Canada 150

Chemistry

Computer Science

International partnerships

Global

Mexico

Alán Aspuru-Guzik, a Mexican-American scholar in theoretical and computational chemistry, was recently named a Canada 150 Research Chair jointly appointed to the University of Toronto’s departments of chemistry and computer science.

At an event this week co-hosted by the Canadian Embassy in Mexico City, Ted Sargent, U of T’s vice-president international, spoke with Aspuru-Guzik about his decision to move to U of T after 12 years at Harvard University.

Ted Sargent: You are a great example of the kind of scholar we are so proud to have at U of T. Tell me the story of how you decided to join us.

Alán Aspuru-Guzik: The moment when I decided to leave the U.S., I looked around the globe – Europe, Australia, Canada – for where I wanted to go to. I already had a relationship with Canada through the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR).

Within Canada, U of T is a very special place in a very diverse city. I thought, this is where I want my kids to grow up. Fifty per cent of people in Toronto are foreign-born. And there are professors like you, a finalist for the Carbon XPrize. You are the kind of faculty who attracted me to U of T.

Ted Sargent: What will life look like on the ground at U of T?

Alán Aspuru-Guzik: U of T has given me a very interesting opportunity. The university is so diverse and dynamic. I will be in chemistry, and I will make compounds with my robots and maybe work together with your lab. We will get our arms around the chemical data from computers and robots using machine learning strategies arising from computer science. In other words, we’ll use robots to synthesize and test chemicals, and we’ll put machine learning in the loop to automate and accelerate the discovery process.

Alán Aspuru-Guzik speaks at an event in Mexico City this week (photo by Toni Hauri)

Ted Sargent: What will you do with the Vector Institute in Toronto?

Alán Aspuru-Guzik: The Canadian government has made a statement about its commitment to AI by creating three institutes in Edmonton, Montreal and Toronto. Vector is a multi-disciplinary institute with academia and industry. It builds on the remarkable legacy of people like Geoffrey Hinton, Richard Zemel, David Duvenaud and so many others. Apart from them, the rest are all the next generation of truly outstanding scholars attracted to Vector and U of T from around the globe. These people are working together with industry to use AI to transform the world. We want to use quantum computing for chemistry, machine learning and other applications in collaboration with Vector.

Ted Sargent: You’re also an entrepreneur. Tell us about your startups.

Alán Aspuru-Guzik: Yes, I’m an entrepreneur. And recently, the World Economic Forum named Boston the fourth most entrepreneurial city and Toronto the sixth most entrepreneurial city. So I feel good about my decision to come to Toronto. I started two companies this year, one is called Zapata Computing, named for Emiliano Zapata, the Mexican revolutionary, because the company will revolutionize computing. The other is called Kebotix and the CEO is Jill Becker, a U of T and Harvard graduate. We’re committed to opening an office in Toronto for both companies. There is a lot of support from the Canadian government for startups.

Ted Sargent: How has your experience with the culture of inclusivity been in science?

Alán Aspuru-Guzik: Canada has a remarkable diversity of gender roles. It’s very impressive. During the ceremony in Ottawa when they announced my Canada Research Chair, I thought I’d get a selfie with the prime minister, but he didn’t come. Instead, I got to meet Governor General Julie Payette. She is a U of T grad, an astronaut and an engineer. Also Canada’s Minister of Science [Kirsty Duncan] is a woman, and the chief science advisor to the prime minister [Mona Nemer] is a woman. Mexico needs to do a lot more work on that.

Ted Sargent: How does your family feel about the move?

Alán Aspuru-Guzik: My mother, wife and children are all very excited. And, it is easier to get from Toronto to Mexico than to get from Boston to Mexico. There are multiple direct daily flights. Toronto and Mexico should have more links and more integration between our countries. We need to reach out and make a strategic connection.

Ted Sargent: Tell us more about your research goals.

Alán Aspuru-Guzik: I am interested in generating and storing the energy of the world, storing electricity that we get during the day through inexpensive and renewable solar cells and batteries, and then making it available to be used at night. Through our collaborations with the Ministry of Energy in Mexico and the National Council of Science and Technology (CONACyT), Mexico will be a leader in this. Connected to this, I recently co-led an international workshop for the innovation challenge of Mission Innovation, a collaboration of 22 countries and the EU that focuses on doubling the participating countries’ clean energy research budget over five years.

