Jackman Humanities Institute

Canadian History

For more than a century, the General Motors Co. plant in Oshawa – once one of the biggest automotive assembly plants in the world – has been the lifeblood of the community. A few years ago, GM workers successfully fought to keep the plant open as management threatened to close the site and several other locations in the U.S. in a bid to cut costs.

Dimitry Anastakis, a Jackman Humanities Institute faculty fellow and professor in the department of history in the Faculty of Arts & Science and Rotman School of Management, recently took an in-depth look at the history and significance of automotive manufacturing in Oshawa in a project done through the JHI Scholars-in-Residence (SiR) program.

The project, titled “Contesting Closure: Life Stories of Work and Community in Oshawa’s Motor City, 1980-2019,” led students to interview former GM employees, do primary research and visit the Oshawa Museum and Canadian Automotive Museum, also in the city about 60 kilometres east of downtown Toronto.

“This was a fantastic experience for myself and for the students, in that it allowed us to pursue research that they were genuinely interested in, and we also did some fantastic fieldwork and archival research,” Anastakis said. “The collaboration between myself, the students and the SiR program was really ideal, and we were able to advance the project significantly.”

In partnership with Ingenium-Canada’s Museum of Science and Innovation, the project helped train students to develop their historical research skills, oral history and interviewing skills and digital history skills with the aim of creating an interactive digital history exhibit documenting automobile production in Oshawa.

Students helped plan the design of the online exhibit about work at GM’s Oshawa plant and its meaning for the community, its workers, and the broader Canadian economy.

Dimitry Anastakis and Fiona McCrow (R) (photos courtesy of Anastakis and McCrow)

Fiona McCrow, an undergraduate student in Victoria College majoring in history with double minors in political science and environmental studies, was one of five SiR researchers on the project. “This involved a lot of primary source research, including combing through news articles, taking trips to archives such as the Canadian Automotive Museum, the Industrial Relations Library, and the Milt Harris Library and interviewing former General Motors employees,” she said.

“Professor Anastakis and our Ingenium collaborator Emily Gann had envisioned the oral interviews as the major component of our SiR experience. As a result, we also researched our interview subjects and prepared specific interview questions for them in tandem with the historical context related research.”

A four-week paid research fellowship, the SiR program provides students with an opportunity to collaborate with an interdisciplinary and intellectually vibrant community and to build relationships with peers, professors and researchers.

McCrow said the SIR program helped foster a sense of academic community among the researchers involved in the project, and gave her first-hand experience doing independent research.

“I felt that our team was very effective in capitalizing on our personal strengths to complement and amplify our collective productivity. Thanks to the freedom that Professor Anastakis and Emily gave to our team, we also felt a strong sense of ownership with this project, which in turn fostered a strong sense of pride in the work that we were doing,” she added.

One of the highlights of working on the project, she said, was gathering in Victoria College's Burwash Dining Hall, where scholars-in-residence would update each other on their progress. “It was fascinating to consider how so many ground-breaking projects across such a wide range of disciplines were happening simultaneously, right next to one another in the rooms of Northrop Frye Hall. Since we spent most of our day thinking about our own projects, reconnecting with the other scholars at the end of the day helped me find perspectives and approaches that I hadn't considered in my own project.”

McCrow said she recommends SiR to anyone considering research and graduate school, as it’s a great opportunity to figure out if research work is suited to them. “The way that the SiR program is structured – both in terms of the collaborative nature and the diverse ways in which research can be presented – reflects what research outside the classroom is often like.”

The dawn chorus: To connect with nature, students combine morning birdsong with music

Christopher.Sorensen — Tue, 17 May 2022 16:52:14 +0000

The dawn chorus: To connect with nature, students combine morning birdsong with music

Christopher.Sorensen Tue, 05/17/2022 - 12:52

Cutline

Undergraduate students recorded the sounds of the dawn chorus all around the GTA (photo courtesy of Alexander Hampton)

Josslyn Johnstone

Topic

Conservation

Faculty of Music

Religion

Each spring as early as 4 a.m., a choir of tweeting and chirping birds known as the “dawn chorus” produces a musical wake-up call – in more ways than one.

“Awareness of nature is the first step to conservation,” says Alexander Hampton, an assistant professor in the department for the study of religion in the University of Toronto's Faculty of Arts & Science. “But it is often limited by all sorts of things – like the boxes we live in and the noise we make, especially in cities.”

The isolation of COVID-19-associated lockdowns caused some people, including Hampton, to pay greater attention to the sounds of nature in their surroundings, including birdsong. “During such a difficult time, there was this opportunity to tune into the conversation nature has been having with us all along,” he says. “But as we continue to move forward, can we hold onto our appreciation of being part of an ecological system – a place where nature continues to live, and even thrive?”

This question was one of the inspirations for a new interdisciplinary project conceived by Hampton and Nicole Percifield, a doctoral student in the Faculty of Music. Titled “The Pleasure of the Dawn Chorus: Preserving the Pandemic Soundscape,” the project is a collaboration between students in the department for the study of religion and the Faculty of Music, with support by the Jackman Humanities Institute, and it explores humanity's emotional and spiritual connection to nature through the arts.

