The annual prize, inaugurated in 1994 by the Association of Friends of the National Museum of Roman Art (Museo Nacional de Arte Romano), recognizes the contributions of individuals, academics and researchers who have expanded the knowledge of the historical, cultural and archeological heritage of the Roman world, in particular of the city of Mérida in Spain. It was presented to Edmondson at the museum's 25th-anniversary celebrations in September.

Above: Holding the award – a copy of a Roman bust of the Genius (Protective Spirit) of Augusta Emerita – are, from left, winner Jonathan Edmondson; María Angeles Albert León, Spain's director general of fine arts and cultural property; Trinidad Nogales Basarrate,  education and culture minister for Extremadura region; and a representative for Extremadura president José Antonio Monago Terraza.

Edmondson received the award for his research on the colony of Augusta Emerita and Roman Spain over the years while at 91��ɫ and for the fundamental contributions he made toward the study of Emeritan society and the structure of the former colony. He was also recognized for his “work in disseminating knowledge about the archeological heritage of Emerita across the world.”

Left: The awards ceremony inside the National Museum of Roman Art

“It’s really international recognition for my scholarship,” says Edmondson. “I’m the first English-speaking scholar who has won it.”

Through his research on Roman Spain, Edmondson has been instrumental in bringing the history, culture and archeology of the colony of Augusta Emerita in the region of Extremadura, one of 17 autonomous regions in Spain, to a world audience. When Edmondson first started studying Roman Spain, he was one of the few international scholars to do so. There had been much research on Roman Italy, France and Britain among others, but not Roman Spain, and not written in English.

Right: Jonathan Edmondson delivering his acceptance speech for the international prize, Protective Spirit of the Colony of Augusta Emerita, at the National Museum of Roman Art

It was the Roman province of Lusitania, overlapping both Portugal and Spain of which Augusta Emerita (modern Mérida) was the capital, that really piqued Edmondson’s attention as it had been mostly overlooked until then. He continues to be interested in the social, economic and cultural history of Mérida, from the military veterans who settled there and the city’s military importance to the study of family structures, marriage patterns, slavery and immigration.

“It’s a very rich city in terms of surviving evidence,” he says. "There are Roman houses, burial grounds, aqueducts and Roman roads – all of which were found while digging the foundations of the museum."

One of the things in his research that surprised him is that Mérida was a major centre for medical training. This Edmondson learned through a series of inscriptions about doctors, one of which told of a slave from another city (Olisipo, modern Lisbon) being sent to Mérida to be medically trained and another which detailed the slave’s journey back to Lisbon and his later importance there as a doctor.

Left: Rafael Mesa Hurtado, president of the Friends of the National Museum of Roman Art (and the first cousin of Toronto Raptor José Calderón) presents Jonathan Edmondson with a commemorative plaque

Edmondson has often been the first to publish Roman inscriptions from Mérida, of which there are more than 1,000 and still more being discovered. He began interpreting the inscriptions on tombstones and moved to study the style of funerary monuments and how they changed over time. He is now researching indigenous religion in Lusitania and the extent to which the Roman authorities allowed indigenous divinities to be worshipped.

Edmondson is the editor of Augustus (Edinburgh University Press, 2009), co-editor of Roman Dress and the Fabrics of Roman Culture (University of Toronto Press, 2008) and Flavius Jospephus and Flavian Rome (Oxford University Press, 2005), among others. His monograph, Granite Funerary Stelae from Augusta Emerita, appeared in 2007. In 2002, he was elected a corresponding member of the Real Academia de la Historia of Spain and, in 2009, was made a fellow of the Royal Historical Society in London.

As winner of the Protective Spirit prize, Edmondson is in good company. Previous winners have included Walter Trillmich, former director of the German Archaeological Institute in Berlin; José María Blázquez, former professor of Roman archaeology at the Complutense University of Madrid; Pierre Gros, former professor of Roman archaeology at the Université d'Aix-en-Provence; and Rafael Moneo Vallés, a world-renowned architect who designed the National Museum of Roman Art.

By Sandra McLean, YFile writer

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

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Convened by the Harriet Tubman Institute for Research on the Global Migrations of African Peoples at 91��ɫ, the theme of the institute is “Slavery, Memory, Citizenship”. It marks the International Year for People of African Descent, as designated by the United Nation’s Educational, Scientific & Cultural Organization (UNESCO). 

