Professor Bettina Bradbury of history and women’s studies at Glendon and the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies will speak on Twists, Turning Points and Tall Shoulders: Studying Canada and Feminist Histories Wednesday, Oct. 24, from 4 to 6pm in the Senate Chambers, ninth floor North Ross Building. Everyone is welcome to attend.

Bettina Bradbury

In this “intellectual biography”, Bradbury will reflect on her career in and contributions to the study of Canada. An award-winning historian of QuĂ©bec and family history, she has served 91ŃÇÉ« in various roles, including as chair of women’s studies and as director of the graduate program in history, among others. She recently received the Faculty of Graduate Studies Teaching Award.

The event is also a celebration of Canadianist research at 91ŃÇÉ« featuring a first collective book launch for Canadian themed publications produced in 2011 and 2012 by members of the 91ŃÇÉ« community. It is an opportunity for the Robarts Centre to highlight the breadth of Canadianist research at 91ŃÇÉ«.

Anyone wishing to attend the event, should RSVP to robarts@yorku.ca.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91ŃÇɫ’s daily e-bulletin to research stories on the research website.

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Led by Professor Colin Coates (left), Canada Research Chair in Canadian Cultural Landscapes and professor of Canadian Studies at Glendon College, the project is expected to cast light on the impacts of an earlier period of economic “globalization” as a way of better understanding the challenges of current practices. It is one of eight projects across Canada that has been granted funding in the 2011 Digging into Data Challenge.

Fourteen teams representing Canada, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States have been awarded grants to investigate how computational techniques can be applied to “big data” to change the nature of humanities and social sciences research. Each team represents collaborations among scholars, scientists and librarians from leading universities worldwide.

Coates, who is also the director of the Robarts Centre for Canadian Studies at 91ŃÇÉ«, is one of the principal investigators on the project titled Trading Consequences, which received $125,000 in funding. The project will examine the economic and environmental consequences of commodity trading during the 19th century and employs information extraction techniques to study large corpora of digitized documents from the 19th century. This innovative digital resource will allow historians to discover novel patterns and to explore new hypotheses through structured query and a variety of visualization tools.

"Our team of environmental historians is excited to be partners with the Universities of Edinburgh and St. Andrews in the Trading Consequences project. Canadian economic development has historically been defined by commodity flows, and it is important to understand the environmental impacts of this commerce in the past, just as it is today. The focus on Canadian data will test the techniques created through this collaborative project for mapping the scope and impact of international trade in the 19th century," said Coates.

“91ŃÇÉ« is proud to receive recognition in the 2011 Digging into Data Challenge,” said Robert HachĂ©, 91ŃÇɫ’s vice-president research & innovation. “These important research projects advance knowledge as researchers work collaboratively and internationally to find new ways to analyze, search for and store data using digital and electronic technologies.”

“The Digging into Data Challenge is an international initiative that enables Canadian researchers to take advantage of the huge digital resources now available and to develop close partnerships with overseas universities,” said Chad Gaffield, president of the Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). “These exciting projects cross both disciplines and national borders; they lead to new insights into human thought and behaviour.”

The successful cohort of projects received a total of nearly $5 million in funding from eight international research funding agencies. SSHRC’s contribution of $869,117 will support Canadian researchers from eight of the fourteen teams.  

For more information, visit the Ěý·É±đ˛ú˛őľ±łŮ±đ.

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The first lecture will take place on Monday Oct. 3 from 11am to 1pm in 305 91ŃÇÉ« Lanes. Professor Matthew Evenden (right) from the Department of Geography at the University of British Columbia (UBC) will present his lecture titled “Of muskrats and minerals: The Second World War and the Canadian environment.” Evenden’s talk will focus on the processes of economic and environmental transformation in Canada during the Second World War through an examination of commodities such as aluminium, timber, wheat; even muskrats have a part in the story.

