The screening will take place Wednesday, March 21 at 280N 91ŃÇÉ« Lanes, Keele campus. A light lunch will be served starting at 12:30pm with the film beginning at 1pm. It’s free and open to the entire 91ŃÇÉ« community.

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is an award-winning film that challenges viewers to re-examine how they think about race. The film follows youth leader and motivational speaker Anthony McLean as he runs a groundbreaking mentorship program for black teens in Brampton, the most demographically changing Canadian city. In doing so, McLean is forced to re-examine his own identity. The film deals with issues of racism, stereotyping, identity and what it really means to be “black” or “white”.

Following the screening of Colour Me, Sherien Barsoum, the film’s director, and McLean will lead the audience through a discussion, as well as answer questions about the film and its messages about diversity and identity.

International Day for the Elimination of Racism is observed annually on March 21, because it was on that date in South Africa in 1960 that police opened fire and killed 69 people as they were peacefully demonstrating against Apartheid.

For more information about the film, visit the website. To learn more about combatting racism, visit the Ěý·É±đ˛ú˛őľ±łŮ±đ.

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

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The conference will take place on Inclusion Day, Jan. 18, from 11:30am to 8pm, at 280N 91ŃÇÉ« Lanes, Keele campus. Everyone is welcome to attend the free event.

This is the third annual Inclusion Day at 91ŃÇÉ«. Guest speakers will provide participants with internal and external community perspectives “that will no doubt enhance our path of continued learning about the wealth that diversity brings,” says NoĂ«l Badiou, director of 91ŃÇɫ’s CHR.

“Inclusion Day provides an occasion to highlight the diversity on our campus and the value and importance of ensuring that each and every member of our greater community, students, staff and faculty, is included in 91ŃÇÉ«'s activities, whether in the classroom, during extracurricular events, or academic and administrative meetings,” says Badiou.

Left: Noël Badiou

This year's theme of "building allies for equity" is in keeping with CHR's goal of further enhancing the individual understanding of barriers faced by certain members of the 91ŃÇÉ« community with a view to exploring ways that we can help eliminate these barriers, he says.

“The key in creating a more equitable community is to further each of our individual understanding of the incredibly rich diversity of our community and be empowered with knowledge about how to value this diversity by being more inclusive, as well as appreciative and respectful of our differences. It is a tall order, but one that can be accomplished by having a growing number of partners and supporters within our community.”

Director of the City of Toronto’s Equity & Inclusion Office, Uzma Shakir will deliver the opening keynote address at noon, along with a panel comprised of 91ŃÇÉ« students. A host of talks will follow throughout the afternoon.

The first sessions will include 91ŃÇÉ« PhD psychology candidate Kaley Roosen (BSC Spec. Hons. ’07, MA ’09) and Access 91ŃÇÉ« discussing disability awareness: The Power of Language, and Professor Faisal Bhabha and second-year law student Adrienne Lipsey of Osgoode Hall Law School looking at the meaning of religious accommodation. The Aboriginal Student Association at 91ŃÇÉ« will host a workshop exploring notions of identity for Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal youth and the impact of gender roles and access to cultural resources in urban Aboriginal communities. 91ŃÇÉ« student Sana Siddiqui, an MSW student, will explore the historical and political roots of Islamophobia and its current manifestations through a variety of hands-on activities, video clips, case studies and interactive discussion. She will also offer strategies for building networks of allies against Islamophobia.

During the second round of sessions at 2:30pm, Jennifer Dalton (LLM ’06, PhD ’10), a visiting scholar with 91ŃÇɫ’s Centre for Refugee Studies, will present “From Kelowna to Attawapiskat: Forging Aboriginal-Canada Alliances to Build Aboriginal Equity”. She will discuss the continuing inequities that plague Aboriginal communities across the country despite the Kelowna Accord, which sought to bridge the inequity gap. This interactive workshop will emphasize the need to forge positive alliances between Aboriginal communities and the government. Bobby Siu from 91ŃÇɫ’s Equity Studies Department will address “Building Allies for Equity in the Workplace: Some Considerations for Persons with Disabilities”.

A third group of sessions will begin at 4pm, covering topics that look at the purpose of “voice” if no one is listening and relationships for creating change and inclusion. Ragini Sharma, a doctoral student in the Faculty of Education, will hold an interactive workshop Broadening the Vision, Deepening the Roots, from 4 to 5:15pm, where participants can talk about their experiences of religious diversity on campus and will be challenged to broaden their vision beyond an identity based solely on religion.