As part of the proceedings, Michaëlle Jean (right), former governor general of Canada, current UNESCO special envoy to Haiti and the recipient of a 2007 honorary doctor of laws degree from 91��ɫ's Osgoode Hall Law School, will announce the launch of the UNESCO Slave Route Project: Itineraries of African Canadian Memory initiative during her keynote address on Aug. 23.

The project is a long-term initiative to identify important sites of memory that relate to people of African descent in Canada. The (part of the organization's Division of Cultural Policies & Intercultural Dialogue) has recognized that historic sites associated with people of African descent in Canada constitute a UNESCO “Itinerary of Memory”. 

“We are pleased that 91��ɫ’s Harriet Tubman Institute is hosting the program on slavery, memory and citizenship, with presentations by many distinguished guests, including Canada’s former governor general, the Right Honourable Michaëlle Jean,” says 91��ɫ’s President & Vice-Chancellor Mamdouh Shoukri. “Our Tubman Institute has played – and continues to play – a leading role in fostering debate, informing public policy and striving to resolve current social injustices as they relate to racism and slavery.”

The Itineraries of African Canadian Memory initiative will detail how the experiences of Africans and their descendants “have contributed to building this nation from 1604 through the present day,” says 91��ɫ Distinguished Research Professor Paul Lovejoy, Canada Research Chair in African Diaspora History and director of the Harriet Tubman Institute. “The goal of the project is to raise consciousness about the diversity of the Canadian past.”

Lovejoy, along with noted Underground Railroad historian and award-winning author Karolyn Smardz Frost and historian and genealogist Hilary Dawson, are working with community partners, government agencies and heritage organizations to identify sites evocative of the African Canadian experience. The purpose of the Itineraries of African Canadian Memory initiative is to establish the process by which Canadian sites related to slavery and slave resistance can be officially recognized by UNESCO. Eleven sites designated by the Ontario Heritage Trust have already received UNESCO recognition.

Delegates at the 2011 Summer Institute will explore African migrations, slavery and the slave trade from both historical and contemporary perspectives. Ongoing research projects by scholars at the Tubman Institute and its partners will be highlighted as part of the institute's proceedings. The event is associated with a Major Collaborative Research Initiative funded by the Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council of Canada.

The week-long Summer Institute will provide a forum for senior scholars, junior researchers, teachers from all levels of education, librarians and public policy-makers to discuss historic and contemporary issues of forced servitude (slavery); the ways in which slavery is researched, taught and publicly presented (memory); and the impact of this public memory on status, placement and recognition in the national policy (citizenship). The Summer Institute will be broadcast via video podcasts to off-site workshops held simultaneously in Haiti.

Plenary sessions will be delivered by 91��ɫ Professors Lovejoy, Smardz Frost and Annie Bunting; Toyin Falola, distinguished professor, University of Texas; Francine Saillant, CELAT, Laval; Amani Whitfield, University of Vermont; Myriam Cottias, CNRS, Paris; Sir Hilary Beckles, principal, University of the West Indies, Barbados; Maria Elisa Velázquez, president, UNESCO Slave Route Project; and Blaise Tchikaya, executive board, the African Union. These sessions will be held daily from Aug. 22 to 27, between 9am and 11am.

Jean Augustine (left), Fairness Commissioner of Ontario and the first African Canadian woman to be elected to the Parliament of Canada, will be the keynote speaker at the closing luncheon on Aug. 26. Augustine is the recipient of a 2011 honorary doctor of laws degree from 91��ɫ, and has donated her archival and parliamentary materials to 91��ɫ's Faculty of Education, thus creating the opportunity to establish 91��ɫ’s Jean Augustine Chair in Education in the New Urban Environment.

“The Summer Institute showcases the strength of interdisciplinary research at 91��ɫ,” says Robert Haché, 91��ɫ’s vice-president research & innovation. “Researchers work together with partners, community groups, international and external organizations to disseminate new knowledge and improve the accessibility of information across various sectors in society, while addressing complex social issues.”

For more information, including a list of speakers and sessions, visit the �ɱ�������ٱ�.����

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

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91��ɫ Professor Emeritus John S. Saul and 91��ɫ Distinguished Research Professor in African history and Canada Research Chair Paul Lovejoy will be presented with the awards during the opening reception of the conference of the Canadian Association of African Studies – Africa Here; Africa There – at 91��ɫ May 5 to 7.

