Bialystok is being recognized for her work in the social sciences category.

Right: Ellen Bialystok

The first in her field to research claims of cognitive deficits in bilingual children, Bialystok discovered that bilingual children and adults have distinct advantages over unilingual people when completing both linguistic and non-linguistic tasks. Her research is now revealing that this advantage continues for bilingual people as they age; she is part of a team of Canadian researchers who recently uncovered that bilingualism can delay the onset of Alzheimer’s by up to five years.

Bialystok has also been recognized by the international linguistics community for her body of work on theories of language processing and on practical issues related to foreign and second-language education.

When the prize was announced, 91��ɫ President & Vice-Chancellor Mamdouh Shoukri remarked that the Killam Prize “recognizes Professor Bialystok’s groundbreaking contributions to psychology and confirms the international excellence of her achievements. Her success contributes to the growing national and international leadership of 91��ɫ’s faculty in health-related research as they respond to medical, social and environmental challenges facing Canadians and people around the world.”

Bialystok was awarded a Killam Research Fellowship in 2001 and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. In November 2009, she received the 91��ɫ President’s Research Award of Merit in recognition of her research contributions.

Faculty of Health Dean Harvey Skinner commented that Bialystok’s work is changing our understanding of language acquisition and literacy, as well as cognition and aging, by using both behaviour and neuroimaging approaches. “Her research, and the collaborative research of many other faculty researching developmental and cognitive processes, reflects the Faculty’s goals of innovative research that helps keep more people healthier, longer.”

The Killam Prizes were inaugurated in 1981 with a donation by Dorothy��J.��Killam in memory of her husband, Izaak Walton Killam. The prizes were created to honour eminent Canadian scholars and scientists actively engaged in research, whether in industry, government agencies or universities.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin

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Bialystok, a Distinguished Research Professor in 91��ɫ’s Department of Psychology, Faculty of Health, is known internationally for her research on language, bilingualism and cognitive development. She received the award from the , which administers the .

One of the most important research prizes in the world, the $100,000 Killam Prize is annually awarded to five eminent Canadian scholars for their distinction in health sciences, engineering, humanities, natural sciences and social sciences. Bialystok was recognized for her work in the social sciences category. Bialystok is the only woman to be recognized this year.

The full announcement and event details are available on the .

By Elizabeth Monier-Williams, research communications officer.

The post Professor Ellen Bialystok to receive Killam Prize in Ottawa December 14 appeared first on Research & Innovation.

Bialystok, a Distinguished Research Professor in 91��ɫ’s Department of Psychology, Faculty of Health, is known internationally for her research on language, bilingualism and cognitive development. She received the award April 13 from the , which administers the .

The clip is and runs for approximately seven minutes.

Posted by Elizabeth Monier-Williams, research communications officer, with files courtesy of 91��ɫ's Media Relations Department.

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