Europe Archives | UAP 2026-30

Professor Susan Henders talks about her role as an observer for Taiwan election

fmaquito — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 10:00:00 +0000

Several international observers were asked to oversee the January Taiwan presidential election to ensure freedom and fairness in what was predicted to be an extremely close race. Susan Henders, director of the 91��ɫ Centre for Asian Research (YCAR), was one of them. She’ll be discussing her experience as part of a panel Tuesday.

“Taiwan’s Super Saturday: Perspectives on the 2012 Polls from Canadian Election Observers” will take place Feb. 14, from 3:30 to 5:30pm, at 857 91��ɫ Research Tower, Keele campus.

Invited by the (ICFET), Henders was one of about 21 scholars, business people, parliamentarians and former government officials from eight countries, including Canada, the United States and several in Europe and Asia. This was the fifth time the Taiwanese people have voted directly for a presidential candidate since 1996. In addition, the legislative elections were also underway.

A street rally in support of the Democratic Progressive Party campaign

“There are always issues of freedom and fairness in Taiwan elections,” says Henders, a political science professor at 91��ɫ. “However, there were particular concerns about this one because the presidential race was predicated to be really close. The ICFET wanted some international observers there who could comment on the spot about what might be going on in the days leading up to the polls and also to provide some judgment about the freedom and fairness of the election.”

Michael Stainton (left) in Taiwan with a poster in the background in support of the Kuomintang, the Chinese Nationalist Party, which was re-elected

Henders found the experience interesting and enlightening, and despite Taiwan’s unique situation and challenges, feels it has something to teach other democracies about the conditions that undermine the strength of democracy and the democratic nature of elections. She will join Michael Stainton, a Taiwan scholar and president of the Taiwan Human Rights Association of Canada who was also a member of the ICFET mission, in discussing their experiences as observers at the Tuesday event.

Stainton and Henders will examine how Taiwan’s democracy is affected by the island’s authoritarian past and its relations with China and the United States. B. Michael Frolic, a 91��ɫ political science professor emeritus, will speak about the election in light of Taiwan-China relations and democratization in other contexts. Lois Wilson, a former Canadian senator and president of the World Council of Churches, who was also part of the election observation mission, will also speak at the event.

A meeting for the Democratic Progressive Party campaign, with the presidential candidate and her running mate on the background poster

In the preliminary report following the election, the ICFET observers noted issues, such as vote buying, were a problem in the Jan. 14 polls. They also noted some misuse of government power and a severe imbalance in party wealth and resources, which undermines the freeness and fairness of elections, but is a result of the island’s authoritarian past. Taiwan was under authoritarian rule until the late 1980s and is still trying to throw off the residue of that period in its bid for democracy.

Susan Henders

Taiwan’s particular geopolitical and economic positioning with respect to China and the United States also means that foreign interference in elections remains an issue, says Henders.

The international election observation report stated that both Chinese and former United States officials interfered in the political process. During the election process, Taiwan and international media reported that Chinese officials were using China’s economic power to try to sway the election outcome. In addition, a few days before the election, a former American Institute in Taiwan chairman commented that Taiwan relations with China and the US would suffer if the opposition won.

“It was that kind of thing we were able to respond to quickly,” says Henders. Head of the ICFET mission Frank Murkowski, former US Alaska governor and senator, publicly condemned the remarks saying the US government should be neutral in the election.

The Taiwanese people are particularly sensitive to the views of US and Chinese officials. Although the US doesn’t recognize Taiwan as a state, it is obliged to protect it militarily. “So if a former US official says anything before an election in Taiwan, it gets a lot of attention,” says Henders. As Canada doesn’t formerly recognize Taiwan either, “it is particularly important that Canadian people, by participating in the election observation mission, showed support for efforts by Taiwanese people to strengthen their democracy.”

The Central Election Commission counting centre

Henders says the mission should be seen as a small contribution to the long-term building of a stronger democracy in Taiwan by getting rid of old authoritarian legacies and dealing with the power of China. “We were in many ways impressed by the election. We did not hear of issues with ballot counting or the mechanics of the process while we were there, and the candidates on the whole were forthcoming in answering the questions of our observation mission. Taiwan has achieved a lot.”