As 91��ɫ history Professor José C. Curto, co-organizer of the conference along with sociology Professor Ratiba Hadj-Moussa, says, “They’ve spent a lifetime fighting, in one way or another, for Africa. You can’t get any better than them.”

Right: John S. Saul

President of the CAAS Dennis Cordell wrote that Saul’s research achievements, along with his “deep and long-standing commitment to the struggle for equity, equality and human rights in Africa” are legion. He also pointed to Lovejoy’s “wonderful abilities to teach and mentor” students and younger colleagues.

Left: Paul Lovejoy

Lovejoy says the award is significant to him “because of the recognition of my contribution to understanding the history of people of African descent especially so since this is the UN International Year for People of African Descent and my personal commitment to exposing the crime of the ‘slave route’ and seeking reconciliation that can only be based on truth about the past.”

In addition to receiving lifetime achievement awards, both Saul and Lovejoy will launch books in conjunction with the conference Saturday, May 7, at Accents on Eglinton Bookstore, 1790 Eglinton Ave. W., Toronto. Saul’s Liberation Lite: The Roots of Recolonization in Southern Africa (Three Essay Collective) will launch beginning at 6:30pm, followed by The Harriet Tubman Institute Series of which Lovejoy is the general series editor at 7pm. There are 10 books in the Tubman series, including Slavery, Islam and Diaspora; Africa, Brazil and the Construction of Trans Atlantic Black Identities; and Africa and the Americas: Interconnections During the Slave Trade.

Liberation Lite is comprised of five essays. “The theme I’m emphasizing is that of liberation as a multiplex concept,” says Saul. His definition of liberation would include race, nation, class and gender, but also a democratically empowered voice. "Others in Africa and elsewhere have come to define liberation only in terms of the narrow construct of national independence."

Saul says liberation has to be multidimensional to be a useful concept. “We expected the liberation struggle would yield more than that,” more than simply national liberation, but also class, race and gender freedom.  It is not simply an emphasis that "we white lefties had dreamt up and taken over to Africa. We learned it there. We learned it there from Mozambique's Eduardo Mondlane, FRELIMO's first president, for example.” As it stands, “liberation has been pretty light and those who are concerned have to figure out how to deepen and enrich it,” he says. He also takes a critical stance towards global capitalism and corporate imperialism, and what he calls the "re-colonizing" of Africa by a new "empire of capital". In consequence, the concluding essay looks at why socialism still has significant resonance and merit in southern Africa and beyond.

Saul has published some 19 books, including Revolutionary Traveller: Freeze Frames from a Life (Arbeiter Ring, 2009) (see YFile, Jan. 13, 2010), Development after Globalization: Theory and Practice for the Embattled South in a New Imperial Age (Fernwood Publishing, 2006) and Decolonization and Empire: Contesting the Rhetoric and Reality of Resubordination in Southern Africa and Beyond (Fernwood Publishing, 2008).

He is hard at work on three more books. He says the lifetime achievement award may well be an acknowledgement of his body of work, but he is also accepting it “on behalf of all those who have worked diligently in support of South African-related struggles over the years, as well as against Canada's own complicity – that is, our government and corporations too often being on the wrong side of such struggles there.” In 2004, Saul was elected fellow of the .

Last year, Lovejoy received the Distinguished Africanist Research Excellence Award from the University of Texas at Austin for his dedication, lifetime of service and contributions to the discipline. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and Canada Research Chair in African Diaspora History, and has dedicated his career to researching and teaching African history.

For more information, visit the website.

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

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The conference will take place Thursday, May 5, from 8am to 8pm, and Friday, May 6, from 8am to 8:30pm, in the Assembly Hall, 152 Founders College, Keele campus. On Saturday, May 7, sessions will take place from 9:30am to 3:30pm in 001 Winters College, Dining Hall, Keele campus.

One of the round tables will look at revolutions in northern Africa, while another, chaired by Curto, will explore Angola under the Weight of the Slave Trade during the 18th and 19th centuries. “We’re doing the past, but we’re also doing very contemporary issues,” says Curto. The first session of the conference will be a round table via the web with presenters from Brazil looking at the present and future perspectives of African studies in Brazil.