To preserve the urban birdsong that emerged during the pandemic, undergraduate students from Hampton’s courses “Religion and Nature,” “Enchantment, Disenchantment and Re-Enchantment” and “Global Perspectives on Ecology and Religion” recorded the sounds of the dawn chorus all around the Greater Toronto Area – from the university campus to their own neighbourhoods, from public parks to Queen’s Park, some with their phones and others with more elaborate equipment. The students identified the birds using the Cornell Lab of Ornithology Merlin app and produced written reflections and photo essays about their experiences and the meaning of nature awareness.

Audrey Miatello (photo by Lucas Fournier)

The field assignment prompted second-year undergraduate student Audrey Miatello to look for nature in her own backyard. At first, she says, she wasn’t sure how far she’d have to go to find it. “I spent a long time attentively walking around my neighborhood, listening for chirping sounds. Finally, I came across a tree that was filled with the singing of many birds. Alongside their singing, I could hear the noise of cars and the hum of nearby traffic – an interplay between the natural and artificial parts of our city.”

As a next step, doctoral students in the Faculty of Music – mezzo-soprano Percifield, composer Gavin Fraser and pianist Geoffrey Conquer – used the recordings and written reflections as inspiration for musical compositions honouring the dawn chorus.

Translating birdsong into vocal and instrumental melodies first required spectral analysis, a visual interpretation of pitch that applies colour to a particular frequency – in other words, a way to see sound. The pitch analysis allowed the birdsong to be transcribed into musical notation.

“In music, we associate frequencies with pitches which are very fixed, meaning we can pick out particular notes,” Fraser explains. “Birdsong, however, is so complex and not as clear-cut as a vocal melody. The dawn chorus is a beautiful cacophony of all these birds, so instead of picking out specific pitches, we created melodies based on the structural arc of what these pitches look like over time.”

Gavin Fraser (photo by Rich Blenkinsopp)

As the composer, Fraser sought to tell the story of the dawn chorus, not necessarily replicate it. “It was more about creating a journey of coming into this world that humans can understand as the dawn chorus,” he said. “I wanted to capture this idea on two different levels – a literal waking with the choir of morning birdsong, and ‘waking up’ to the natural world by interacting with it in a respectful way.”

He used several compositional techniques to accomplish this, including call-and-response between the piano and the voice, and layering different songs of red-winged blackbirds, American robins, chickadees and geese, to name a few. Singing like a bird, in this sense, became more about interpreting the sound.

“We also evoked an environment that feels like it's the early morning, where birdsong would exist – Nicole makes wind sounds, Geoffrey taps on the piano and I sprinkle in bird-like, melodic elements that then build into harmonies.”
Percifield and Conquer performed the final piece at a recent virtual lecture recital hosted by the Jackman Humanities Institute, bringing nature and humanity, literally, in harmony.

Humanity has difficulty relating to nature on an emotional level, as can be seen from people's slowness to act on the climate crisis, Hampton says, but the arts can help deepen people's connection to nature and propel action.
“Our feelings of connection to nature are often left unexpressed,” he says. “The arts enable us to respond to feelings of wonder, enchantment and awe, and give them expression in a way that connects us more deeply to the nature in our own backyards – and in turn, to something bigger than ourselves.”

Hampton also notes that the spiritual aspect of connecting to the natural world – a concept called “ecospirituality” – resonates with people on a broad scale, enabling people from diverse backgrounds to identify with urban conservation meaningfully.

A red-tailed hawk (photo by Alexander Hampton)

“Some of my students contextualize this sense of wonder within their personal religious traditions – the connection to creation, for example,” says Hampton. “Others connect it to the ecosphere they live in – to nature itself as an object of wonder, which is something they understand in a more secular way.”

Cultivating a relationship with the environment can help remedy what can often feel like an insurmountable level of doom and gloom about the state of the planet, he adds.

“We have these feelings of anxiety and depression because we feel like we can't do anything about it, but the joy and pleasure of nature is all around us,” Hampton says. “If we create more awareness of that and then express our connection through sharing music or making art or taking photographs, then that is the first step of conservation.”

“This project helped me realize that nature exists all around us,” says Miatello, a member of Woodsworth College who is hoping to complete a double major in religion and book and media studies. “With patience and attention, we will see that our neighborhoods are actually home to many natural wonders just waiting to be discovered.

“Now, months later, I still try to carefully observe nature when I am outdoors, making sure not to miss the small details that can easily be overlooked.”

Building on the success of the dawn chorus pilot project, Hampton would next like to engage the public by partnering with community organizations and public institutions such as conservation groups, schools and museums. He is also curious about branching out into preserving and interpreting other types of soundscapes.

“For instance, Toronto is home to a vast ravine system – what do these rivers sound like? There are a lot of different layers to tune into, and all sorts of things in bioacoustics that one can measure that we don't necessarily register in our own ears, like the sound that trees make,” Hampton explains.

“There is a conversation to be had with nature on its own terms. The dawn chorus project brings humans back into that conversation by listening and responding to non-humans as part of the environment that we all share.”