Ted Sargent: So great to have you here. Thank you.

U of T wins third prestigious Canada 150 Chair

noreen.rasbach — Thu, 29 Mar 2018 04:00:00 +0000

U of T wins third prestigious Canada 150 Chair

noreen.rasbach Thu, 03/29/2018 - 00:00

Cutline

“Canada has a very long history of supporting quantum information science and quantum computing, and Toronto is the centre of the kind of science I want to be a part of," said Alán Aspuru-Guzik (photo by Doug Levy)

Dan Haves

Topic

Global Lens

Artificial Intelligence

Canada Research Chairs

Chemistry

CIFAR

Global

Research & Innovation

Vector Institute

Subheadline

Alán Aspuru-Guzik is an expert in quantum computing and chemistry

A leading researcher in theoretical and computational chemistry is joining the University of Toronto as one of the Canada 150 Research Chairs announced today by the federal government.

Alán Aspuru-Guzik, a tenured professor at Harvard University, will arrive at U of T this summer. An expert in machine learning, quantum computing and chemistry, he is jointly appointed to the departments of chemistry and computer science as the Canada 150 Research Chair in Theoretical & Quantum Chemistry.

“It’s an exciting time to come to this country,” Aspuru-Guzik said. “Canada has a very long history of supporting quantum information science and quantum computing, and Toronto is the centre of the kind of science I want to be a part of.

“Combined with the recent government support for artificial intelligence and increased federal support for basic research, Canada is a very attractive destination for scientists.”

The Canada 150 Research Chair program is a $117-million investment by the federal government to enhance this country’s reputation as a global centre for science, research and innovation, and to attract the world’s leading scholars and researchers.

Aspuru-Guzik is joining two other previously announced chairs at U of T in this federal program: Donna Rose Addis, the Canada 150 Research Chair in Cognitive Neuroscience of Memory and Aging, and Miguel Ramalho-Santos, the Canada 150 Research Chair in Developmental Epigenetics.

See his lab at U of T

He recently co-authored a perspective that lays out his vision for the field. Aspuru-Guzik and his group will be continuing their pioneering research on quantum computing for chemistry, machine learning and other near-term applications of quantum computers.

“When you look at things like climate change, antibiotic resistant bacteria or water pollution, we do not have time in the 21^st century to make incremental improvements in the field of chemistry,” he said.

“So one of the things that I want to see is ‘self-driving’ chemical laboratories. With machine learning, we can use the data from one experiment to tell us what our next experiment should be. We can make scientific decisions much more quickly.”

In addition to quantum computing and machine learning, Aspuru-Guzik is particularly interested in the generation and storage of energy. He is looking for ways to store energy with inexpensive and renewable solar cells and batteries that will reduce our reliance on fossil fuels.

He recently co-led an international workshop for the sixth innovation challenge of Mission Innovation, a collaboration of 22 countries and the European Union that focuses on doubling the participating countries’ clean energy research budget over five years.

“We are assembling an international coalition of researchers that will build together the chemical and materials laboratories of the future,” Aspuru-Guzik said.

“We intend to fundamentally accelerate the rate of materials discovery by putting together automated platforms with integrated synthesis, characterization and simulation capabilities.”

Aspuru-Guzik said he believes he has found the perfect home in Toronto, where he will be collaborating with technology and science leaders. Already a senior fellow at the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR), he will also be a faculty member of the Vector Institute.

He comes to Toronto with additional support from a Google Focused Award that will allow him to continue developing near-term quantum algorithms.

Hartmut Neven, Google's engineering director, congratulated Aspuru-Guzik and U of T, saying, “Alán has pioneered the field of quantum computing chemistry. Google's Quantum AI Lab is excited to strengthen our long-term collaboration with Alán by providing a Focused Award, which will fund graduate student research into quantum simulation, algorithms, and applications.” Google pledged $1-million in funding over the next three years.

Marking Canada's 150th anniversary, hundreds sworn in as new citizens at U of T's Convocation Hall

geoff.vendeville — Mon, 18 Dec 2017 16:36:29 +0000

Marking Canada's 150th anniversary, hundreds sworn in as new citizens at U of T's Convocation Hall

geoff.vendeville Mon, 12/18/2017 - 11:36

Cutline

U of T President Meric Gertler greets a young, new Canadian at a citizenship ceremony in Convocation Hall on Saturday (all photos by Laura Pedersen)

Topic

In the University of Toronto hall where students take their first steps as graduates, about 500 people from around the world started a new chapter in their lives as Canadian citizens.

