Osgoode and Lassonde will celebrate the research achievements and interests of their Faculties, Feb. 4, starting at 2:15pm at 1014 Osgoode Hall Law School, Keele campus.

“This research celebration provides a forum for members of the 91��ɫ community to learn more about the exciting opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration among these Faculties,” said Robert Haché (right), vice-president research & innovation. “All members of the 91��ɫ community are welcome to attend.”

Following the welcome and opening remarks by Haché, Dean Janusz Kozinski of the Lassonde School of Engineering and Dean Lorne Sossin of Osgoode Hall Law School, a panel discussion moderated by Associate Dean of Research Poonam Puri will take place.

 Janusz Kozinski

“The convergence of engineering and law is very exciting area of interdisciplinary collaboration across a whole range of topics, and we hope this will be the first of many joint events as Osgoode and Lassonde work closely together in the months and years ahead,” said Kozinski.

"Osgoode is delighted to be moving forward with the Lassonde School of Engineering on cross-Faculty collaborations that will break new ground in the fields of law and engineering," said Sossin. "This is the first of what we know will be many celebrations of our successful joint research efforts."

Lorne Sossin

From 2:20 to 3:30pm, there will be a panel discussion highlighting the theme, “A Conversation Between Law and Engineering”. The paen will consist of the following: Dean Sossin; Professor Giuseppina D’Agostino of Osgoode Hall Law School and founder & director ofIP Osgoode; Professor  Michael Daly of the Department of Earth & Space Science & Engineering; Professor Shin Imai of Osgoode Hall Law School; Professor Michael Jenkin of the Department of Computer Science & Engineering; and Professor Regina Lee of the Department of Earth & Space Science & Engineering.

The panellists will discuss a diverse range of topics, including space law, intellectual property, expert testimony, professional self-regulation, ethics, mining, corporate social responsibility, corporate accountability and more. There will also be research on display in Gowlings Hall at Osgoode Hall Law School and a reception featuring opportunities for networking. Refreshments will be served.

For more information, contact Jody-Ann Rowe-Butler, research coordinator, Osgoode Hall Law School, at jrowe-butler@osgoode.yorku.ca or ext. 55771, or Gillian Moore, administrative assistant, Lassonde School of Engineering, at gmoore@yorku.ca or ext. 58215.

To RSVP, .

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, which was officially launched last night in Toronto, explores different aspects of copying and looks at everything from quilting and cooking to gang warfare and martial arts as cultures of the copy. Published by Harvard University Press, it features an entire chapter on the saga of Louis Vuitton and the fake handbags which have become ubiquitous today.

“Teaching contemporary literature and culture at a university, I was interested in students’ attitudes about sampling, cutting and pasting, plagiarism, downloading and such matters,” says author , a professor in 91��ɫ’s Department of English in the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies.

Boon also blogs about this subject in the blog.

“What struck me is that they were completely unable to justify their interest in these things – mostly because they involve copying and they’d repeatedly been told that copying is bad. At the same time," he says, "when I looked at the literature on intellectual property, I was struck by the fact that most of it was written by legal scholars, who seemed to offer no analysis of copying itself, beyond the fact that it was a useful tool that could also be misused. So I wanted to rethink the idea of copying, and show how fundamental philosophical issues shape the way we think about it today.”

The book details how the dominant legal-political structures that define copying obscure the broader processes of imitation that have constituted human communities for ages, and that continue to shape subcultures today. In Praise of Copying draws on contemporary art, music and film, the history of aesthetics, critical theory, and Buddhist philosophy and practice to illustrate how and why copying works – what the sources of its power are and what political stakes are involved if we re-negotiate the way we value copying in the age of globalization.

Boon asks why copying another person’s actions or works makes us so uncomfortable. “If you really think about it, is there anything that doesn’t involve some form of copying? In order to speak and to learn, we have to copy. We can talk about plagiarism, and it’s true that very few people would say it’s good to pass off another’s work as your own," says Boon. "But industrial economies are built around making copies, most of which have their origin in something that used to belong to the public domain.”

He argues that we should all consider and confront the ways in which our lives are shaped by the act of copying: “We all do it, and our laws should reflect this. As a society, we should be asking ourselves what is the most profound or joyful use of our capacities for copying. In other words, it’s not a question of whether we should copy or not – but how we copy and what.”