U of T's Randy Boyagoda discusses his new novel, inspired by Dante and set in small-town Indiana

Christopher.Sorensen — Mon, 20 Sep 2021 14:40:48 +0000

U of T's Randy Boyagoda discusses his new novel, inspired by Dante and set in small-town Indiana

Christopher.Sorensen Mon, 09/20/2021 - 10:40

Cutline

(Photo by Derek Shapton)

Sean McNeely

Topic

creative writing

Department of English

Though 700 years have passed since the death of the great Medieval poet Dante Alighieri, author of The Divine Comedy, Randy Boyagoda believes the poem still has the power to connect with anyone who has lost their way.

Dante's Indiana is Boyagoda's second book in a planned trilogy following Original Prin, a satirical novel published in 2018. "It's a loose trilogy,” says Boyagoda, a professor in the department of English in the Faculty of Arts & Science and vice dean, undergraduate.

“Readers can come to this book not knowing about its predecessor and be totally fine, and just engage with this story.”

The trilogy loosely mirrors the three parts of The Divine Comedy: Inferno (hell), Purgatorio (purgatory) and Paradiso (heaven), charting Dante’s path to God.

Prin, the main character in Dante’s Indiana is an English professor who consults on a Dante-themed amusement park.

Original Prin was in a sense Inferno. Dante’s Indiana is Purgatorio, “and then we'll see what happens when I write the third novel in terms of Paradiso,” Boyagoda says.

In Dante’s Indiana, Prin is a middle-aged Sri Lankan-Canadian professor of English from Toronto who finds himself in a type of personal purgatory. He’s stuck, distanced physically and emotionally from his wife and kids, and in need of work, money and purpose.

He accepts an offer to consult on a Christian amusement park in Terre Haute, a rust belt Indiana city. The park is the retirement project of a wealthy packaging company owner and the only profitable business in town.

Prin quickly becomes involved in the complicated lives of his co-workers and in the wider struggles of their opioid-ravaged community while trying to reconcile with his family and his own religious beliefs.

Boyagoda says he still finds time to write despite having a busy academic career.

“Since graduate school, people have been telling me I can't do both, that I can't have this creative life alongside my academic life,” he says. “But I’m very fortunate, in that I've always been able to do it.”

Unlike some writers, Boyagoda says he doesn't require much sleep or structure to write. It’s not uncommon for him to wake at 4 or 5 in the morning and write before the school day begins. He also doesn't need to stick to a specific routine to be creative.

“Whatever I’m doing in my life and work as a university administrator and professor,” he says, “I’m also, somewhere inside, always still imagining, still writing, still telling a story.”

The inspiration for Boyagoda's trilogy came to him unexpectedly – while cleaning his car.

“I was vacuuming potato chips out of our car on a September morning in 2016 and I was listening to a BBC Radio adaptation of The Divine Comedy,” he says. “I’ve studied and read and taught it, but I wouldn’t say it had a significant relevance to my life and work before that moment.”

Listening to that broadcast, Boyagoda was struck by the narrator’s heavy breathing while reading the Inferno, portraying Dante as he made his way down through hell, traveling down an inverted mountain, passing over boulders and lakes of fire.

“I took for granted the physicality of the poem,” says Boyagoda. “That’s when I realized, ‘You know what we all need? A hiker’s guide to Dante.”

He proposed this idea as a Scholars-in-Residence project at the Jackman Humanities Institute. The following year, he worked with five Arts & Science students who joined Boyagoda in poring over old manuscripts and early visualizations. The result was a map of Inferno unlike any other, with detailed locations and descriptions of Dante’s journey.

“But then at some point, the hustling novelist in me took over from the respectable scholar,” says Boyagoda. “And I thought, ‘imagine this is a theme park.’”

As a professor of American literature, Boyagoda spends a lot of time thinking about modern and contemporary American literature, culture and public life. “And Dante’s vision of human experience, in ordinary and ultimate ways together, seemed like a perfect way in to write about America right now,” he says.

That examination of American life focuses on the town’s opioid crisis paired with economic struggles.

In Dante’s Indiana, the son of the packaging company’s owner realizes there’s only one way to keep the family business afloat: By packaging opioids for local distribution, although many of the families who work there have opioid-addicted children or have lost children to overdoses.

“It's a perfect business plan, a high-demand product that keeps everybody employed,” Boyagoda says. “It also seems like a perfect ‘Dantean situation'. The premise and ensuing problems let me explore all of the genuine and very serious human struggles of the novel’s characters.

“The big question of the novel then becomes, which one is going to save this town? The Dante theme park or the opioid-packaging local company? And how does Prin help the people around him, either way, and at the same time find his way home to his family?”

When readers find the answers to these questions, Boyagoda hopes they are able to identify with the story, like they do with The Divine Comedy.

“One of the great things about Dante is that no matter who you are, you can find yourself in the poem,” Boyagoda says. “It famously begins, ‘In the middle of the journey of our life, I came to myself, in a dark wood where the direct way was lost.’”

“You've likely had that moment of feeling lost in the middle of your life, and you look for help – we all do,” Boyagoda says.

“My novel is very much informed by Dante, but it isn’t an homage to Dante. Instead, it’s part of a larger writing project of mine which, in this case, is very much about what it means to find yourself in a story where you weren't expecting to find yourself. With Dante’s Indiana, I hope readers find themselves in this story in ways they didn't expect.”

