This Big Thinking lecture at Congress 2012 explores the role libraries and archives have played in the development of Jane Urquhart’s fiction. In her talk, Urquhart discusses how texts she accidentally discovered in libraries have affected the writing of her novels, including The Stone Carvers (2001) and Away (1993), winner of the Trillium Award and a finalist for the prestigious International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. She also delves into the ways in which intentional research works its way onto her page.
Jane Urquhart is the prize-winning author of seven internationally published novels, and is a Chevalier of the Ordre des arts et des lettres in France as well as an Officer of the Order of Canada.
She has been writer-in-residence on several occasions, and has received 9 honorary doctorates from Canadian Universities. During the winter and spring of 1997, she held the Presidential Writer-in-Residence Fellowship at the University of Toronto.
Photo credit: John Carter
Close Add to My Schedule TweetOrganized by the Canadian Society for the Study of Education (CSSE), the Canadian Association of Geographers (CAG) and Run for Life, the Crossroads Across the Region Scavenger Hunt involves collecting clues about the educational community and geography of the Kitchener-Waterloo region in teams of two to four people throughout the duration of Congress. The hunt, which will take participants through the two campuses, uptown Waterloo and downtown Kitchener, is self-scheduled, so delegates can complete it at their leisure. All of the locations are accessible on foot or by transit.
Close Add to My Schedule TweetThe acquisition of second language vocabulary remains an area that is under-represented both in the research literature and in teacher training programs. Marlise Horst discusses vocabulary research that parallels and confirms classic Second Language Acquisition (SLA) research findings and highlights its potential for improving language teaching and enriching mainstream SLA research.
Close Add to My Schedule TweetThroughout Congress, the University of Waterloo’s newest high-tech accelerator, REAP (Research Entrepreneurs Accelerating Prosperity) is showcasing some of the latest interactive digital display technologies from its new ‘sandbox for serious play’ – the FELT Lab. Young talent from SSHRC disciplines involved in REAP will be on hand to show and tell.
www.reapwaterloo.ca
Katalin Fábián will discuss how Hungary’s growing trans-national exposure has profoundly affected the thematic focus of women’s activism. Women’s movements in Hungary are at a major crossroads: Should they leave some of the most pressing concerns behind as they shift from broad welfare considerations and toward specific, internationally resonant issues?
Close Add to My Schedule TweetThe Canadian Language Museum was established in 2011 to promote an appreciation of all of the languages spoken in Canada and of their role in the development of this nation. Its first project is the traveling exhibit Canadian English, Eh? which focuses on Canadians' distinctive use of English. This exhibit explores variations in Canadian English across the country, as well as influences from French and Aboriginal languages. The exhibit will be available for public viewing at several locations in 2012.
Close Add to My Schedule TweetAn exploration gallery that features posters, artwork and book displays relating to food and food research. All Congress attendees are invited to drop in and explore.
May 26 to May 28. Partially funded by the host universities, Wilfrid Laurier University and the University of Waterloo.
The Canadian Communication Association and the University of Waterloo Critical Media Lab (CML) invites Congress participants to visit its mobile exhibition (in a truck parked on WLU campus). Delegates can examine and experiment with recent interactive projects completed by the CML collaborators in the field of mobile computing and augmented reality.
Partially funded by the host universities, Wilfrid Laurier University and the University of Waterloo.
Even during classical antiquity, the dramatic arts were used to help people to understand their lives through the image of the lives of their neighbours, and to develop skills that would be of great value to their educational process. This session, hosted by Manfred Schewe, Department of German, University College Cork, Ireland, will demonstrate various forms of drama pedagogy lesson design through practical exercises. The presentation will conclude with some remarks on the concept of performative foreign language teaching.
Close Add to My Schedule TweetGet a feel for being “down on the corner, out in the street” while learning about the history and architecture of Uptown Waterloo’s main street and its transformation into a vibrant, albeit sometimes contested, public space.
Departure Location: In front of the Laurier Bookstore, in the Concourse of the Arts Building
M.C. Havey, Redemptorist Archives, and Carol Hopp, Archives of Ontario, worked on the transfer of the Rev. Matthew G. Meehan media collection to the Archives of Ontario. Their presentation points out research opportunities in records of the Trans-Canada Catholic Hour 1947-1962radio broadcasts and television programs on CHCH TV Hamilton.