The three plenary speakers will tackle a range of topics. Political science and Islamic studies Professor Khalid Mustafa Medani of McGill University will talk about “Informal Institutions and Identity Politics: The Evolving Political Economy of Transnationalism in North East Africa”, sociology Professor Imed Melliti of the Institut Supérieur des Sciences Humaines at the University of Tunis el-Manar will address “Jeunesses maghrébines: religiosité, enjeux identitaires et enjeux de reconnaissance” and Donald G. Simpson, who leads Innovation Expedition, will speak about “Africa – Here and There in the Sixties: A Canadian Perspective”.

Left: Khalid Mustafa Medani

Medani was named a Carnegie Scholar on Islam in 2007 by the Carnegie Corporation of New 91��ɫ, Melliti is the author of several books, while Simpson is the former director of the International Development Research Centre and the Centre for International Business at the Ivey School of Business at the University of Western Ontario. For more biographical information on the plenary speakers, visit the website.

The conference theme, Africa Here; Africa There, is in recognition of the United Nations General Assembly proclaiming 2011 as the International Year for People of African Descent. The meeting will be hosted by 91��ɫ’s and will have sessions in both French and English.

Right: Donald G. Simpson

“What we are doing is not only focusing on the continent itself, but outside the continent,” says Curto. “Through the conference we are highlighting the bridge we’re making between the diaspora and the homeland.”

The second round table of the conference, Africa Here: Commemorating the Early African Canadian Experience, will be chaired by 91��ɫ Professor Michele Johnson, co-author of the book They Do as They Please: The Jamaican Struggle for Cultural Freedom after Morant Bay (University of West Indies Press), which will as part of the conference. Taking part in this round table panel will be 91��ɫ Distinguished Research Professor in African history Paul Lovejoy looking at “Africa Here: Itineraries of African Canadian Memory and the UNESCO Slave Route Project”, Hilary Dawson of the Harriet Tubman Institute discussing “Locating Sites of Memory: Tracing an Itinerary of Memory for the African Canadian Experience” and Karolyn Smardz Frost, a research associate with the Harriet Tubman Institute, talking about “Slavery, Resistance and the Underground Railroad in Toronto”.

There will be presenters from Canada, the United States, Australia and Africa at the conference. 91��ɫ history PhD candidate Jeff Gunn will discuss “Child Soldiers and Modern Slavery in the 21st Century”, while 91��ɫ Professor Emeritus John S. Saul will discuss a “New Counter-Hegemonic Project in Contemporary South Africa: Moeletsi Mbeki, Zwelinzima Vavi and the Democratic Left Forum. Some of the other sessions will examine topics such as: Africa in Canada, Border Security in African Contexts, Governance and Management of Natural Resources in Africa’s Great Lakes Region, Perspectives on Gender in Africa, Urban Unrest in South Africa and Africans on the Move.

Lovejoy, director of the Harriet Tubman Institute for Research on the Global Migrations of African Peoples, will also chair the sessions examining The Central Sudan in Nineteenth & Early Twentieth Centuries and Aspects of the Slave Trade in the Atlantic World. In addition, there will be screenings of several documentaries, including Behind the Rainbow by Jihan El-Tahri, Sembene! By Jason Silverman and Escape from Luanda by Phil Grabsky.

For more information, including a detailed listing of speakers and sessions, visit the conference website or the website.

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

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As with previous 91��ɫ Circle Lecture & Lunch events, organizers have planned a full day of inspiring lectures by some of the University’s leading thinkers. For full details, download a PDF of the 91��ɫ Circle schedule.

In her lecture, “The Bird Detective: Investigating the Private Lives of Birds”, 91��ɫ Professor Bridget Stutchbury (left), Canada Research Chair in Ecology and Conservation Biology, will explain why some birds readily divorce their partners, why females sneak out to have sex with neighbouring males and why some mothers sometimes desert their babies. Based on her book (2010), this lecture promises to raise the blinds on the secret lives of birds.

On a more serious note, Stutchbury will examine whether bird behaviour can help species adapt to the drastic changes humans are making to the environment. Since the 1980s, Stutchbury has studied the ecology and conservation of migratory songbirds. In addition to The Bird Detective, she is author of the book (2007) – a finalist for a Governor General’s Literary Award.