The ICFET mission visited Taipei, Kaohsiung, Tainan and Taichung and met with candidates or organizers from the three main political parties – the Democratic Progressive Party, the Chinese Nationalist Party and the People’s First Party. They also attended street rallies and campaign events, and visited polling stations. The mission members were present in the Central Election Commission counting centre on election day, they spoke with the media and held press conferences, as well as a public forum on democracy.

‘These kinds of observer missions represent a way civil society groups can be vigilant in helping each other and strengthening democracy,” Henders says.

For more information, contact YCAR at ycar@yorku.ca or visit the YCAR website.

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

The post Professor Susan Henders talks about her role as an observer for Taiwan election appeared first on UAP 2026-30.

91��ɫ's film school rated best of world's top 10

fmaquito — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 10:00:00 +0000

International students can benefit tremendously from a film education in North America, Europe or Asia, wrote AsianCorrespondent.com Dec. 5, in a story about the world’s top film schools. If and when they return to their home countries, they may employ the skills learned in building their native film industries. Below we have listed 10 of the top film schools around the world for international students:

[1.] 91��ɫ, Canada

91��ɫ’s Department of Film [Faculty of Fine Arts] is Canada’s first, largest and most comprehensive university-based film school. Film programs are taught by 40 award-winning filmmakers and prominent scholars, all active in their field. Students benefit from comprehensive, professional training that blends theory and practice in a free-thinking and creative environment. Five hundred-plus students work in modern learning, production and screening facilities in Toronto, one of the world’s leading film capitals. 91��ɫ offers a mix of graduate and undergraduate programs covering a range of topics. Students explore everything from the role that film and television play in society to genre-specific topics such as the vampire in cinema or crime film.

Asian students with international filmmaking aspirations have a couple of major avenues to choose from. They can give into the Hollywood paradigm and study in LA, where they will be encouraged to conform to the system and join the filmmaking masses. Opposite this, they can seek out smaller, counter-cultural schools that put a priority on the modern film as work of art.

For those intent on pursuing the latter, a school like 91��ɫ is an excellent option. Based in Toronto in Canada, it offers all of the advantages of a North American education without cornering aspiring filmmakers in the Hollywood mindset.

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

The post 91��ɫ's film school rated best of world's top 10 appeared first on UAP 2026-30.

Professor Anna Hudson helping curate Group of Seven exhibits in UK

fmaquito — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 08:00:00 +0000

When Ian Dejardin first encountered the Group of Seven in the late 1980s, he was stunned by their visual impact and was determined to learn everything he could about these seminal figures in the history of 20th-century Canadian art, wrote Postmedia News Sept. 20, in a story about a new European tour of the group’s works.

But it wasn’t until 2006, a year after he was appointed director of the Dulwich Gallery, that Dejardin had a chance to visit Canada and view first-hand the works of Tom Thomson, J.E.H. MacDonald, Arthur Lismer, Frederick Varley, Frank Johnston, Franklin Carmichael, A.Y. Jackson and Lawren Harris. (Thomson is associated with the group but was never an official member.)

Then two years later, the doors began to open, thanks to Canadian art patron David Thomson, who introduced Dejardin to the two Canadians who would become his co-curators for the European tour: Katerina Atanassova, chief curator of the McMichael Collection, and Anna Hudson, professor of Canadian art & curatorial studies at 91��ɫ [Faculty of Fine Arts].

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

The post Professor Anna Hudson helping curate Group of Seven exhibits in UK appeared first on UAP 2026-30.

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.

The post Professor Roger Keil says multiculturalism more successful in Canada than Europe appeared first on UAP 2026-30.

Professor Haideh Moghissi edits new book on Muslim diaspora in the West

fmaquito — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 10:00:00 +0000

In her ongoing effort to illuminate the experience of Muslims in the West, 91��ɫ Professor Haideh Moghissi has recently produced her second book on the subject, .

Released in December, the volume of essays by scholars from both sides of the Atlantic explores issues of race and ethnicity, culture, media, gender and migration.