People of all ages and backgrounds filled Convocation Hall on U of T’s downtown Toronto campus on Saturday to take the oath of citizenship and sing the national anthem.

One of their first acts as citizens was to receive a warm welcome from a platform party that included U of T President Meric Gertler, federal Science Minister and alumna Kirsty Duncan, Chair of U of T's Governing Council Claire Kennedy, Chancellor Michael Wilson, Chancellor Emerita Vivienne Poy and University College Principal Donald Ainslie, who is also the chair of U of T's sesquicentennial committee.

President Gertler thanked those acquiring citizenship for coming to Canada – and for enriching the country with their ideas and traditions.

“The news reminds us on a daily basis of how fortunate we are to live in Canada,” he told the audience, “but on this day we are also reminded of how fortunate we are that Canada continues to attract wonderful people from around the world, people who want to help strengthen our institutions, enrich our multicultural fabric and defend our values as Canadians.”

Hundreds swore allegiance to the Queen in the oath of citizenship

Duncan, who before taking office taught medical geography at U of T Scarborough and corporate responsibility at the Rotman School of Management, greeted the newest members of “our Canadian family.”

“Most of us, our families come from elsewhere,” she said, “and they have built this country, and you will build this country. You are already building this country.”

Those in attendance waved mini Canadian flags and wore Maple Leaf pins on their lapels. The 150^th anniversary of Canadian Confederation made the already special occasion even more momentous. Saturday's citizenship ceremony was the culmination of a series of Canada 150 events at U of T throughout the year.

Visit U of T's Canada 150 website

Speakers at the ceremony took the opportunity to discuss the country's commitment to multiculturalism. Poy, the first Canadian senator of Asian descent, told the crowd that she and her husband chose to stay in Canada instead of moving to the U.S. because they thought Canada is a better place to raise a family.

“Canadians are defined by the way we behave, not by the colour of their skin,” she said.

Wilson, U of T's current chancellor and former ambassador to the U.S., said travelling had given him a special perspective on Canada. The country is “a source of hope” and “welcomes people of all backgrounds and celebrates diversity as a real strength.”

U of T News spoke to five new Canadians about why they chose this country and their ambitions.

Nashwan Ashraf

Country of origin: Bangladesh

“I was excited because we've been waiting for the opportunity to become citizens for a long time. It was fun. I hope to grow up to be a great Canadian.”

Julija Pesic, PhD candidate in U of T's Centre for Drama, Theatre & Performance Studies

Country of origin: Serbia

“This moment was extremely emotional for me. The University of Toronto and this country opened the door for me. I came here and restarted my academic career. I found new friends. I found a very supportive environment.”

Payal Khazanchi

Country of origin: India

“I've heard so many good things about Canada. We met people who are Canadians and they are very polite.”

Why did she and her family come here? “I personally wanted to see snow.”

Paulo Bella

Country of origin: Philippines

“Canada is one of the best places in the world. The people are nice, the culture is great – plus it's a multicultural country. Who wouldn't want to be here?”

Sylvia Barton

Country of origin: Jamaica

“It's the end of a long journey, and it's a great accomplishment for my family and me.”

Read about last year's swearing-in at Convocation Hall

Read about last summer's citizenship ceremony at U of T Scarborough

Two Canada 150 Research Chairs coming to U of T

ullahnor — Wed, 13 Dec 2017 19:18:12 +0000

Two Canada 150 Research Chairs coming to U of T

ullahnor Wed, 12/13/2017 - 14:18

Cutline

Donna Rose Addis (left) and Miguel Ramalho-Santos (right) will be coming to U of T as Canada 150 Research Chairs

Topic

Breaking Research

Connaught Global Challenge

Canada Research Chairs

Faculty of Medicine

Research & Innovation

Two researchers – one a leading psychologist studying memory and another investigating the molecular mechanisms that control early embryonic development – will be joining the University of Toronto, bringing top international talent to the country as Canada 150 Research Chairs.

Federal Science Minister Kirsty Duncan announced the first four Canada 150 Research Chairs in Ottawa on Wednesday.