In Praise of Copying was launched at the The Annex Live, 296 Brunswick Avenue in downtown Toronto, presented by This Is Not A Reading Series.

To download a free pdf of the book, visit the web page on the website.

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

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Through his research, Wershler is working to bring about policy change. He is a principal investigator for , an initiative to build an online archive of publicly licensed Canadian art and literature.

Wershler and fellow Artmob researcher Rosemary Coombe, Canada Research Chair in at 91��ɫ, are editing a volume of essays by a diverse spectrum of writers, legal scholars, artists, anthropologists and cultural studies professors that will be called Dynamic Fair Dealing: Creating Canadian Culture Online.

Wershler and Coombe will explore current practices of dynamic fair-dealing. They will look at how artists and writers are actually creating, circulating and managing digital cultural objects, and how these practices can present alternatives to traditional intellectual property and cultural policies.

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

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Have you ever wanted to have dinner with a scientist? Ask questions about Canada’s laser radar on NASA's 2007 Phoenix mission to Mars, the role of human genomes in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer, the consequences of dwindling fossil fuels or perhaps how biochemical pathways affect obesity?

The Royal Canadian Institute (RCI) for the Advancement of Science, Canada's oldest scientific society at 161 years, is hosting a gala dinner featuring 25 scientists, and guests get to choose which one they’d like to sit with.

Five of the scientists are from 91��ɫ, which is a sponsor of the dinner. They are physics Professor Emeritus Allan Carswell, humanities and science & technology studies Professor Bernard Lightman, Osgoode Hall Law School Professor Giuseppina D’Agostino, anthropology and science & technology studies Professor Natasha Myers, and Canada Research Chair in Ecology & Conservation Biology, Professor Bridget Stutchbury. In addition, Mark Lievonen, president of Sanofi Pasteur Ltd., a 91��ɫ alumnus and member of 91��ɫ's Board of Governors, will also host a table.

Right: Giuseppina D’Agostino

Founder and director of Osgoode's Intellectual Property Law & Technology Program (IP Osgoode), D’Agostino, a recent recipient of the Law Commission of Ontario’s Visiting Scholarship Program, will talk about "Challenges to the Commercialization of Intellectual Property". The commercialization of intellectual property is often said to be indispensable for fostering a vibrant, creative and innovative economy, but many challenges remain before an invention can be brought from the lab into the marketplace. D’Agostino is currently investigating the intellectual property and privacy aspects of the electronic health record in Canada.

Left: Bernard Lightman

Lightman, editor of the history of science journal Isis, will discuss "Who, Exactly, Was Charles Darwin? The Making of a Cultural Icon". Lightman's early work, summed up in his , centred on the birth of a new form of unbelief in the wake of the debates over evolutionary theory. More recently, he has tackled the issue of how science was popularized in the second half of the 19th century in Britain. His current project is a biography of the eminent Victorian physicist John Tyndall.

Right: Allan Carswell

Former president of the Canadian Association of Physicists and vice-president of the Canadian Academy of Science, Carswell founded Optech Inc. in 1974 to develop commercial lidars (laser radar). He and a Canadian team provided a lidar on NASA's 2007 Phoenix mission to Mars as part of a meteorological station, MET, for studies of the Martian atmosphere. After the landing in May 2008, MET provided measurements of outstanding value, including the discovery of snowfall on Mars. An internationally recognized leader in the lidar field, Carswell will present "Canada Goes to Mars".

Left: Bridget Stutchbury

Stutchbury, Canada Research Chair in Ecology and Conservation Biology and a field biologist who has studied bird behaviour and conservation for 25 years, has followed Canadian migratory songbirds to their wintering grounds in Latin America to understand the threats they face far away. She is author of , a Governor General’s Literary Award non-fiction finalist, and the forthcoming T. She will discuss "Conservation Biology Studied Through Birds".

Right: Natasha Myers

Myers' research examines the lively visual cultures that thrive in contemporary life science laboratories and classrooms, with an interest in the artistry, craft and creativity of scientific work. She will discuss "Art Meets Science". Myers has been engaged in art-science collaborations for over a decade. Her most recent project was the 2009 Art Meets Science Series at 91��ɫ, a year-long series of events designed to foster a culture of collaboration among 91��ɫ’s artists and scientists.