U of T dance scholar searches for art that captures the beauty of ballet

Christopher.Sorensen — Tue, 06 Jul 2021 17:12:18 +0000

U of T dance scholar searches for art that captures the beauty of ballet

Christopher.Sorensen Tue, 07/06/2021 - 13:12

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A PhD candidate at U of T's Centre of Drama, Theatre & Performance Studies, Anna Paliy says visual art is a window into dance that can show otherwise overlooked details of its transformations across cultures and generations (photo courtesy of Anna Paliy)

Sean McNeely

Topic

Centre for Drama

Global

History

Theatre & Performance Studies

Anna Paliy grew up loving Isadora Duncan, an American dancer who dazzled audiences throughout Europe and Russia in the early 1900s – not only for how she moved, but for what she said: “It has taken me years of struggle, hard work and research to learn to make one simple gesture, and I know enough about the art of writing to realize that it would take as many years of concentrated effort to write one simple, beautiful sentence.”

“I just love that,” says Paliy, a PhD candidate in the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Arts & Science and a former competitive gymnast who views dance as a form of communication.

“This quote inspired me to apply to the Centre for Drama, Theatre & Performance Studies for a PhD. I feel it expresses the parallels I’m trying to explore between dance, art and language.”

Paliy is currently researching the connection between dance and visual art. Her dissertation examines art inspired by traveling eastern European ballet dancers in the early 20th century, with a focus on the period between 1910 and 1930.

“A group of dancers came to western Europe from primarily St. Petersburg and Moscow, though many of them were born in Poland, Ukraine, Georgia and other surrounding countries,” says Paliy.

“As the situation became more and more unstable in the Russian empire, many Slavic dancers toured, were exiled or defected to cities such as Paris and London. Coincidentally, so did those emigrating from North America, such as Duncan. They formed a cross-cultural hub of creativity.”

Paliy is now on the hunt for artwork that celebrates the dancers’ encounters, and she hopes to learn more about the performers themselves as well as the artists who depicted their movements through sketches, prints and paintings.

“To me visual art is a window into dance which can show otherwise undiscernible details of its transformations across cultures and generations,” says Paliy. “The artists demonstrate this moment in the history of dance. Their works are so dynamic and they seem to have so much intention behind their craft … and many of them are women.”

Most of these women artists are not terribly well known – nor is their art included in what Paliy calls “the larger encyclopedias of ballet.”

“And that’s why I feel the need to study them, to make them known,” she says.

Paliy is especially intrigued with a collection of sketches that are now scattered around the world – from Australia to Russia.

“These artists drew in ways that were really funky – that's the word I think of,” says Paliy. “It was very experimental. The artists liked to try different things, and they didn't take themselves too seriously even though what they created was aesthetically pleasing.”

Before becoming a dance scholar, Anna Paliy was a competitive gymnast (photo courtesy of Anna Paliy)

With Toronto as her home base, Paliy hopes to become somewhat of a global art hunter now that pandemic restrictions are easing. She has plans to travel to New York, London and Paris to find more sketches. Some pieces are in art galleries or museums, while others may be collecting dust in family attics.

Some of these archives are passed down by children and grandchildren of the dancers who settled there, she says.

While pursuing her research, Paliy’s fondness for dance and dance-related artwork has taken her to a new and unexpected direction: She was recently selected as the Jackman Humanities Institute (JHI) Amilcare Iannucci Graduate Fellow for the 2021-2022 academic year. She will join a group of scholars working in diverse ways on the theme of pleasure.

“This fellowship will allow me to view my dissertation project in a new way, expanding my view of the sketches created by women artists specifically in their capacity as dance spectators,” says Paliy.

She believes there's a misconception around artists’ appreciation of ballet, which is often regarded as an elitist, aristocratic form of entertainment.

“The scholarly value of the work of the women artists that I've found is very serious,” says Paliy. “I believe they need to be considered in a serious way in terms of their contribution to the wider field of dance history.

“But then I thought to myself: there's something so joyful about the things I'm studying, there's something so playful about the sketches. They make a solid artistic corpus, but also reveal an energetic history of having fun – of spectators just enjoying themselves and then demonstrating their passion and pleasure for the things they saw on stage.”

Spectators derived such pleasure out of ballet, says Paliy, that they themselves felt inspired to pursue their own creative, artistic outlets that celebrate and reflect the joy of their viewing experiences.

“These artists proactively used their intuitive visual abilities to interpret dance,” she says.

“They didn't necessarily try to create impressive grand scale works of art from the outset, though many of their sketches later became paintings now living in museums. They just went with their gut. And I think that's where the pleasure aspect comes in. These women artists came to the ballet and just genuinely loved and enjoyed what they saw, translating pleasure into art.”

U of T's Ontario Institute for Studies in Education establishes Indigenous education research centre

Christopher.Sorensen — Fri, 03 Jul 2020 14:23:02 +0000

U of T's Ontario Institute for Studies in Education establishes Indigenous education research centre

Christopher.Sorensen Fri, 07/03/2020 - 10:23

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Sandra Styres, an assistant professor in OISE’s department of curriculum, teaching and learning, says the new Indigenous Educational Research Centre will be Indigenous-driven and Indigenous-led (photo by Danny Cavanagh)

Perry King

Topic

Waakebiness-Bryce Institute for Indigenous Health

Centre for Indigenous Studies

Dalla Lana School of Public Health

Indigenous

Ontario Institute for Studies in Education

Truth and Reconciliation

The Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) is launching a new research centre at the University of Toronto that's focused on Indigenous education.