The one-time, $117-million program to help universities recruit top internationally based research talent to Canada was unveiled in the 2017 federal budget in celebration of Canada’s 150th anniversary. The government hopes the chairs – more than 25 to be hired eventually -- will provide an opportunity to enhance the country's reputation as a global centre for science, research and innovation excellence.

Psychology researcher Donna Rose Addis, who is of Samoan descent, has focused her work on memory, imagination, aging and depression. She earned her PhD at U of T and did her post-doctoral research at Harvard before joining the University of Auckland. She returns to U of T, in the Faculty of Arts & Science's department of psychology, and Baycrest Health Sciences as the Canada 150 Research Chair in Cognitive Neuroscience of Memory and Aging.

Miguel Ramalho-Santos, who is originally from Portugal, spent the last two decades in the U.S. studying molecular mechanisms in early embryonic development, looking at the interaction of the environment with genes. He will join U of T's Faculty of Medicine and the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute in the Sinai Health System as the Canada 150 Research Chair in Developmental Epigenetics.

“We look forward to seeing what you do over the next seven years,” Duncan said.

Read the Canada 150 Research Chairs announcement

The two U of T affiliated researchers will each receive $350,000 per year for the next seven years.

“Donna and Miguel will be pursuing important scholarly advances – their work will have impact around the world,” said Vivek Goel, U of T’s vice-president of research and innovation. “Their appointments show the value of government funding in helping U of T to attract some of the top scholars in the world, at a time when Canada is looking increasingly appealing to researchers.”

Interested in publicly funded research in Canada? Learn more at UofT’s #supportthereport advocacy campaign

Addis explores neuroimaging, behavioural and neuropsychological methods to investigate how the brain remembers past experiences. She’ll be using advance brain imaging technology available at Baycrest to better understand how our sense of memory, imagination and identity changes as we age and how that differs across cultures.

The recipient of New Zealand’s prestigious Prime Minister’s Emerging Scientist Prize, Addis has been a role model for Indigenous scientists in her country. At the announcement on Wednesday, she began by acknowledging her Samoan heritage.

“My people are voyagers, wayfinders and discoverers, and I carry these traditions with me into my science,” she told the audience. “I’m grateful and humbled for this opportunity to take my research in new and exciting directions, here in Canada. Thus far my research has revealed the brain networks that we use to remember our past experiences also allow us to imagine the future. In Canada, I will have access to advance brain imaging methods not available yet in New Zealand to discover the specific stages of the imagination process and how things are disrupted by memory loss, aging and depression.”

U of T's Nick Mount captures the boom of Canadian literature in his new book

rasbachn — Tue, 24 Oct 2017 19:38:39 +0000

U of T's Nick Mount captures the boom of Canadian literature in his new book

rasbachn Tue, 10/24/2017 - 15:38

Cutline

Nick Mount: "At the time of the [CanLit] boom, Canadian nationalism was at an all-time high, trying to figure out ways that we were not American" (photo by N. Maxwell Lander)

Topic

Humanities

There was nothing, and then there was something.

That’s how Nick Mount describes the start of Canadian literature, but it’s also an apt way to explain his new book, Arrival: The Story of CanLit, on the country’s literary boom that began in the 1960s.

“Of course, there were Canadian books published before then,” says the associate professor of English in the Faculty of Arts & Science and former fiction editor of The Walrus. “But there was no critical mass. No sense of literature. They were just books. That’s what happened in the ’60s and ’70s – by 1974, nobody could look around and say there wasn’t Canadian literature, partly because Margaret Atwood had just written Survival: A Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature.”

While Atwood’s book was literary criticism, Mount’s is more like a puzzle with all the pieces put together.

“I wrote this book because it didn’t exist. We have many excellent biographies of the writers who emerged during what came to be called the CanLit boom. We also have some good histories of the publishing side of the story in both English and French Canada, and a great many books about the time itself. What we don’t have is a book that puts all those stories together,” Mount writes in Arrival.

Mount’s publisher, House of Anansi, agreed. Clearly, Mount was onto something: Arrival made the Canadian bestseller lists for non-fiction in early September during its first week of publication, right around the time that some of the country’s biggest literary awards – the Governor General’s Literary Awards, the Giller Prize, and the Writers’ Trust Awards – announced their shortlists for the year.