"The Interesting Life of Olaudah Equiano, the African, and the Abolition of the British Slave Trade" is the intriguing title of the presentation by 91��ɫ history Professor Paul Lovejoy (right), Canada Research Chair in African Diaspora History and director of the . In his lecture, Lovejoy will explore the pivotal role of Gustavus Vassa, better known by his African name, Olaudah Equiano (c. 1742-1797), in advancing the abolition of the British slave trade. Many scholars consider William Wilberforce (c. 1759-1833) and Thomas Clarkson (c. 1760-1846) to be the pioneers of the British abolitionist movement, but Lovejoy posits that it was Equiano who was the seminal influence in advocating the abolition of slavery and the emancipation of those in slavery.

Lovejoy is a member of the executive committee of the UNESCO “Slave Route” Project, co-edits African Economic History and Studies in the History of the African Diaspora – Documents (SHADD), and is research professor and associate fellow of the Wilberforce Institute for the Study of Slavery and Emancipation at the University of Hull in the United Kingdom.

Acclaimed Canadian poet and 91��ɫ Professor (left) will discuss her experiences as Canadian Athletes Now Fund’s first poet-in-residence during the 2010 Vancouver Olympic and Paralympic Games. In her lecture, which is aptly titled, "My Gold Medal Experience: Olympic Poetry", Uppal will describe how she celebrated with the Canadian athletes and their families by writing poetry about winter sports, the games, and the personalities and performances that captured a nation’s imagination.

How she designed and then “trained” for her position, how the athletes responded to daily poetry readings, and other initiatives she’s undertaken to bridge the sometimes separate worlds of sport and art, will all be addressed. In addition, Uppal will read a short selection of the some of the 50 poems written at the games and recently collected in the book Winter Sport: Poems (2010).

"A World of Suburbs? Finding the Heart of the Urban Century in the Periphery" with 91��ɫ environmental studies Professor Roger Keil (right) will offer 91��ɫ Circle members insights into urbanization. The 21st century has been heralded as an urban century. Indeed, urbanization is now the most tangible shared experience of humanity. Keil will explore what is behind the story of the "urban revolution". He will uncover an important and perhaps astonishing truth: Most urban dwellers now live in the periphery. From the squatter settlements of the Global South to the wealthy gated communities of North America, from the tower block peripheries of Europe or Canada to the newly sprawling cities of Asia, a common theme emerges: where cities grow, they grow at the margins.

Keil is the director of the City Institute at 91��ɫ and professor in the Faculty of Environmental Studies. Among his publications are In-Between Infrastructure: Urban Connectivity in an Age of Vulnerability (2010) and The Global Cities Reader (2006). Keil’s current research is on global suburbanism and regional governance. He is the co-editor of the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research and a co-founder of the International Network for Urban Research and Action.

This free series includes two events annually – in the spring and fall each year – and provides opportunities for learning and networking in a relaxed environment.

Lecture & Lunch events are open to members of the 91��ɫ Circle and their guests, each of whom are offered a complimentary lunch sourced from 91��ɫ Region as part of the day.

The 91��ɫ Circle receives generous support from 91��ɫ's Alumni Office (program partner) and the Toronto Community News and Metroland Media Group 91��ɫ Region (print media sponsors).

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

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Did you know that Upper Canada was the first place in the British Empire to make laws limiting slavery (1793)?

Did you know that Mathieu Da Costa, a multilingual translator of African descent, came to Canada with Samuel de Champlain in 1604?

If you didn’t, now you do. And you can learn many more such interesting facts about the African-Canadian experience.

To mark Black History Month, 91��ɫ’s is posting did-you-knows daily on Facebook and Twitter throughout February.

The postings are part of the institute’s new project, . Funded by a knowledge mobilization grant from the Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council of Canada, the project aims to produce and share new scholarship on the immigration to Canada of African American refugees from slavery.

The institute is collaborating with scholars and educators, community groups, libraries, government agencies and other stakeholders to write a new chapter on Canada’s Underground Railroad-era heritage. The objective is to share this new information with the public, especially teachers, children and youth, in easily accessible ways.

For daily facts about the African-Canadian experience, visit , follow  and check out the website.