The Indigenous Educational Research Centre will provide a space where Indigenous faculty and students can meet, work on Indigenous-specific research projects and engage in critical conversations about their work in a culturally aligned safe space.

“The Indigenous Educational Research Centre will support the Truth and Reconciliation Committee's Calls to Action on education by bringing together excellent researchers to lead, connect and collaborate on crucial research,” said Michele Peterson-Badali, OISE’s associate dean, research, international and innovation.

The centre has seven key objectives, according to Sandra Styres, an assistant professor in OISE’s department of curriculum, teaching and learning and is a Canada Research Chair in Iethi’nihstnha Ohwentsia’kkha (Land), Resurgence, Reconciliation and the Politics of Education:

To advance the goals of Indigenous educational research in relevant and respectful ways
To promote adherence to local place-specific protocols and ethics that guide the work in Indigenous and non-Indigenous educational research collaborations and the work with Indigenous communities
To engage in knowledge production and dissemination of educational research in ways that foster respectful and reciprocal relations
To develop and promote, through various types of events/workshops, appropriate and wise practices in the design and implementation of culturally appropriate educational research methods and theoretical concepts
To provide a safe, supportive and fully resourced space for Indigenous students and faculty to advance their work
To help build research capacity for emerging scholars in community-based Indigenous educational research contexts
To offer opportunities for networking and building international educational research collaborations.

OISE writer Perry King recently spoke to Styres about the establishment of the new research hub, which begins its work this fall.

What is the goal of the Indigenous Educational Research Centre?

This Centre is an Indigenous-driven and Indigenous-led administrative structure within the department of curriculum, teaching and learning at OISE. It’s designed to foster Indigenous resurgence and strengthen an Indigenous presence in research practices, but more specifically within Indigenous educational research contexts. The centre will also better equip the university to help shape how institutions can go beyond token Indigenization and reconciliatory efforts.

There are three Indigenous ethics informing the vision for this centre: the ethics of Relationality, the ethics of Land and the ethics of Indigenous resurgence. The vision is to establish a research focus within OISE that connects Indigenous faculty and graduate students along with other scholars whose educational research interests align with the vision of the centre in collaborative, respectful and culturally appropriate ways in order to examine and explore the issues of pressing concern to Indigenous people and their communities. The vision and goals of the centre are not about any one individual – it’s about community, it’s about land and it’s about Indigenous resurgence.

Further, the vision seeks to to connect programming and research in ways that reflect Indigenous place-specific knowledges. Visioning around the ethos informing this centre is key to Indigenous resurgence. However, in her 2011 book Dancing on our turtle's back : stories of Nishnaabeg re-creation, resurgence and a new emergence, Leanne Simpson tells us that Indigenous resurgence cannot rely on vision in isolation from intentionalities. She writes that “vision must be coupled with intent: intent for transformation, intent for re-creation and intent for resurgence.”

Why was the centre created?

With the national spotlight on the reconciliation project and with education seen as a critical site for reconciliatory efforts and Indigenous resurgence, the centre was developed as a vital means to work toward resurgence and as an important response to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s Calls to Action.

In Dancing on our turtle's back, Simpson writes that, “If it is truly time to talk ‘reconciliation,’ then how we reconcile is critically important.” To conceptualize Indigenous resurgence in the context of the centre I further draw upon the work of Leanne Simpson. She writes that the “process of resurgence” must be Indigenous-driven and Indigenous-led. Further, she writes that Indigenous resurgence is about “creating a space of storied presencing, alternative imaginings, transformation, [and] reclamation.”

In this way, Indigenous resurgence is an emergent construct that can be taken up in relation to place-specific educational research contexts. The centre is designed to foster Indigenous resurgence and strengthen an Indigenous presence in research practices, but more specifically within Indigenous educational research contexts.

What kind of work was undertaken to make the center a reality?

The development of the proposal for the centre involved multiple levels of consultation. I consulted internally and externally with relevant experts in the field. These consultations included faculties, departments, and various levels of administration, both within OISE and the greater University of Toronto, as well as the Indigenous community within and beyond OISE. Clare Brett, chair of the department of curriculum, teaching and learning, consulted with the chairs of all other OISE departments whose faculty may be associated with the centre.

Extensive consultations included meetings with the OISE Dean’s Advisory Council on Indigenous Education and the Indigenous Education Network (IEN). The IEN expressed keen interest in generating a strong collaborative relationship with the centre, particularly related to the mobilization of knowledge.

Within the greater University of Toronto, consultations included the Waakebiness-Bryce Institute for Indigenous Health. The OISE dean’s office also organized consultations with faculty and academic administrators from the Faculty of Arts & Science, the director of the Centre for Indigenous Studies and the provostial academic adviser on Indigenous curriculum and education, as well as with the director of the Jackman Humanities Institute.

External consultations were arranged with a few national and international scholars who are relevant external experts in the field of Indigenous educational research.

What kind of research do you see the centre undertaking?