Arrival is a Canadian history: the story of how political, cultural and economic events in the mid-20^th century sparked a literary boom in this country. Mount provides a clearer understanding of how our literary awards, grants and funding came to be, and how Canada’s small presses have grown and bolstered Canadian publishing. He begins each chapter with short biographies of crucial Canadian writers such as Atwood, Dennis Lee, Gwendolyn MacEwen, Alice Munro, Al Purdy and Mordecai Richler. Mount even included mini-reviews throughout the book. “I read all the books so you don’t have to,” he says.

Arrival took Mount 12 years to research and write, while teaching full-time. It isn’t the academic text you might expect from a professor. It is meant to be accessible to a wide audience – including those who think of the term “CanLit” as a genre of quiet books that take place in rural Canada.

“CanLit is like any term,” says Mount. “It’s useful among professionals, but it doesn’t mean anything.”

“The notion that all Canadian literature is about dysfunctional, alcoholic mothers in the prairies with the wind blowing through their hair… it’s just not true. There’s a huge range of writers. CanLit was a thing almost self-consciously constructed by readers, marketers and government types. At the time of the boom, Canadian nationalism was at an all-time high, trying to figure out ways that we were not American.

“To me, CanLit refers to a particular thing that came to existence in the ’60s and faded out in the ’70s, faded out because it succeeded. It arrived. Now it’s just Canadian literature, and CanLit is just a term on Twitter. Canadian literature itself is simply an abstract concept. It’s the sum of its parts.”

U of T students to embark on Canada 150 expedition

geoff.vendeville — Mon, 18 Sep 2017 04:00:00 +0000

U of T students to embark on Canada 150 expedition

geoff.vendeville Mon, 09/18/2017 - 00:00

Cutline

Grace King, an environmental studies and anthropology student, is set to explore the west coast on the Canada C3 expedition, a trip commemorating the 150th anniversary of Confederation (photo by Geoffrey Vendeville)

Geoffrey Vendeville

Author legacy

Geoffrey Vendeville

Topic

Subheadline

Undergraduate student and PhD candidate set to explore the west coast and Canadian identity

Grace King, a proud Newfoundlander, has spent most of her life on the eastern edge of the country. In a few weeks, she will see Canada’s west coast for the first time – and explore what it means to be Canadian – aboard a 50-foot icebreaker.

The University of Toronto undergraduate was picked to be a youth representative on a leg of the Canada C3 expedition, a 150-day, 23,000-kilometre journey. The trip, which began in Toronto and ends in Victoria on Oct. 28, marks the 150th anniversary of Confederation.

Each leg brings together a cross-section of Canadian society, including Indigenous elders, historians and scientists. King’s shipmates are an oceanographer, museum curators, a chef, a musician and Candice Lys, a PhD candidate at the University of Toronto.

The diversity on board should be a recipe for stimulating – maybe even unsettling – conversations about Canada’s history and its future, King says.

“You bring 20-something Canadians from different regions with different narratives together on a ship … and suddenly the opportunity arises for discussion of every uncomfortable and important part of Canada’s history,” she says.

As youth ambassador, she plans to raise issues that she says are particularly important to younger Canadians, namely climate change and reconciliation with Indigenous peoples.

An introduction to St. John's, N.L, by Grace King, a student in the Faculty of Arts & Science who is joining the Canada C3 expedition.

The U of T students link up with the ship after it finishes circling Alaska. They will be on the second-to-last leg of the expedition, leaving Bella Bella, B.C. and arriving in Campbell River, with a number of stops along the way. They will visit Koeye Camp, a Heiltsuk First Nation youth camp connecting young people with elders, and the Hakai Institute, a scientific centre that focuses on remote locations on the B.C. coast.

Lys, who is working toward a PhD in public health science, is a co-founder of an arts-based sexual health education program that empowers young women in northern Canada. FOXY, which stands for Fostering Open eXpression among Youth, uses photography, music and traditional arts to help young people express themselves and ask questions in a supportive environment. In 2012, the organization won a $1-million Arctic Inspiration Prize, enabling it to expand from the Northwest Territories to Yukon and Nunavut. They recently founded a parallel program for men called SMASH (Strength, Masculinities and Sexual Health).

Lys, who grew up in a Métis family in Fort Smith, N.W.T., says the 150th anniversary of Confederation has been a “confusing” event to commemorate.

“Canada 150 has been a difficult thing to celebrate when we’re having a lot of struggles with our Indigenous folks in Canada,” she says. “I’m looking forward to the opportunity to reflect on all of these things on the ship.”