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

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The AAMS, a new not-for-profit organization with a mission to end slavery through research, education and partnerships with other organizations, will celebrate its launch at 91��ɫ with two events. The first is a benefit concert and anti-slavery art auction, Party for Freedom, on Friday, Jan. 28, in the Sandra Faire & Ivan Fecan Theatre, from 7 to 10pm. The second is the Slavery in the 21st Century conference on Saturday, Jan. 29, from 9 to 5:30pm, in the Founders Assembly Hall, 152 Founders College, Keele campus.

“Modern-day slavery is arguably the most underpublicized human rights crisis of our time,” says Sapoznik (MA ’08). Twenty-seven million “is equivalent to the entire population of Canada in the early 1990s. There are reported cases of slavery in every country in the world today with two exceptions: Iceland and Greenland. Public awareness of modern slavery also is low, enabling traffickers to lure thousands of victims into forced labour situations. Canada, for instance, is a source, transit and destination country for human trafficking.”

AAMS has strong ties to 91��ɫ. Many of its executive members are 91��ɫ graduate history students, and Paul Lovejoy, director of the , is one of the board members.

The freedom concert will feature motivational speaker Roger Cram of Hiram College as the emcee; anti-slavery activist, TED Speaker and AAMS board member , president and co-founder of ; survivor Natasha Falle; Glendene Grant, the mother of missing human trafficking victim Jessie Foster; actress, singer and songwriter Kate Todd; guitar player and Janelle Belgrave of Peace Concept; ; an anti-slavery art auction; the Fashion Studio 7 filming crew; and more.

AAMS’s inaugural conference, Slavery in the 21st Century, will examine a variety of issues affecting slavery today. It will feature Sapoznik; Paul Lovejoy, director of 91��ɫ’s Harriet Tubman Institute for Research on the Global Migrations of African Peoples; and University of Toronto Professor Emeritus Martin Klein. Bales will open the conference, followed by four panel discussions. The complete schedule is .

Canadian NGOs Freeing Slaves
Moderator: Roger Cram, Hiram College
Speakers: Jamie McIntosh of , Lisa Cheong of , Julia Smith-Brake of and Adam Churchman of .

Canadian Front-line Activists, Survivors, Filmmakers and Fair Trade Advocates
Moderators: Jeff Gunn and Mekhala Gunaratne of Alliance Against Modern Slavery
Speakers: Christina Cudahy of Abuse of Migrant Workers in the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program; University of British Columbia student Brittany Luby (MA ’08), founder of Indigenous 91��ɫ, who will show the five-minute video Trafficking of First Nations Women; Glendene Grant, the mother of missing human trafficking victim Jessie Foster; Azra Rashid, a filmmaker and writer who is currently developing a documentary on forced marriages in Canada; and Michael Sacco of ChocoSol.

Forced Labour, Forced Sex and Forced Marriage – Legal Responses and Law Enforcement Against Modern Slavery in Canada
Moderator: 91��ɫ Professor Annie Bunting of the Law & Society Program
Speakers: Marty Van Doren, the RCMP’s human trafficking awareness coordinator in Ontario; Heather Richardson of Peel Regional Police; University of British Columbia law Professor , founder of the non-governmental organization fighting human trafficking and the child sex trade , and author of Invisible Chains: Canada’s Underground World of Human Trafficking (Viking Canada, 2010), has a video message; and Deepa Mattoo, a community legal worker at the .

Government Responses to Modern Slavery
Moderator: 91��ɫ West Councillor Anthony Perruzza with assistance from Valerie Hébert of AAMS
Speakers: Conservative MP Joy Smith, Manitoba, and Peggy Nash, president of the federal New Democratic Party, with a video message from MP Glen Pearson.

To register for the conference or buy tickets to the concert, visit the website.

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

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Left: Annie Bunting

Bringing together historians of slavery and women's human rights scholars, this workshop will explore the phenomenon of forced marriage and enslavement from comparative and historical perspectives.

During conflicts in Sierra Leone, Liberia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Uganda and Rwanda, women were kidnapped, raped and forced into "marriages" with combatants. recently found such gender violations to constitute a new crime against humanity of forced marriage as opposed to sexual slavery.

Workshop speakers will explore the merits of prosecuting those responsible for forced marriage under the heading of Sexual Slavery, Forced Marriage or Enslavement? They will also explore the historical antecedents of servile marriage and enslavement of women.