The collection is edited by , associate dean external of 91��ɫ’s Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies, and Halleh Ghorashi, a professor at VU University Amsterdam.

In previews, London-based scholars say the essays “illuminate a rich mix of issues that shape and define the everyday experiences of diasporic Muslims,” address “some of the egregious stereotypes used about the Muslim diaspora” and show how “homogenization of diverse communities may serve political expediency but has a negative effect on the quest for meaningful integration.”

Moghissi, who teaches women’s and equity studies at 91��ɫ, has written the introduction and contributed one essay – “Changing spousal relations in diaspora: Muslims in Canada”. Other essays look at Muslim youth culture in Europe, radicalization of Muslims in Sweden, discrimination against young Muslim French women, and home and belonging for Moroccan-Dutch Muslims.

The essays grew out of a four-year international research project, "Muslim diasporas: Heightened Islamic identity, gender, and cultural resistance". Started in 2006, the project involved scholars in Canada, France, Sweden, Britain and the Netherlands and was funded by the Ford Foundation.

Moghissi is the author of , released in 1999 and still considered timely and relevant. It was translated and reprinted in 2010 by a South Korean publisher. In 2009, she published a monograph, , co-authored by 91��ɫ political science professors and .

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

The post Professor Haideh Moghissi edits new book on Muslim diaspora in the West appeared first on UAP 2026-30.

Call for papers: CERLAC Graduate Student Research Conference

fmaquito — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 08:00:00 +0000

The Centre for Research on Latin America & the Caribbean (CERLAC) is calling for papers for its second International Graduate Student Research Conference.

The first conference attracted over 70 presenters from Canada, the United States, Europe and Latin America, who presented in 20 themed panels over a two-day period. Expert faculty members helped ensure rich debate and provided timely feedback, and selected papers were published in the CERLAC Working Paper series. CERLAC intends to continue the conversations begun in 2008. It is inviting submissions for its second conference to be held March 11 and 12 at 91��ɫ.

Recognizing the diversity within the region, creative and critical paper, panel and alternative presentation proposals are welcome on any aspect of study of Latin America and the Caribbean as a whole and/or its constituent parts. This conference represents an outstanding opportunity to recognize and explore emergent innovative research by graduate students in all disciplines. This includes, but is not limited to, the social sciences, humanities, fine arts, environmental studies, law and business. CERLAC is also seeking contributors whose work can open fruitful dialogues and exchanges across traditional disciplinary boundaries.

The individual submission application form is available online. This form includes a request for a list of five carefully chosen keywords and a 250-word (maximum) abstract for papers, panels or alternative presentations.

The application form for panel proposals is also available online. CERLAC encourages applicants to submit themed panel proposals as a way to bring colleagues together to discuss current research and advance a particular field.

The deadline for the submission of abstracts and panel proposals is Nov. 15. Those planning to present in alternative formats, for example, film, dance, visual arts or music, they are encouraged to contact CERLAC earlier.

For more information or to submit completed application forms, contact CERLAC at lacsconf@yorku.ca.

Applicants will receive confirmation of acceptance by mid-January. Presenters will be asked to submit their papers by March 1.

The post Call for papers: CERLAC Graduate Student Research Conference appeared first on UAP 2026-30.

IRIS launches book calling for systemic changes to fight climate change

fmaquito — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 08:00:00 +0000

It's not enough to plant trees in exchange for carbon emissions in the fight to mitigate climate change, say 91��ɫ environmental studies Professor Anders Sandberg and 91��ɫ environmental studies master’s student in their new co-edited book Climate Change – Who’s Carrying the Burden?: The Chilly Climates of the Global Environmental Dilemma.

Nor is it enough to set up a supposed green company in the Global South to offset the spewing emissions of companies in the Global North. Without a substantial system change, an alternative way of living, climate change will continue unabated, says Anders Sandberg. “I don’t see any change, frankly. Carbon emissions are still increasing dramatically.”

When carbon emissions are traded or bought for offsets, such as planting trees, they are done so at the end of the carbon change cycle, rather than at the beginning. A lot of money continues to go into the development of more carbon sources. “From my perspective it’s not very positive,” says Sandberg. Much of the offset purchasing is by large multinationals in the Global South, where they set up green companies to offset pollution in the United States, but by doing so they displace many of the local people and their economic livelihoods.