She added that she’s looking forward to travelling through the Haida Gwaii archipelago and learning about local Indigenous cultures.

Candice Lys, a PhD student in public health science at U of T, is linking up with the Canada C3 expedition. She is the founder of arts-based sexual health education programs FOXY and SMASH (photo courtesy of Candice Lys)

Mark Canada Day with U of T

krisha — Fri, 30 Jun 2017 17:00:24 +0000

Mark Canada Day with U of T

krisha Fri, 06/30/2017 - 13:00

Cutline

Canadian flags flank the entrance of University College at U of T (photo by Lisa Lightbourn)

Krisha Ravikantharaja

Author legacy

Krisha Ravikantharaja

Topic

Across the country, young and old will be marking Canada Day in different ways this year – by celebrating its many successes, drawing attention to its painful shortcomings and, most importantly, reflecting on what it truly means to be Canadian.

In the week leading up to Canada's 150th birthday celebrations, protests at the nation's capital have been reminders that while there is much to celebrate, there is considerable work that still needs to be done.

In an Op-Ed in the Toronto Star, U of T's Charles Pascal, a professor at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), and Suzanne Stewart, an associate professor at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, argue that there would be more to celebrate if the nation connected its 150th birthday bash with a more promising future and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Calls to Action.

Throughout the year, U of T has been exploring these themes for Canada 150 – from artist Kent Monkman's take on Confederation with the Shame and Prejudice: A Story of Resilience exhibit to symposiums and conferences exploring the ethics of celebrating Canada 150, CanLit's relationship with Indigenous communities, the controversial Louis Riel opera, the sesquicentennial's relationship to the TRC and a public event in Ottawa featuring author and U of T alumnus Margaret Atwood and poet and U of T Professor George Elliott Clarke talking about the role of religion. Many of these events, along with research projects and cultural initiatives were supported by U of T's Canada 150 Fund.

For Saturday, there's a wide range of activities planned by the U of T community to mark the day – ranging from a carillon concert to an aerial drone light show.

Here are a few of the things to check out:

For the musically inclined

Listen to the bells at the Carillion Recital at Hart House's Soldier's Tower, which features alumnus Roy Lee. You’ll have the chance to hear the world debut of the youth category winning entry for the House of Commons’ Chime In, Canada! sesquicentennial composition competition.

Scott Allan Orr, a U of T alumnus, was the winner in the open category of the competition. His composition will premiere at the Peace Tower in Ottawa on Canada Day.

(Photo by Makeda Marc-Ali)

For the stargazers

If astronomy is more your thing, make your way to U of T Scarborough for the Guided Solar Walk and Observatory that models what the night sky would have looked like at the time of Confederation.

For the visual artists

If you find yourself in Calgary, visit the Glenbow Museum to check out Monkman’s exhibit. The Art Museum at the University of Toronto partnered with Monkman for the large-scale show, which debuted at U of T in January and is now travelling around the country.

For the history buffs

Get a quick history lesson at Queen’s Park with the Canada by Treaty exhibit. Co-curated by Heidi Bohaker, an associate professor of history, Laurie Bertram, an assistant professor of history, and James Bird, an undergraduate student, the exhibit combines maps, paintings and photos to illustrate how Canada was formed through legal agreements with Indigenous peoples.

(Photo by Diana Tyszko)

Want more history? The Struggle and Story: Canada in Print exhibit at the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library presents the tumultuous journey Canada has taken in its attempt to become a more peaceful and inclusive nation through a collection of historical documents.

An illustration of Louis Riel in the magazine, Canadian Pictorial & Illustrated War News, is among the documents in the Struggle and Story: Canada in Print exhibit (photo by Romi Levine).

The U of T Libraries has also created U of T Showcase, 150, an interactive online timeline which highlights some of the unique holdings at the campus archives and special collections from the past century and a half.

For the poets…and for everyone else

If you find you have a few minutes to sit quietly and reflect, read Parliamentary Poet Laureate George Elliot Clarke’s Anthem for Liberty’s Champions. In the poem, the U of T professor of English highlights the “[u]nsung champions” who have made the sesquicentennial possible.

Canadian Geographic also invited Clarke to pen a piece of prose about the stonework at the parliament buildings in Ottawa to run alongside a series of photos by Toronto photographer Peter Andrew Lusztyk.