Left: Mark Lievonen

Lievonen (BBA Spec. Hons. ’79, MBA ’87), a member of the Board of Directors of Oncolytics Biotech Inc. and the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research, will talk about the Canadian Vaccine Capability: Collaborating for Continued Success.

In addition, ex-91��ɫie Brock Fenton, a biology professor at the University of Western Ontario and former chair of 91��ɫ’s Department of Biology as well as former associate vice-president research, will ask "How do Universities Interact With Society?" He has written several books about bats intended for a general audience, including Just Bats (University of Toronto Press, 1983) and The Bat: Wings in the Night Sky ( Key Porter Press, 1998)).

Right: Brock Fenton

Scientists are chosen from various disciplines and many southern Ontario academic institutions. Each scientist hosts a table of eight. The gala partners are awarded several places, and their guests, as well as individual ticket purchasers, can choose the table of greatest interest to them. After a reception of an hour or so, dinner will start. Each scientist will provide a brief overview of their subject and/or current work and guests are then free to ask any questions or suggest topics they would like the host to discuss. For tables and topics, click here. Following the dinner, the president of the RCI will open a general question-and-answer period at which time any of the participants are free to direct a question to any of the scientists present.

The RCI for the Advancement of Science is a not-for-profit organization founded in Toronto in 1849 by a small group of civil engineers, architects and surveyors and led by Sir Sandford Fleming (1827-1915) who established the concept of time zones.

The gala will take place Thursday, April 22, from 6 to 9:30pm, in the MaRS Collaboration Centre, 101 College St., Toronto. Tickets are $250. The dinner will help to raise awareness and funds for the RCI's outreach activities, in particular the free public lectures it presents every year in Toronto and Mississauga on a diverse range of topics. The fundraising also goes toward providing scholarships for deserving high school students to attend university.

91��ɫ provides the Webcasting and archiving for all the lectures through the support of University Information Technology and the Office of the Vice-President Research & Innovation. Click to view archived Webcasts of previous lectures. 91��ɫ also supplies many of the speakers. This winter two of the six Toronto were from 91��ɫ.

For more information, visit the Web site or contact 91��ɫ biology Professor Ron Pearlman, a member of the RCI council and the gala organizing committee, at ronp@yorku.ca.

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

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The federal government has renewed a Canada Research Chair (CRC) in Law, Communication & Culture at 91��ɫ enabling Professor Rosemary Coombe of the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies to advance her research in the field of socio-legal studies.

As a Tier 1 CRC, Coombe will receive $1.4 million over seven years. The CRC is part of a package of CRC appointments announced yesterday at the University of Guelph by Gary Goodyear, minister of state (science & technology).

“Canada’s government is investing in science and technology to strengthen the economy, improve Canadians’ quality of life and create the jobs of tomorrow − today,” said Goodyear. “The Canada Research Chairs program helps attract and retain the best researchers from the country and around the world to Canadian universities, which has direct benefits for our communities.”

In all, the government announced an investment of $159.1 million to fund the appointment of 181 new and renewed Canada Research Chairs, including $7.4 million in infrastructure funding from the Canada Foundation for Innovation essential to the research being conducted by 46 of the Chairs.

Right: Rosemary Coombe

"This CRC renewal provides opportunities for Professor Coombe to further develop her leading research in the social and cultural impact of emerging global intellectual and cultural property laws," said Stan Shapson, vice-president research & innovation at 91��ɫ. "The CRC program allows 91��ɫ to keep building on its research strengths and graduate training in niche social science areas such as law and society.”

Coombe is an internationally recognized scholar and leader in the field of interdisciplinary approaches to intellectual property. The diffusion of her research in anthropology and legal scholarship has successfully situated the field of intellectual property within a larger human rights tradition.

The CRC will enable Coombe to continue to work on interrelated research initiatives in the fields of socio-legal studies, legal scholarship, legal and cultural anthropology and public policy research involving the internationalization of cultural rights. These will be furthered by the simultaneous development of her research infrastructure, the Digital Archives of Canadian Culture Online and the Centre for Canadian Digital Policy & Cultural Rights Initiatives.

Coombe’s forthcoming book about the resurgence of cultural rights and the public life of intellectual property synthesizes her recent work on the development of information capital, indigenous peoples’ rights, the proliferation of property in cultural intangibles and its contestation in new social justice movements.

For more information, visit the Web site.

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