The Indigenous Educational Research Centre has its roots in empirical research. The centre will act as a nexus for fostering Indigenous educational research both across OISE, in the wider non-academic community and in international scholarly contexts in several key ways. It will provide key space for Indigenous specific research across OISE where Indigenous faculty and students can meet, work on research projects and engage in critical conversations about their work in a culturally aligned safe space designed to foster Indigenous ethics of relationality.

How significant is it that a centre like this exists?

My recent research into the ways institutions have been taking up the TRC’s Calls to Action revealed a strong need for academic institutions to provide culturally specific, safe and protected spaces where Indigenous graduate students and faculty can find support to advance their work. As well, after participating in two TRC task forces and OISE’s academic planning committee, it became apparent that OISE, as a leading education institution, needed to take a leadership role in promoting and supporting Indigenous educational research.

The distinctiveness of the centre is its multi-disciplinary focus on self-determining, emergent and responsive Indigenous research environs – more specifically the ways it relates to education across broad contexts. This centre supports the ways Indigenous faculty and graduate students promote Indigenous educational research within the academy while furthering the institutional goals of reconciliation.

The centre provides a safe and supportive research environment linking Indigenous communities and the university. It serves to promote and support culturally aligned methodologies and theoretical approaches to Indigenous educational research.

It also seeks to establish and promote place specific ethics and protocols that guide the work in Indigenous and non-Indigenous research collaborations and the ways researchers work with Indigenous communities.

Alexandra Gillespie appointed vice-president and principal of U of T Mississauga

Christopher.Sorensen — Fri, 15 May 2020 13:11:23 +0000

Alexandra Gillespie appointed vice-president and principal of U of T Mississauga

Christopher.Sorensen Fri, 05/15/2020 - 09:11

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Internationally renowned humanities researcher Alexandra Gillespie will serve as vice-president and principal of the University of Toronto Mississauga from July 1, 2020 to Dec. 31, 2025 (photo by Julia Bewcyk)

Topic

Meric Gertler

U of T Mississauga

Professor Alexandra Gillespie, an internationally renowned humanities researcher, has been appointed the new vice-president and principal of the University of Toronto Mississauga, where she is the chair of the department of English and drama.

The appointment runs from July 1, 2020 to Dec. 31, 2025.

“I would like to congratulate Professor Alexandra Gillespie on her appointment to this vital position of leadership, both at U of T Mississauga and the wider U of T,” said U of T President Meric Gertler. “Professor Gillespie is an accomplished and innovative researcher and an outstanding teacher and mentor. She is also a talented administrator.

“I look forward to working with her in the advancement of UTM and U of T as a whole.”

Gillespie is widely recognized as an exceptional scholar, a dynamic and creative leader, and someone who is dedicated to the advancement and well-being of others. As chair of her department, she has championed innovative approaches to research and pedagogy, and made equity, diversity and inclusion central to her mandate.

“I am delighted by the appointment of Professor Gillespie as the next vice-president and principal at U of T Mississauga,” said Vice-President & Provost Cheryl Regehr. “She has demonstrated her deep passion for and commitment to UTM over many years. With her compelling vision and inspired leadership, I am certain that she will set an exciting path forward for the campus and the broader community during the next five years.”

Gillespie is a scholar of 14th-century writer Geoffrey Chaucer and principal investigator of U of T’s new Institutional Strategic Initiative on Global Book Science. Her 2006 book, Print Culture and the Medieval Author, showed that pre-modern ideas about authorship shaped Western printing technologies while her forthcoming monograph, Chaucer’s Books, explores the literary history and philosophy of the book sciences.

Gillespie’s interdisciplinary work in medieval literary studies and book history has given her extensive experience building international scholarly networks. As director of the U of T Old Books New Science Lab, she and her team have received over $2.5 million in funding, much of it in partnership with U of T Libraries. The international research initiative uses non-destructive analytic techniques to investigate the origins and development of books in their project titled The Book and the Silk Roads.

Gillespie said she is incredibly proud to be a part of the U of T Mississauga community and thrilled with the opportunity to lead the campus. “This is a challenging time for folks at UTM, as it is for everyone,” she said. “But our community is resilient, and our outstanding students, teachers and researchers are poised to transform Canada and the world. I am hugely hopeful about the future and honoured to work with UTM’s dedicated staff to lead our vibrant and exceptional institution.”

Gillespie joined U of T Mississauga as an assistant professor in 2004. In 2010, she won U of T Mississauga’s Award for Undergraduate Teaching Excellence in recognition of her outstanding work in the classroom and as a mentor to student researchers. She has served as associate chair and undergraduate director of English in the English and drama department, and currently serves U of T Mississauga as a vice-presidential special advisor in research. In 2016, she founded the Jackman Humanities Institute’s tri-campus Digital Humanities Network. Prior to joining U of T Mississauga, Gillespie worked as a management consultant in New Zealand’s education sector. She was a Bradley-Maxwell Junior Research Fellow at Balliol College in Oxford, and a Munby Fellow at Cambridge University Library.

Gillespie holds a DPhil and MSt in English from the University of Oxford, where she studied as a Rhodes Scholar, after completing her BA (Hons) in English at Victoria University of Wellington.

Gillespie succeeds Professor Ian Orchard who has served as acting vice-president and principal since September 2019, and Professor Ulrich Krull, who began his term as vice-president and principal in July 2017.