An evening reception with keynote speaker Tim McCaskell, a social justice advocate and author, will follow the final sessions.

For a full lineup of sessions and speakers, visit the Inclusion Day web page on the Centre for Human Rights website. To register, .

For more information, contact Nythalah Baker, CHR senior adviser, education & communications, at nythalah@yorku.ca or ext. 55682.

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

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Lover Through Departure, the newest collection of poetry by 91ŃÇÉ« English and education Professor Rishma Dunlop, offers up an enticing glimpse of lovers as they weave a world of secrets with their affairs of the heart.

The book, published by Mansfield Press, is a powerful overview of Dunlop's career-to-date and will launch Monday, Nov. 14 at 7:30m at The Boat, Kensington Market in Toronto.

Dunlop has staked her poetic landscape in the sensual territory of love in the urban environment. Lover Through Departure features new and selected work about encounters in cities around the world, in hotels, motels and on the road, where identity and authenticity come face to face with desire and the refusal to betray the heart's most intimate instincts.

Travel is central to this book. As Dunlop writes: “Love is to imagine, to be complicit with distance. I speak to you across cities. My mouth is on your pillow.”

This new collection by the diasporic poet is sophisticated and tender, a poetry of love and mortality, captured by a compelling witness to the beauty and violence of the 21st century. At every turn, the reader discovers an undeniable radiance, a sense of grace tinged with an erotic edge, a riveting, distinctive voice.

Lover Through Departure includes “Paris”, an innovative lyric story in the form of a traveller’s journal that was a finalist for the CBC Literary Awards and the Vanderbilt-Exile Fiction Prize.

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 also a playwright, translator and essayist. Her poetry collections include 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 Dunlop’s poems with paintings by Suzanne Northcott. Her radio play, The Raj Kumari's Lullaby, was commissioned by CBC Radio in 2005.

Left: Rishma Dunlop

Dunlop was also the 2009-2010 Canada-US Fulbright Research Chair in Creative Writing at the Virginia Piper Center for Creative Writing at Arizona State University. In 2011, she was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada for her achievement in the arts and humanities.

Launches of Lover Through Departure are also scheduled in Vancouver on Nov. 17 for the Robson Reading Series, Montreal on Nov. 20, Ottawa at the Raw Sugar Café on Nov. 21 and in Kingston at the Grad Club on Nov. 22.

For more information, visit Dunlop's .

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

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Two graduates will present their theses – and compete for prizes – at the Graduate Program in Education Spring Colloquium May 26.

Opiyo Oloya (right) (PhD ’10) and master’s graduand Farra Yasin will explain their final academic projects in the Senior Common Room, 021 Winter’s College, from 4:30 to 6pm.

Oloya is a high school principal who fled Uganda in the early 1980s. The former pro-democracy fighter’s dissertation, “Becoming a Child Soldier: A Cultural Perspective from Autobiographical Voices”, explores how Ugandan rebel group the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) transformed abducted children into soldiers. Oloya highlights the importance of culture in turning children into soldiers and in creating a resilience to survive their ordeal in the bush. As a researcher, Oloya is also interested the peace process, humanitarianism and the impact of war on society and culture.

Yasin teaches Grade 8, has a passion for writing and used to run an art gallery. Her MEd thesis explores middle-school students’ use of comic strip figures and creative writing to construct their identity. She has presented her work at conferences of the National Council of Teachers of English, the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences, and the Faculty of Education Graduate Students.

All are welcomed to attend. Refreshments will be served.

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

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“My intention is to focus on the history, appointment, as well as the tensions or problems emanating from the vice-regal role in Quebec, particularly in recent times,” says Persaud. “This topic has to do in large measure with Quebec's identity, but it also has a strong federal-provincial interface, as the lieutenant-governor is appointed by the governor general on the advice of the prime minister, a central feature of Canada's constitutional monarchical system.”

Right: Radha Persaud

Since the lieutenant-governor of Quebec underscores the British monarchical nature of that province, a significant question to look at is whether this institutional feature of Quebec's governmental system creates tensions or problems that impede the province's full domestic legitimacy and capacity in the Canadian federation, says Persaud.