In the book, the Sandbergs write, “The concept of climate change itself can be an oppressive force…hiding the historical connections of the carbon economy to colonialism, capitalism and rampant and exploitive resource extractions."

“We’re asking people to look at the climate change issues from a broader perspective, which could bring forth more ideas,” says Sandberg.

In , the third volume in the Our Schools/Our Selves book series, 2010, published by the , the Sandbergs look at who is most affected by climate change and the need for systemic change beyond capping and trading carbon emissions.

They don't believe that free markets, new green technologies and international agreements are enough to alleviate climate change. Despite green technologies, levels of consumption will likely remain high. Even if all the cars are electric, there will still be suburbs, roads and gridlock, potentially leading to an increase in the amount of electricity used and the building of more hydroelectric dams, which then affects the environment and the people who use it. “I think we need to look at and imagine other ways of living,” says Anders Sandberg.

Left: Anders Sandberg

Although climate change is a global issue, the solutions are not. What’s needed is a closer look at the origins of climate change and the areas it most impacts, he says. Areas such as the Tar Sands of Alberta, the Gulf of Guinea in West Africa, the Canadian north, the coastal regions of Bangladesh and the island states of the Pacific.

“We have to look at the people on the ground who are harmed by this. What we are trying to do is turn the prism from the global to the local. But we’re not just looking at the horror stories; we’re also looking at the hope and resiliency of these communities and whether they might have some answers to the climate change problem.” For one thing, it’s important to understand the vulnerabilities that have built up in these communities, explore their origins, call for reparations from those who are responsible and build on the resiliencies that remain.

One of the contributors to the book, 91��ɫ environmental studies master's student Jelena Vesic (BES Spec. Hon. '08), points to the polar bear as a symbol and a victim of climate change. There is now a threat to First Nations who harvest them because they are considered endangered, yet a closer look reveals that in some regions the polar bear is holding its own. Banning their harvest would affect First Nations communities that have hunted polar bears as part of their culture for centuries. The ban would also affect the local economy and the resiliency that’s built into the particular relationship between the Inuit and the polar bear.

Right: Tor Sandberg

Climate Change – Who’s Carrying the Burden? contains a collection of papers from prominent people such as Stephen Lewis, Canada's former ambassador to the United Nations, who looks at the health impact of global climate change; author and journalist Naomi Klein, who talks about paying the climate debt; and scholar and activist Vandana Shiva on the G8/20 summit and climate change. Green Party of Canada leader Elizabeth May explores shrinking ecological footprints and expanding political ones, while visiting Fulbright scholar at 91��ɫ Professor Noël Sturgeon challenges the family values and environmental practices that are tied to the carbon economy.

The majority of articles, however, are written by junior scholars and graduate students in 91��ɫ’s Faculty of Environmental Studies who are passionate about climate justice. They write on a range of topics, including the recent climate-focused conferences in Copenhagen and Cochabamba, climate change-induced migration, Hurricane Katrina, the Niger Delta, the First Nations youth adoption of hip hop music to fight HIV/AIDS. the largest squatter settlement in Europe (the free town of Christiania in Copenhagen) and food policy in the Greater Toronto Area.

The Sandbergs discuss what they see as the dominant story – cap and trade and offsets –and the alternative story that calls for systemic change and climate justice, which emerged at the 15th United Nations conference on climate change they attended last December in Copenhagen.

Anders Sandberg is currently using Climate Change – Who’s Carrying the Burden? in his course – Environmental Studies 1200, Taking Action, Engaging People and the Environment.

The book will be officially launched by 91��ɫ’s (the Sandbergs were part of the institute's delegation to the climate change conference in Copenhagen) on Wednesday, Oct. 20, from 3 to 4:30pm at 305 91��ɫ Lanes, Keele campus.

The themes of the book will also be featured in a session titled “Climate Change, Climate Justice and Human Rights” during 91��ɫ’s Inclusion Day – Dialoguing Across Differences tomorrow.

For more information on the book, visit the website.