Other speakers in the series include geography Professor Arn Keeling and history Professor John Sandlos from Memorial University, and geography Professor Graeme Wynn, history Professor Tina Loo and Professor Emerita of geography Julie Cruikshank, all of UBC.ĚýĚý

The series is run in conjunction with a series at UBC's Green College with additional support from Networks in Canadian Studies and the Environment (NICHE) and the UBC Canadian Studies Program.

The Robarts Centre for Canadian Studies is located on the seventh floor of the 91ŃÇÉ« Research Tower.

For more information, visit the Robarts Centre website, or contact Laura Taman, Robarts project coordinator, at llt@yorku.ca.

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The new directors are Professor Colin Coates, director of the Robarts Centre for Canadian Studies (RCCS); Professor Laurence Harris, director of the Centre for Vision Research (CVR); Professor Christina Kraenzle, director of the Canadian Centre for German & European Studies (CCGES); Professor David Mutimer, director of the Centre for International & Security Studies (YCISS); and Professor Lisa Philipps, director of the Centre for Public Policy & Law (YCPPL).ĚýĚý

“On behalf of the 91ŃÇÉ« research community, I would like to congratulate Professors Coates, Harris, Kraenzle, Mutimer and Philipps on their appointments,” said Robert HachĂ©, 91ŃÇÉ«'s vice-president research & innovation. “Their leadership expertise will be essential to further strengthening the unique and exciting opportunities for interdisciplinary research, collaborations and partnerships at 91ŃÇɫ’s research centres and institutes.”

Colin Coates (left), Canada Research Chair in Cultural Landscapes, is also professor in the Canadian Studies program at Glendon College and president of the Canadian Studies Network-Réseau d’études canadiennes. His research examines political culture in New France and the history of Canadian utopias. He also conducts research in the area of environmental history, and is an executive member of the Network in Canadian History & Environment – Nouvelle initiative canadienne en histoire de l’environnement, funded by the Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). Coates has co-edited and authored several books including, Introduction aux études canadiennes: histoires, identités et cultures (with Professor Geoffrey Ewen, Glendon) and Visions: the Canadian History Modules Project (with Professor Marcel Martel, Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies, along with four colleagues from other universities), Majesty in Canada: Essays on the Role of Royalty among others. Coates won the Lionel Groulx-Yves Saint-Germain Foundation’s prize for Heroines and History – Representations of Madeleine de Verchères and Laura Secord (co-authored with Cecilia Morgan of OISE).

Laurence Harris (right) is a professor in the Department of Psychology, Faculty of Health, a member of the graduate programs in Kinesiology & Health Science and in Biology, and has served as chair of the Psychology Department. He is the director the Multisensory Integration Laboratory at 91ŃÇÉ«, which investigates how information from visual, auditory, vestibular, proprioceptive and tactile senses is combined by the brain to create our perception of body and space. Applications of his research include the design of virtual environments and improving perception in situations where sensory information is impoverished, such as in the unusual environments of underwater or in space, in ageing or in clinical conditions such as partial blindness or Parkinson’s disease. Recently, Harris ran an experiment on the International Space Station looking at astronauts’ perception of orientation. He is the author of more than 100 scientific articles and has edited nine books on topics pertaining to vision including Vision in 3D Environments, Cortical Mechanisms of Vision, Seeing Spatial Form, and Levels of Perception.  He is editor-in-chief of the journal Seeing and Perceiving: a journal of multisensory science.

Christina Kraenzle (left) is a professor in the Department of Languages, Literatures & Linguistics (DLLL) in the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies. She has served as a CCGES affiliate since 2004 and been a member of the centre’s executive committee since 2005 through her role as the coordinator of the German Studies Program within DLLL. Kraenzle’s research explores modern German literature, film and culture, with a focus on transnational cultural production, migration, travel and globalization. Her recent publications include Mapping Channels Between Ganges and Rhein: German-Indian Cross-Cultural Relations (with Jörg Esleben and Sukanya Kulkarni, 2008) as well as articles in The German Quarterly, German Life and Letters, Transit: A Journal of Travel, Migration and Multiculturalism in the German-Speaking World, and the volume Searching for Sebald: Photography after W. G. Sebald.