Celebrating Black History Month: Check out these February events

tom.yun — Mon, 03 Feb 2020 20:18:49 +0000

Celebrating Black History Month: Check out these February events

tom.yun Mon, 02/03/2020 - 15:18

Cutline

The 18th Annual Black History Month Luncheon, to be held Feb. 28 at Hart House, will feature food, musical performances and a special guest speaker (photo by U of T via Flickr)

Tom Yun

Topic

Black History Month

Faculty of Kinesiology & Physical Education

Faculty of Law

Hart House

John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture

Multi-Faith Centre

St. Michael's College

U of T Mississauga

U of T Scarborough

University College

Black History Month is upon us, and the U of T community is coming together to celebrate the legacy of Black Canadians. From poetry slams to informative talks, a wide range of events is taking place across all three campuses.

Here's a sample of what's planned for Black History Month as well as other campus events:

Feb. 1

The Gallery Grill at Hart House is one of 200 restaurants in Toronto participating in Winterlicious, which runs until Feb. 13. Enjoy a three-course prix fixe lunch for $28. Reservations can be made over the phone or online.

TEDxUTSC is taking place at U of T Scarborough and will feature a full day of stimulating talks from a diverse lineup of speakers. You’ll have the opportunity to hear from academics, activists, entrepreneurs, students and more.

Feb. 3

The U of T Mississauga Students' Union is kicking off its Black History Month celebrations. All month long, the students' union is holding events, from a discussion on mental health to a marketplace for Black-owned businesses.

Feb. 5

An Afrofuturism dance workshop is taking place at Hart House. Learn about the African and Caribbean diaspora’s rich history of dance and how it shapes pop culture today. Two more sessions will be held on Feb. 12 and 26.

A Black History Month poetry slam is planned at U of T Scarborough’s B-Wing. Poets can sign up to compete for prizes and there will be an open mic for those who just want to share their poetry and spoken word without competing.

Canadian poet Anne Carson will be delivering a lecture at One Spadina as a part of Jackman Humanities Institute’s Strange Weather series.

Wendy Hui Kyong Chun, Simon Fraser University's Canada 150 Research Chair in New Media, will be delivering a lecture at the Faculty of Law on the power of “big data” and algorithms.

Feb. 6

Hart House continues its series on hip hop education with Humanz of Hip Hop, a “human library” of hip hop knowledge and personal stories taking place at Rex’s Den at U of T Scarborough.

Experience the culmination of a third-year drama class’s final project: a one-act play explores a theme of their choosing at U of T Mississauga. The Devised Project runs from Feb. 6 to 9 at Deerfield Studio A.

Feb. 8

University College’s signature event, Fireball, returns to commemorate the 130^th anniversary of the great fire of 1890. Bring your best formal look for a night of dancing, food, drinks and dessert in the historic University College building.

Feb. 11

Theatre technicians from the George Ignatieff Theatre will be holding a theatre tech workshop. Learn the technical components that go into producing a show, from the lighting and sound programming to technical design.

What does it mean to be both visible and invisible at the same time? LaToya Brackett, a visiting assistant professor at the University of Puget Sound, will discuss her experience navigating academia as a Black woman. She’ll be joined by Janelle Joseph, an assistant professor in the Faculty of Kinesiology & Physical Education.

Catch a screening of Sophia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette in the Coop at St. Michael’s College. The award-winning film looks into the life of the last queen of France in the years leading up to the French Revolution.

Feb. 12

Come to U of T Scarborough’s Winter Market, where local vendors will be gathering at the Meeting Place in the S-Wing to sell fresh food and artisanal crafts.

Feb. 13

The St. Michael’s College Troubadours is putting on a production of Guys and Dolls. See this classic Broadway musical at Hart House Theatre from Feb. 13 to 15. Tickets are $13 for students and $20 for adults.

As a part of the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design’s “Hindsight is 20/20” programming series, sound artist Christine Sun Kim will be delivering an audiovisual performance that explores her experiences as a Deaf person.

Feb. 17

The university will be closed on Family Day, which will be followed by Reading Week. Classes resume on Feb. 24.

Feb. 25

The Scarborough Campus Students’ Union is holding an art auction in support of the student refugee program at U of T Scarborough. Artwork reflecting the refugee experience will be showcased and available for sale.

As a part of Hart House’s Black Futures Series, this month’s $5 lunch will feature African-inspired flavours.

Feb. 26

Have questions for the school administration? U of T Mississauga’s Acting Vice-President and Principal Ian Orchard will be taking your questions and updating the U of T Mississauga community on campus news at a town hall meeting at the William G. Davis Building.

Feb. 27

The Faculty of Law’s annual Morris A. Gross Memorial Lecture will be delivered by Indigenous rights lawyer Jean Teillet, who is also the great-grandniece of Louis Riel.

Feb. 28

Catch Hart House Theatre’s production of Oh, What A Lovely War!, which runs from Feb. 28 to Mar. 7. There will also be a post-show talk with the actors and the artists after the Feb. 29 show. Tickets are $15 for students and $28 for adults.

A free Creole Caribbean vegan breakfast will be served at the Multi-Faith Centre. This is being done in partnership with the U of T Students’ Union, the Veg Club and Hart House.