By Sandra McLean, YFile writer

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

The post IRIS launches book calling for systemic changes to fight climate change appeared first on UAP 2026-30.

Researchers creating international global rights-monitoring network for persons with disabilities

fmaquito — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 08:00:00 +0000

Disability Rights Promotion International provides innovative response to UN’s Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities

If you pass a law to prevent discrimination against persons with disabilities, how do you know whether it’s being enforced, let alone making a difference?

Marcia Rioux (right), director of the 91��ɫ Institute for Health Research (YIHR) and professor in the Faculty of Health’s School of Health Policy & Management, is working internationally, particularly with countries with limited resources, to develop a unique and innovation solution for the reporting requirements set out in the United Nation’s .

The United Nations requires all governments that have ratified its Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities − as Canada did on , 2010 − to provide information on the measures they have taken to integrate persons with disabilities into their societies. But this reporting is often limited to cataloguing laws, policies, and programs that may have little impact on the day-to-day lives of the people they’re intended to help.

Disability Rights Promotion International (DRPI), a multi-year international collaborative project, is establishing a global monitoring system to address disability discrimination. The research project, based in YIHR, is led by Rioux and Bengt Lindqvist − a former Cabinet Minister in Sweden, former UN Special Rapporteur on Disability, and long-time activist on disability rights. The team includes a group of 91��ɫ researchers and international colleagues who are creating a roadmap that will allow countries to evaluate their laws, policies and programs to comply with the United Nations’ standards.

“Collecting and reporting on evidence-based data forces governments to acknowledge that the challenges people with disabilities face are not just anecdotal,” says Rioux. “Our project allows evaluation to happen within the context of the experiences of people with disabilities to objectively measure where discrimination is now while developing and tracking solid trend data to determine if and how things are getting better.”

In September, the Africa Regional Monitoring Centre opened its doors in Kigali, Rwanda and will act as a focal point for disability monitoring and reporting in the region. Agreements with centres in Asia Pacific, Eastern Europe and Latin America are expected in the near future. The (SIDA) awarded the research team over $2 million in 2009 to open the four regional centres.

Each centre will act as a focal point for monitoring disability rights in that region, and will play a key role in empowering local people with disabilities to lead disability rights monitoring projects. “Regional monitoring is most sustainable when local people are involved since it puts long-term roots into the community,” says Rioux. “The vast majority of disabled people around the world face endemic poverty − many don’t have jobs or go to school or have basic literacy skills. Engaging people with disabilities to lead this process is a more holistic approach to addressing the challenges they face, both as individuals and a collective.”

When all four centres are operational, Rioux anticipates that hundreds of people with disabilities will be engaged in disability rights monitoring activities. The centres will host training on what disability means as a human right, how to collect data and conduct evidence-based research, and how to write and file human rights reports. Groundwork is also being laid to connect monitors with disabilities to other local rights-seeking groups, such as religious-based, race-based and gender-based, to get them coordinating their efforts together instead of separately.

"The Faculty of Health’s worldwide research aims to help people live healthier lives while co-creating rejuvenated health systems,” says Harvey Skinner, dean of Health. “Professor Rioux's research is an excellent example of how 91��ɫ University is on the front line of our increasingly complex, simultaneously global and local world."

Previous phases of this project focused on developing and piloting tools and methods to monitor disability rights. In 2006, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada ()’s Community-University Research Alliances program provided Rioux and her team with just under $1 million to fund Monitoring the Human Rights of People with Disabilities in Canada, which is currently in its last of five years.

In 2008, Rioux also received a two-year $40,000 grant from to research disability and social, economic and cultural rights. She has also received funding from the , and been invited to consult with governments and disabled persons associations around the globe to discuss disability rights. Recently, she and her team wrote the chapter on disability rights monitoring for the .

“Professor Rioux’s disability rights research reflects both the value 91��ɫ places on social justice and her expertise in leading large-scale collaborative research projects of international significance,” says Stan Shapson, vice-president research & innovation. “This type of knowledge mobilization is a crucial step in making governments more accountable for the social policies they set, and reflects the social input that’s possible when expertise is globally shared.”

By Elizabeth Monier-Williams, research communications officer.