A keynote presenter at the workshop is , chair of the Women's Forum in Sierra Leone, a national umbrella organization of women's groups in the region. M'Carthy has been working with the for the past three years and will speak about the experiences of female victims in the Sierra Leone war. Other presenters will discuss comparable practices in Uganda, Rwanda and the DRC.

Speaking at the workshop are:

• , president of Free the Slaves
• Gaëlle Breton-LeGoff, a lecturer at the University of Quebec in Montreal
• 91��ɫ law & society Professor
• , a senior researcher in children, armed conflict and human rights at the Feinstein International Center at Tufts University
• 91��ɫ Distinguished Research Professor Paul Lovejoy, director of The Harriet Tubman Institute for Research on the Global Migrations of African Peoples and
• Rosaline M’Carthy, President, Women's Forum of Sierra Leone
• , Open Society Initiative for Eastern Africa (OSIEA), Harvard Law School
• Osgoode Hall Law School Professor
• University of Hull Professor Joel Quirk,
• , RCUK Fellow in International Slavery at the University of Liverpool
• , 91��ɫ PhD candidate in history, The Harriet Tubman Institute for Research on the Global Migrations of African Peoples
• Jody Sarich, DePaul University, Free the Slaves

This workshop is the first of two conferences supported by a grant. In February 2011, Bunting will host a larger international conference in Freetown, Sierra Leone. Today's workshop is supported by numerous areas at 91��ɫ, including the Nathanson Centre on Transnational Human Rights, Crime & Security, the Office of the Provost, the Office of the Vice-President Research & Innovation, the dean of the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies (LA&PS), and The Harriet Tubman Institute for Research on the Global Migrations of African Peoples.

For more information, visit The Harriet Tubman Institute for Research on the Global Migrations of African Peoples website or contact Kathy Mirzaei, interim graduate program assistant, Department of Sociology, LA&PS.

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

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“SSHRC’s investment in humanities and social sciences research allows our scholars to substantially contribute to Canada’s knowledge base, to culture and to quality of life,” said Stan Shapson (right), 91��ɫ’s vice-president research & innovation. “This basic research helps us to better understand the world while responding to the pressing social issues of our time.”

Forty-seven 91��ɫ faculty members received $4.4 million to fund their research projects through ’s Standard Research Grants program. 91��ɫ also received over $560,000 to support 17 projects funded through the:

• Research Development Initiatives competition
• Image, Text, Sound and Technology competition
• International Opportunities Fund
• Aid to Research Workshop competition

Graduate students and doctoral fellows also benefited from the announcements: 148 91��ɫ master’s and doctoral students have won over $5 million in scholarships and fellowships. More than 2,000 graduate and postdoctoral projects across Canada received funding.

Reflecting knowledge mobilization’s status as a core SSHRC priority, the competition also included special calls for Public Outreach Grants that support existing and ongoing projects that mobilize research results to a range of audiences beyond academia. Nine 91��ɫ projects were funded, securing over $1 million for the University.

In this category, 91��ɫ researchers enjoyed a 67 per cent success rate; in comparison, 2009 SSHRC applicants averaged a success rate of 33 per cent across all categories.

Through the Public Outreach Grants, 91��ɫ researchers will:

• Make literary research available to a broader community of researchers, students, teachers and educators, and policy makers in a sustainable way through the (ORION).
• Empower young mothers by exploring what they need to achieve economic, social, familial and personal wellness and prosperity.
• Share research conducted with marginalized youth with educators, community organizations and other stakeholders to help them understand the alienation and disengagement new migrants and ethno-racial minority youth experience as their families move from Toronto’s inner city and inner-suburban neighbourhoods to the outer suburbs, such as Peel, Brampton, Vaughan, Markham, Ajax and Pickering.
• Enhance microcredit program success for economic development through social performance ratings by making the information accessible and designing program evaluation instruments.
• Share new scholarship on the immigration of African American refugees from slavery to Canada with educators, community groups, libraries and government agencies, among others.
• Mobilize knowledge on the political economy of women’s rights—specifically, connections among macroeconomic policy, public policies that impact the paid and unpaid work of women, and women’s access to human rights—to local human rights organizations that focus on women.
• Provide experts in performance making, theatre design and green technology with a three-day opportunity to share practices, approaches and technological innovations.
• Mobilize the Aboriginal peoples of Canada’s disparate experiences with and knowledge of conservation by bringing together Aboriginal community representatives, academics, policy-makers, and conservation practitioners.
• Inform climate change policy and practice by making climate change research and evidence available to policy partners in four GTA municipalities (, , and ), and the .