More free food will be offered at Hart House's 18th Annual Black History Month Luncheon. The event will feature musical performances along with a special guest speaker.

Science and art history students at U of T join forces to uncover museum collection's secrets

Christopher.Sorensen — Tue, 10 Dec 2019 21:47:34 +0000

Science and art history students at U of T join forces to uncover museum collection's secrets

Christopher.Sorensen Tue, 12/10/2019 - 16:47

Cutline

Students in Associate Professor Alen Hadzovic's (seated) class brought their expertise in technology and chemistry to examine artifacts from The Malcove Collection, a large museum collection that spans prehistory to the 20th century (photo by Chai Chen)

Tina Adamopoulos

Topic

Physical and Environmental Sciences

Art History

Chemistry

U of T Scarborough

Undergraduate Students

University College

A group of University of Toronto students from two very different disciplines have teamed up to uncover secrets behind a museum collection that spans prehistory to the mid-20th century.

The academic detective work was done on selected pieces from The Malcove Collection, a permanent display of art located at U of T’s Art Museum. The goal was to help fill some of the blanks in the collection by a true merger of the arts and sciences.

The collection itself was donated by Lillian Malcove, a Freudian psychoanalyst who had gathered more than 500 objects over a 50-year period. However, little was known about the history behind many of the museum’s artifacts. A detailed material analysis was needed to help trace its history – a challenge that was tackled through two Jackman Scholars-in-Residence (SiR) projects. The SiR program is an intensive four-week interdisciplinary residency in social science research for upper-year graduates.

“When basic information is missing, it means researchers and teachers don’t use it because they want to be able to tell their class about its history,” says Erin Webster, an associate professor, teaching stream, in U of T Scarborough’s department of arts, culture and media. “Having that concrete, factual identification is going to make it easier to use the collection in the future.”

(photo by Chai Chen)

While Webster’s group had knowledge of art history, a group of students led by Alen Hadzovic, an associate professor, teaching stream, in U of T Scarborough’s department of physical and environmental sciences, was able to lend their expertise in technology and chemistry to identify materials used in a few of the collection’s pieces.

Webster had used pieces from the collection in her classes before, but the more she worked with the collection the more she realized the need for collaboration.

“We really wanted to showcase the knowledge that could be developed by students working across disciplines,” Webster says.

One of the technologies used was an X-ray fluorescence (XRF) hand-held spectrometer, which offers a safe and non-destructive look at the chemical elements of a sample, particularly metals in objects such as sculpture, jewelry and decorative pieces. Certain blending of materials are unique to specific time-periods, which helps to identify when and where they were made, and also allows for proper conservation of objects and their full description.

Rashana Youtzy studied Christian objects, including an oval-shaped pendant. The pendant, which has a raised image of the Virgin Mary holding a post-crucifixion Jesus on its surface, is carefully lined with leaves around its frame.

“Holding an object that is centuries-years-old amazes me,” says Youtzy, a fifth-year U of T Scarborough art history student. “I found it really enticing that I could contribute to the field and not only mark a check-point in my academic career, but also in the lives of the artworks.”

(photo by Chai Chen)

Working with Liam Bryant, a third-year art history specialist at University College, the group used XRF analysis and digital microscopy to accurately date the pendant down to the half-century, rather than a hundred-year gap, predicting that the two objects they studied were from the European Renaissance – and likely produced in Italy.

“Initially we had read that the pendant was created in the 17th century and made with white bronze, then on a different file it had silver written as the material,” Youtzy says. “Through our analysis we established the material as silver, and after studying silver-working processes alongside the stylistic analysis we could claim it was made in the 16th century.”

Le Anh Chau Tran, a third-year arts management student, studied features of a manuscript from a Dutch prayer book. While it was suspected they contained gold, no one had ever done a material analysis on them before. The group figured out that parts of the manuscript were made with real gold, meaning it was likely made for elite patrons.

“The intersection between the humanities and chemistry worlds has the potential to be a discipline in itself,” Chau Tran says.

(photo by Chai Chen)

Hadzovic says there’s potential for an interdisciplinary approach beyond the program itself.

“I’ve had chemistry students tell me, ‘I didn’t know I could work in an art museum,’ but you can,” Hadzovic says. “I want to constantly show students the possibilities they have in the field and the different challenges they may meet as they navigate the space of chemistry.”

Bryant hopes to become an art conservator in the future. Since it’s hard to find art conservation classes at the undergraduate level, he used the opportunity as a way to get experience in a related field.

“The Scholars-in-Residence program allowed me to really see what my future could look like in a sincerely palpable way,” Bryant says.

“I suggest applying. Depending on the project, you really have the opportunity to distill a very abstract idea of your future down to an academic reality.”

Hadzovic and Webster are offering a joint fourth-year research-based seminar this winter that has grown out of the SiR project. It will bring art history and chemistry students together for further study of Malcove objects.

BMO Financial Group’s $5-million gift will fund exploration of the creative potential of AI

davidlee1 — Mon, 07 Oct 2019 12:58:04 +0000

BMO Financial Group’s $5-million gift will fund exploration of the creative potential of AI

davidlee1 Mon, 10/07/2019 - 08:58

Topic

Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society

Rose Patten

Alumni

Artificial Intelligence