David Mutimer (right), a professor in the Department of Political Science, is also the founding editor of Critical Studies on Security and the editor of The Canadian Annual Review of Politics and Public Affairs.  He has been a member of YCISS since 1987 and has previously served as its deputy director. Mutimer was also a visiting professor at the University of Geneva in Switzerland and Newcastle University in the United Kingdom (UK), as well as a principal research fellow in the Department of Peace Studies at the University of Bradford in the UK. Mutimer’s research considers issues of contemporary international security through lenses provided by critical social theory and explores the reproduction of security in and through popular culture. His research has focused on various aspects of weapons production and control, and more recently on the politics of the global war on terror, and of the regional wars around the world which are being fought by Canada and its allies. Mutimer is presently leading a SSHRC-funded international research project on arms export controls. His recent published work includes journal articles in Studies in Social Justice, The Cambridge Review of International Affairs and Contemporary Security Policy among others.

Lisa Philipps (left) has been a faculty member at Osgoode Hall Law School since 1996. Prior to that, she held appointments in the faculties of law at the University of Victoria and the University of British Columbia, and has held visiting professorships at Melbourne Law School, University College London and the University of Toronto among other institutions. She served as associate dean research, graduate studies & institutional relations at Osgoode from 2009 to 2011. Philipps' research focuses on tax law, budgets and feminist legal studies. She has published widely on topics, including fiscal transparency, income splitting, gender budgeting, the distributional impact of tax cuts, the tax treatment of unpaid work, charitable tax incentives and more. Most recently she published two co-edited books on Tax Expenditures: State of the Art and Challenging Gender Inequality in Tax Policy Making: Comparative Perspectives.ĚýĚý

In all, 91ŃÇɫ lists 29 research centres and institutes.

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

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Spotting the unexpected countries is what Seth Feldman, director of 91ŃÇɫ’s Robarts Centre for Canadian Studies and a film professor in 91ŃÇɫ’s Faculty of Fine Arts, loves most about the World Cup in Canada. “You don't expect to see as many Argentine flags as you do, or flags from the African countries, or Chilean flags, for that matter,” he said. “I always like that kind of mix that comes out of this.”

In Canada's large urban centres, Feldman said, there is more of an openness to accept multiculturalism than there is in other western nations, such as the United States. “You don't feel like you're betraying Canada by cheering for Italy or Argentina or Germany.”

There's also a simple reason for the lack of Canadian flags flapping around now, Feldman said. “It's just something about Canada not qualifying for the World Cup,” he said. “If Canada ever did, you'd see an awful lot of Canadian flags out.”

The Robarts Centre for Canadian Studies promotes and supports interdisciplinary and discipline specific research pertinent to the study of Canada. Over the years the Centre has expanded to encompass a theme of "Canada in the World."

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Feldman is the director of 91ŃÇɫ’s Robarts Centre for Canadian Studies. His series "" was broadcast from November 11 to December 2, 2009. Each of the four episodes explored the life and ideas of the evolutionary – and revolutionary – scientist, both in his own time and now.

The episodes are available on archive of past episodes. Each episode is approximately 55 minutes.

1. The Prepared Mind: From Darwin’s Early Years To His Voyage Of Discovery On H.M.S. Beagle
2. The Transmutationist: Darwin Thinks His Way From The Beagle To The Book
3. Primates vs Primates: What On The Origin Of Species Said, And What Was Said About It
4. The Enduring Legacy Of Charles Darwin: Why Science And Society Today Are Still Wrestling With Darwin’s Big Idea

The series' index page also contains useful bibliographic and online materials. For additional background, see YFile's interview with Feldman on his Darwin series for Ideas.

Posted by Elizabeth Monier-Williams, with files courtesy of YFile – 91ŃÇɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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