“To put it another way, whether the institution of the lieutenant governor is a heritage that enriches or impedes Quebec's ability for self-determination within the federal system, particularly in the areas where it is supposed to have a relatively large measure of provincial autonomy in a federal system that, arguably, was intended to be asymmetrical in spirit, if not in form.”

His research will contribute to a public discourse on the significance and legitimacy of the head of state for Quebec, a province that was central to the compromises reached by the founding partners in the Canadian system of governance. Persaud argues that this discourse is particularly significant for the governments and societies of Quebec, because the current federal constitutional arrangements deviate in some important respects from the general tenets of federalism, and in effect, the conceptions of Canada, as they were represented in 1867.

Persaud has demonstrated a continued professional interest in the role of lieutenant-governors in his previous research and in his teaching at Glendon. In January , lieutenant-governor of Ontario was an invited guest and speaker in Persaud’s class on Canadian government. In his address, Onley talked about his vice-regal role and responsibilities, and fielded questions from the students.

Persaud sees his current project as the commencement of a process of formalizing the head of state’s political-legal standing and power in Quebec and, by implication, the rest of Canada – both legitimating the head of state's power, and formalizing it as a kind of republican move to deal with problems of federalism and the role of the head of state in the parliamentary system.

“Thus, a central question to this study is whether there ought to be a Quebec-based process for selecting a lieutenant governor, or another head of state with residual powers that will give the office more legitimacy for the people of Quebec, rather than the current system of appointment, notwithstanding any process of consultation that may have taken place between the prime minister and the premier before such appointments are made,” he says.

Submitted by Marika Kemeny, Glendon communications officer.

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

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In his lecture, “Asian Identity: Becoming Canadian”, Choy will review his personal insights into life as an in-between citizen, living as a hyphenated Chinese-Canadian for most of his life. Choy – born in Canada in 1939 – will explore how he feels now that he has "become a Canadian." No more hyphens. He will expose the prejudices and racism that still prevent many people from feeling that they belong in Canada as full-fledged citizens. The irony is that these prejudices and racist attitudes are found from both inside and outside one's ethnicity and colour, Choy says.

The event, which will be held May 25, from 7 to 9:30pm in the McLean Performance Studio, 244 Accolade East Building, Keele campus, will be chaired by Vivienne Poy, Canadian senator and patron of Asian Heritage Month in Canada.

Right: Wayson Choy. Photo by Raymond Lum.

Choy, a member of the Order of Canada, has appeared as a subject in Wayson Choy: Unfolding the Butterfly, a full-length documentary film by Michael Glassbourg, and is featured on the co-produced China-Canada documentary . His latest book is  and he is currently working on his third novel and fifth book. His other publications include , and , which was called one of the 100 most important books in Canadian history by the . His work has been translated into Hungarian, French, German and Dutch.

He is a professor emeritus of Humber College, where he is currently a faculty member for the Humber School for Writers Summer Program. In 2002, he was made companion of Fronteir College in recognition of his outstanding services for furthering literacy awareness.

The discussant for the Asian Heritage Month Lecture will be English Professor from 91ŃÇɫ’s Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies.

The lecture will be paired with a performance of OrienTik/Portrait, which features the intricate and mesmerizing choreography of former 91ŃÇÉ« student Alvin Erasga Tolentino and fellow dancer and 91ŃÇÉ« grad Andrea Nann (BFA Spec. Hons. '88). The pair will be joined by taiko drummer Jordy Riley and classical pianist Alison Nishihara.

Their performance will explore an Asian identity that is diverse in culture, creating a bridge between the identities of Canadians and the rest of the world. In OrientiTik/Portrait, sound and movements integrate and weave together in an enriching layer of moments in time. It highlights the experience, mediums and high artistry of each artist. Their aim is to capture the resonance and transparency with the meeting of two performing mediums.

The event is presented by the 91ŃÇÉ« Centre for Asian Research (YCAR) as a part of the 2010 Asian Heritage Month Festival with support from the following groups: 91ŃÇÉ«, the Office of the Vice-President Academic & Provost, the Faculty of Fine Arts, the Graduate Program in Dance, the Asian Heritage Month Canadian Foundation for Asian Culture (Central Ontario) Inc. (partially funded by the Government of Canada through the Department of Canadian Heritage), the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies and community partner the .

Light refreshments will follow the event. Due to space restrictions, RSVPs are required. Contact YCAR at ycar@yorku.ca or call 416-736-5821. For more information, visit the YCAR Web site.

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

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