For the fireworks futurists

As an alternative to the Canada Day fireworks displays, watch one of Arrowonics' choreographed drone ballets light up the night sky.

Arrowonics is a company spawned from the lab of Professor Hugh Liu at the Insititute for Aerospace Studies at U of T. The company CEO is Everett Findlay, one of Liu’s former graduate students.

Catch one of Arrowonics' drone aerial night shows at Ontario Place in Toronto or at White Oaks Park in London, Ont., this weekend.

Learn more about U of T and Canada 150

Scholars and writers at U of T conference dissect CanLit's relationship to land, Indigenous and racialized communities

hjames — Thu, 01 Jun 2017 16:26:18 +0000

Scholars and writers at U of T conference dissect CanLit's relationship to land, Indigenous and racialized communities

hjames Thu, 06/01/2017 - 12:26

Cutline

Jordan Abel's book, "Injun" is nominated for the 2017 Griffin Poetry Prize. Abel says his poetry is deeply invested in Indigenous issues and uses tools and methodologies of conceptual writing (photo by Hannah James)

Hannah James

Author legacy

Hannah James

Topic

Indigenous

Literature

Truth and Reconciliation

When some of the top creative and scholarly minds gathered at U of T last week for a conference exploring the relationship between Canadian literature and the land, Indigenous communities and racialized groups, participants decided to rise above the raging debate on cultural appropriation.

In his keynote speech at the Mikinaakominis (Turtle Island) TransCanadas: Literature, Justice, Relation conference, Métis scholar, writer and filmmaker Warren Cariou set the tone.

“A week ago, I thought maybe I should rewrite my presentation to more directly address these problematic assertions and assaults on the value of Indigenous stories,” he said. “But I stepped back, took a deep breath, and I thought about what it would mean to abandon my intended address and talk about something else. I thought maybe it's better to avoid the temptation of getting caught up in that colonial-reflex syndrome.”

Cariou, an associate professor at the University of Manitoba and Canada Research Chair in Narrative, Community and Indigenous Cultures, said he opted to “centre his resistence in his own Indigenous values and practices” rather than frame his speech as a response to colonial thinking.

The 2017 event, hosted at U of T’s Hart House in collaboration with the University of Calgary, was the biggest TransCanadas event to date, bringing in storytellers, poets, novelists, creative non-fiction writers, critics and interdisciplinary practitioners from Brazil, Taiwan, Poland, Italy, Jamaica and France.

U of T English Professor Smaro Kamboureli, a poet, writer and Avie Bennett Chair in Canadian Literature, has been organizing the TransCanadas conferences since 2005. She said her original intention was to create a series of events across Canada to create a community of scholars, writers and Canadianists who could come together to engage in intensive, critical dialogue about Canadian literature and pedagogies.

This year's conference was against the backdrop of Canada 150. Speakers included Nisga’a writer Jordan Abel, U of T poet and author Lee Maracle, Canada’s parliamentary poet laureate and U of T English professor George Elliott Clarke, director of U of T’s Women and Gender Studies Institute Rinaldo Walcott, University Professor Ato Quayson from the department of English and director of the Centre for Diaspora and Transnational Studies, Japanese-Canadian poet Roy Miki, and artist and novelist SKY Lee.

Smaro Kamboureli and graduate students, Evangeline Holtz from U of T and Joanne Leow from the University of Saskatchewan (photo by Hannah James)

Abel, whose book Injun is nominated for this years’ Griffin Poetry Prize, said he was pleased to see a conference that addresses race and Indigeneity in meaningful ways.

“A lot of the issues coming up in the papers are related to cultural appropriation in some ways like the problematic construction of our current society that in a certain way fosters the kind of ignorance that leads towards the appropriation prize happening,” he said.

Abel says his Griffin-nominated work is poetry that's deeply invested in Indigenous issues using tools and methodologies of conceptual writing. He looked up western novels available from the Gutenberg Project's digital archive and searched for the word injun, a pejorative word for “Indian.” He then cut up and rearranged 500 sentences he found that contained the word and made one long poem.

Abel – who is also a PhD student at Simon Fraser University presented two papers alongside Maracle, who Kamboureli describes as one of the most important Indigenous writers of our time and Eileen Antone, a U of T Elder and professor emeritus.