The post Researchers creating international global rights-monitoring network for persons with disabilities appeared first on UAP 2026-30.

Professor Adrian Shubert gives historical context to relationship between Catalonia's bullfights and independence

fmaquito — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 08:00:00 +0000

Catalonia’s decision on Wednesday to ban bullfighting in 2012 is akin to Quebec banning hockey or California banning fireworks on the Fourth of July, :

On the surface, the ban was about animal welfare. But more than anything, it was about Catalonia asserting its identity as distinct from greater Spain.

“A Catalan nationalist movement emerged in the 1850s,” says Adrian Shubert, a historian in 91��ɫ’s Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies. “The Catalans saw themselves as more sophisticated, more European, [and] more advanced economically than the rest of the country.”

And the future, to the Catalans, was to be European, and being European meant no more bullfights. Bullfighting was a symbol of Spanish backwardness, of barbarity, a tradition unbecoming a progressive people…. Goya celebrated it in paintings. Federico Lorca, the poet, embraced it with verse. Lorca was executed during the Spanish Civil War, a bloody conflict that ended with the dictatorship of General Francisco Franco.

“Franco detested the Catalans,” Shubert says. “He saw them as separatists and a threat to the unity of the Fatherland.”

Under Franco, the Catalan language was banned in public, and banished from media. Nationalism went underground and wouldn't emerge again until after the general's death in 1975.

Almost four decades later, a new civil war is being waged in Spain, and the first casualty is bullfighting. The debate that ended the blood sport played out in Catalonia's legislature for several months. Biologists, veterinarians, philosophers, writers — bullfighters — all were invited to address the politicians before the crucial ballot was cast. And when the votes were tallied, bullfighting, and the Spain behind it, was defeated 68-55.

The complete article is available on the .

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

The post Professor Adrian Shubert gives historical context to relationship between Catalonia's bullfights and independence appeared first on UAP 2026-30.

Professor Peter McIsaac appointed director of Centre for German & European Studies

fmaquito — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 08:00:00 +0000

Peter McIsaac, a professor in the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies’ Department of Languages, Literatures & Linguistics, has been appointed director of the Canadian Centre for German & European Studies (CCGES) at 91��ɫ. The appointment became effective July 1.

"I am truly excited to be taking on the directorship of CCGES, which is both a privilege and a challenge,” says McIsaac. “My sense is that CCGES has begun to establish itself as a nexus of crucial research into a variety of important questions, but we have not begun to exhaust the possibilities of the 91��ɫ community. While Germany retains a central place in the centre's research agenda, we need to welcome the intellectual curiosity of colleagues working on other European questions under the CCGES umbrella. The European Union Centre of Excellence project, housed at CCGES, provides a perfect example of what is possible.”

Right: Peter McIsaac

McIsaac holds a PhD in Germanic languages and literatures from Harvard University and a bachelor of science in physics and German from the University of Michigan. In addition to numerous articles, book chapters and book reviews, McIsaac is the author of and has served as guest editor for the journals , and . He came to 91��ɫ in 2007 from Duke University, where he was an assistant professor. During the past year, McIsaac was a visiting associate professor at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

fosters and disseminates critical knowledge about Germany in its European context while examining Europe as a geographical, political, social, cultural and economic entity. Promoting new research into these core lines of inquiry is at the heart of McIsaac’s plans for the centre.

McIsaac succeeds Professor Roger Keil, director of the City Institute at 91��ɫ and professor in the Faculty of Environmental Studies, who has served as interim director for the past year.

"CCGES’ focus on European Union studies and affairs reflects the complexity and diversity of meanings attached to Europe in the modern world,” says David Dewitt, associate vice-president research (social sciences & humanities). “Its research supports 91��ɫ’s international focus while its student exchanges provide valuable opportunities for students from 91��ɫ and European countries to enhance their student and research experience through travel.

“I commend Professor Keil for his great service over the past year and am pleased to welcome Professor McIsaac into this new role.”

Submitted by Elizabeth Monier-Williams, research communications officer

The post Professor Peter McIsaac appointed director of Centre for German & European Studies appeared first on UAP 2026-30.