Italy Archives | Research & Innovation

Professor Hédi Bouraoui receives honourary Pugliese citizenship for building cultural bridges

fmaquito — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 08:00:00 +0000

Departing from Sfax, a Tunisian city overlooking the Mediterranean, has travelled the world, from Europe to the United States to Canada where he lived for 30 years, teaching French and comparative literature at 91��ɫ’s Stong College, wrote :

His is a life dedicated to the study of literature and writing, but above all working towards establishing steady dialogue between various cultures that led to the creation of 91��ɫ’s Canada-Mediterranean Centre and the birth of the concept of “transculturalism”, wrote Tandem.

At 80 years of age, Bouraoui is still travelling and feels just as at home in Toronto as he does in Paris and Africa. And he recently received his honorary citizenship from Acquaviva delle Fonti – one of the cities of the Puglia [region] that have welcomed him with “open arms” during the Italian stopover of his international project from Canada to Puglia under the Sign of Dialogue, launched by Canada-Mediterranean Centre and by WIP Edizioni, and thanks also to the invaluable collaboration of Nicola D’Ambrosio, professor of francophone literature at the University of Bari.

Bouraoui is proud of being part of the “heart and soul of this new family midway between the Adriatic Sea and the Gulf of Taranto.” This is a citizenship to add to his Canadian one and that enriches his Tunisian origins and plural identity, which functions in terms “of addition, not subtraction.”

“Africa, Europe, North America – it’s all stratified within me,” he says from his Paris home shortly before departing on his fifth trip to Puglia. “And you can’t take any of it away because Hédi Bouraoui is the sum of his parts. Otherwise, I would no longer be me.”

For him, transculturalism is not an abstract concept, but something he experienced firsthand. “When I transferred from the United States to Toronto, I was eager to contribute to the great Canadian mosaic, which I saw as being the opposite of the American ‘melting pot’, which wants to cancel all cultural differences in the name of a stars-and-stripes recognition. But early on, during the early ’70s, I realized that multiculturalism doesn’t work because each community is shut off within itself, while government, then as now, was more interested in gaining votes rather than getting the various fabrics of the mosaic to truly communicate with each other. Transculturalism, instead, is the ongoing search of dialogue between the various cultures, not a monologue.”

And that is a cornerstone of Bouraoui’s works, which often focuses on the Mediterranean, “cradle of Eastern and Western civilization and of the three monotheistic religions par excellence, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.”

Posted by Elizbeth Monier-Williams, research communications officer, with files courtesy of YFile – 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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Professor Roger Keil says multiculturalism more successful in Canada than Europe

fmaquito — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 10:00:00 +0000

Declarations by European leaders that multiculturalism is a failure are not applicable to 91��ɫ Region, academics and immigration advocates said, wrote the :

The dialogue sparked by the leaders mystifies 91��ɫ City Institute director Roger Keil, himself a newcomer from his native Germany in the 1990s. “I’m puzzled (that) the national debate in Central and Western Europe is a point of reference in Canada,” he said. “Those making the comments have a specific agenda. They’re right wing and are under various influences, some fascist.”

Citing France’s republic, Germany’s federation and Italy’s struggles to define itself during a wave of Tunisian immigration, Keil said Canada demonstrates vastly different policies and history.

Canada has the highest per-capita immigration rate in the world, driven by economic policy and family reunification. Multiculturalism in Canada was adopted as the official policy of former prime minister Pierre Trudeau’s government in the 1970s.

. . .

Our welcoming nature and immigration policies have created a critical mass of socio-ethno cultural groups, creating a mosaic of diversity that outweighs influences by camps and enclaves found in Europe, Dr. Keil said. “Europe has a different political spectrum,” he said. “They have outspoken nationalists pushed by fascist forces stirring up unrest. We don’t see those forces operating in 91��ɫ Region.”

Keil leads the SSHRC-funded Global Suburbanisms: Governance, Land and Infrastructure in the 21st Century project, which is the first major research project to take stock of worldwide suburban developments in a systematic way.

Posted by Elizabeth Monier-Williams, research communications officer, with files courtesy of YFile – 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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Two Osgoode Hall Law School professors receive prestigious fellowships

fmaquito — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 10:00:00 +0000

Osgoode Hall Law School Professors Craig Scott and Stepan Wood have each been awarded prestigious fellowships at European institutions.

Scott, who is the director of Osgoode’s Jack & Mae Nathanson Centre on Transnational Human Rights, Crime & Security, has been awarded a 2010 Ikerbasque Fellowship by the Bacsque Foundation for Sience. The foundation is a granting agency established by the Government of the Basque Country in Spain in 2008 with the mission to consolidate the Basque Country as “a European point of reference for excellence in the field of research.”

Left: Craig Scott

The fellowship will support 12 months of personal research and collaboration with the Transnational Law Research Group of the University of Deusto in Bilbao, Spain. Scott will build on his existing scholarship pertaining to the civil liability aspects of corporate social responsibility in relation to human rights and environmental protection, as well as interact with Deusto’s Trans-Law Research Group to widen the scope of the group’s study of economic law.

Right: Stepan Wood

Wood, who is the coordinator of Osgoode's Juris Doctor-Master in Environmental Studies Joint Program and director of the Moot Court Program, has been awarded a Jean Monnet Fellowship at the Robert Schumann Centre for Advanced Studies at the European University Institute (EUI) in Florence, Italy. Wood will complete a project titled “ISO 26000 and the Legitimation of Transnational Governance Authority in the Field of Corporate Social Responsibility” during his sabbatical next year.

Wood is the fifth Osgoode faculty member to have been chosen as a Jean Monnet Fellow at EUI, following Professors Michael Mandel, Craig Scott, Peer Zumbansen and Robert Wai.

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

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