Sessions included topics like Performing Critical Race Thought, Indigeneity & Black and Asian Diasporas in the Canadian City: Critical Artistic and Pedagogical Approaches and Storytelling and/as Activism and Podcasting, Pedagogy and Canadian Literature.

Kamboureli has previously held TransCanadas conferences in Vancouver, B.C., Guelph, Sackville, N.B., and has published a volume of essays and submissions from presenters after each conference.

“The conference has had a big impact on the field from institutional formations from literary publishers to university structures and how they shape and affect influence the study, teaching and writing of Canadian literature,” said Kamboureli.

U of T Bookstore brought a gorgeous display of books by featured conference authors including Lee Maracle, George Elliott Clarke and Smaro Kamboureli (photo by Hannah James)

Exploring CanLit's relationship to the land, Indigenous resurgence, racialized groups

hjames — Wed, 24 May 2017 15:35:52 +0000

Exploring CanLit's relationship to the land, Indigenous resurgence, racialized groups

hjames Wed, 05/24/2017 - 11:35

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Writers and scholars will discuss Canadian literature, identity and land this week at U of T (photo by Victor via Flickr)

Hannah James

Author legacy

Hannah James

Topic

Indigenous

Truth and Reconciliation

Literature

Humanities

When conference organizers put together a lineup of storytellers, poets and novelists to explore the relationship of Canadian literature to the land, Indigenous resurgence and racialized groups, it was initially billed as a Canada 150 event.

But with the distinguished academics and writers speaking at the U of T conference over the next few days, it's only a matter of time before the discussion turns toward the heated debate over “cultural appropriation,” organizers say.

“It’s a very important issue for many of us who were around in the '90s, and it feels like we’re revisiting those days and realizing that there’s still a lot of work to be done and not just for people to understand what appropriation means,” says conference organizer, Smaro Kamboureli, a poet, professor and Avie Bennett Chair in Canadian Literature in the department of English at U of T.

“When we were planning the conference, this was not an issue as such, but I’m pretty sure the issue will come up because a lot of people who were part of the conversations over the past two weeks are going to be at the conference. It’s in the mind of everyone who is in the field of Indigenous and Canadian literature so I’m sure we’ll be talking about it.”

The conference, named Mikinaakominis TransCanadas: Literature, Justice, Relation conference, starts today at U of T, running until May 27. Co-organized by U of T and the University of Calgary, it brings together writers – storytellers, poets, novelists, creative non-fiction writers, critics and interdisciplinary practitioners – to talk about Canadian literature's relationship to the land, Indigenous peoples, and Black, Muslim, Asian and other racialized groups.

Speakers include: Nisga’a writer Jordan Abel, who is one of the nominees for the 2017 Griffin Poetry Prize; U of T's Lee Maracle, a poet and author, who Kamboureli describes as one of the most important Indigenous authors in the country; Canada’s parliamentary poet laureate and U of T English professor George Elliott Clarke; writer and director of U of T’s Women and Gender Studies Institute, Rinaldo Walcott; Ghanaian academic and literary critic Ato Quayson, who is a University Professor in the department of English and director of the Centre for Diaspora and Transnational Studies; Japanese-Canadian poet Roy Miki, who was a leader in the Japanese redress movement; and artist and novelist SKY Lee who will be reading from a the newly-released edition of her award-winning book, Disappearing Moon Café.

Kamboureli (above) launched the TransCanadas conferences in 2005. It is an initiative to bring together writers and interdisciplinary practitioners to create a sense of community and a dialogue between Canadianists, she says.

In a way, it would be fitting if discussion over appropriating other people's cultures comes up at the conference. Kamboureli had hoped that this year's attendees and speakers would focus on developing decolonizing practices in the public sphere and humanities.

“What does it mean to celebrate Canada 150 when we live in a settler culture?” says Kamboureli. “In all honesty, I can’t go out there and celebrate Canada 150 without being mindful of the irony of that celebration and what it means for the Indigenous peoples of this land.”

See the top 11 reasons to study the humanities

Artists and scholars come together to re-tell history for Canada 150

ullahnor — Fri, 12 May 2017 17:16:43 +0000

Artists and scholars come together to re-tell history for Canada 150

ullahnor Fri, 05/12/2017 - 13:16

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Author Margaret Atwood and poet George Elliott Clarke are featured in public conversations at the National Gallery and University of Ottawa

Sean Bettam

Author legacy

Sean Bettam

Topic

Margaret Atwood