“These awards also build upon 91��ɫ’s amazing success earlier this year in SSHRC’s large-scale collaborative competitions,” said Shapson. “91��ɫ received $6 million through SSHRC’s Major Collaborative Research Initiatives (MCRI) and Community-University Research Alliances (CURA) programs. Professors Roger Keil, Pat Armstrong and Carla Lipsig-Mumme are already collaborating with their international research teams to study global suburbanisms, long-term residential healthcare, and work in a warming world.”

“Their work, coupled with the projects funded through this announcement, addresses key social issues facing Canadian society while demonstrating our leadership in creating and sharing new knowledge across the social sciences and humanities.”

“Our government continues to invest in world-class research to improve Canadians’ quality of life and increase the supply of highly qualified graduates that Canada needs to be successful,” said the Honourable Tony Clement, Minister of Industry. “The social sciences and humanities show us how to harness and interpret innovation from a human perspective, which translates into benefits for society.”

has posted a complete list of funded projects on their website.

By Elizabeth Monier-Williams, research communications officer.

The post 91��ɫ researchers receive $10 million in funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada appeared first on Research & Innovation.

“Over the last 25 years, the topic of motherhood has emerged as a central and significant topic of scholarly inquiry across a wide range of academic disciplines. A cursory review of motherhood research reveals that hundreds of scholarly articles have been published on almost every motherhood theme imaginable,” says O’Reilly, who coined the term "motherhood studies" to acknowledge and demarcate motherhood scholarship as a legitimate and distinctive discipline.

"Indeed, similar to the development of women studies as an academic field in the 1970s, motherhood studies, while explicitly interdisciplinary, has emerged an autonomous and independent scholarly discipline in the last decade," she says. "This intellectual tradition of maternal scholarship both made possible and created the need for an encylopedia on motherhood."

Founder and director of the newly formed (developed from the former Association for Research on Mothering at 91��ɫ), O'Reilly approached contributors and compiled articles by some 300 women scholars throughout the United States, Canada and beyond for the book.

The , the first scholarly reference devoted to the subject, covers a vast array of topics, including how the study of motherhood is almost completely ignored in archeology, mothers in popular culture, hip mamas, influential maternal theorists, the economics of motherhood, psychoanalysis, fertility, guilt, ecofeminism, refugees and the future of mothering. The encyclopedia touches on mothers, and what it means to be a mother in almost every country. It also looks at mothers in film, books, art and poetry, as well as in the Bible.

“The publication is for me a significant moment in motherhood scholarships as it confirms that motherhood has indeed arrived as a legitimate and distinct academic discipline and scholarly field." says O'Reilly. "As well, the encyclopedia, in bringing together for the first time over 700 motherhood topics from A to Z, from aboriginal mothering to zines, and in providing a detailed summary and a bibliography for each topic, is an invaluable resource for anyone – students, journalists, writers, researchers, community agencies – in need of an overview of a particular motherhood topic and/or interested in doing further research on the subject matter.”

Left: Andrea O'Reilly

The book delves into the anthropology of mothering, a discussion on advice literature for mothers, a chronology of motherhood and mother activists. It explores the concept of bad mothering, absentee mothers, alcoholism, ethics, HIV/AIDS, race, slavery, lesbian and bisexual mothers, breastfeeding and more. In addition, it examines terms, concepts, themes, debates, theories and texts of motherhood within history, geography and academia.

To O’Reilly (BA Hons. '85, MA '87, PhD '96), the publication of the encyclopedia is like the coming of age of mothering research. The scholarship of motherhood has been legitimized and recognized, she says.

She introduces the Encyclopedia of Motherhood with a quote from author Adrienne Rich: “We know more about the air we breathe, the seas we travel, than about the nature and meaning of motherhood.” And that is exactly what O’Reilly hopes the encyclopedia will change, that it will provide a glimpse into all things associated with and to mothering. The publication of the encyclopedia demarcates motherhood as an academic discipline and points to the future.

O’Reilly is the author of and . She is also the editor of 14 collections.

For more information, visit the Web site.

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

The post From Roman times to today, covered in one mother of a book appeared first on Research & Innovation.