Facilitator: Mark McGowan
Close Add to My Schedule Tweet12th Annual Critical Race and Anti-Colonial Studies Conference & Book Launch
10:00-12:00 PANEL 1: Anti-Muslim Racism
Presenters: Sherene Razack; Sunera Thobani; Dana Olwan
Chair: Sedef Arat-Koc
12:00-14:00 BOOK LAUNCH and Lunch Reception
Multiculturalism within a Bilingual Framework: Language, Race, and Belonging in Canada
– Eve Haque (York University)
14:00-16:00 PANEL 2: Equity in the Academy
“Race, Gender and the Canadian Academy: The Status of Racialized Minorities and Aboriginal People”
Presenters: Ena Dua; Carl James; Frances Henry; Carol Tator; Audrey Kobayashi
Chair: Malinda S. Smith
Attention Congress 2012 delegates and families!
Visit THEMUSEUM in Kitchener from May 26 to June 2, 2021 and save! Delegates and their families pay $10 per person (regular price is $13). Admission includes all THEMUSEUM’s permanent exhibitions as well as DINOSAURS and ADD COLOUR | A Yoko Ono Exhibition. DINOSAURS is a robotic adventure of dinosaur life and ADD COLOUR invites you to play an active role in the creative process.
http://www.themuseum.ca/main.cfm
Rotten with Perfection is a short filmic exploration of our nature, as symbol-using and symbol-misusing animals. The film will be displayed in a viewing room designed for one: you.
Close Add to My Schedule TweetProvoked by the uncomfortable fit between transnational feminist practices observed at the World Social Forum over the last decade and theorizations of transnational feminism in the North American academy, Janet Conway undertakes a genealogy of ”transnational feminism” in both sites in order to illuminate and elicit questions about their theoretical and activist practices.
Close Add to My Schedule TweetWondering how you got in to grad school? Doubting the fact that you’re actually smart enough to be here? Worried that everyone else is doing more advanced or interesting work than you? Well, you’re not alone: these are symptoms of "Imposter Syndrome," which is ubiquitous among graduate students. Join us and learn more.
Close Add to My Schedule TweetMaori scholar Alice Te Punga Somerville will “reach across an ocean” to explore connections between Maori and Aboriginal Canadian writers. She asks “How do we articulate what we share, when our closest point of connection is our respective insistence on our uniqueness?” and “What might this situation mean for reading nationally, transnationally and—perhaps—'Indigenously'?”
Close Add to My Schedule TweetThe Laurier Bookstore welcomes Congress delegates for coffee and cake on Monday, May 28, from 11:00 to 13:00. Meet our friendly staff and browse through our selection of general and academic books, stationery, computer supplies, gift items and Laurier clothing. Use your Congress delegate badge to receive 10% off clothing and gifts.
We are located on the second floor of the Fred Nichols Campus Centre, across from Starbucks.
Close Add to My Schedule TweetJoin the Faculty of Graduate & Postdoctoral Studies, Wilfrid Laurier University as it celebrates Laurier's transition to one of Canada's newest comprehensive universities. Coffee, tea and cake will be served.
Close Add to My Schedule TweetOne standard argument in Anglo-American philosophy of religion is that religious language is unintelligible or not cognitively meaningful. In this Jay Newman Memorial Lecture, William Sweet will review some of the history of this philosophical debate, note some contributions from recent discussion in theology on this question, and propose how one might defend the intelligibility of religious language.
Close Add to My Schedule TweetUncertain World is a group exhibition developed in response to the theme of Crossroads: Scholarship in an Uncertain World. The exhibition features the works of four mid- career Canadian artists. Using the landscape as a familiar perceptual backdrop, the artwork addresses themes ranging from environmental degradation to urban sprawl, and from First Nations land claims to the Occupy movement. Uncertain World will be a timely visual complement to Congress 2012.
Close Add to My Schedule TweetUniversity faculty have specialized knowledge and a privileged position in society. But do they use that knowledge and privilege to inform their role as citizens, or are there constraints within the university that inhibit their full democratic engagement? Is it possible for idealism and a robust commitment to social justice to flourish, or even endure, in the modern Canadian university? Or are the roles of academic and citizen in fact contradictory? In her Big Thinking lecture at Congress 2012, Mary Eberts suggests that these questions hit hardest for junior academics who are dependent on the good opinion of colleagues for tenure and promotion, and on finding favour with funders.
Mary Eberts is currently the Ariel F. Sallows Chair in Human Rights at the University of Saskatchewan. In 2004–2005, she held the Gordon F. Henderson Chair in Human Rights at the University of Ottawa, and for the past several years she has taught in the summer program on International Women’s Human Rights at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE). She was involved in the crafting of the equality guarantees of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, is a co-founder of the Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund (LEAF), and has been litigation counsel to the Native Women’s Association of Canada (NWAC) for twenty years. Recognition of her work includes the Governor-General’s Award in Commemoration of the Persons’ Case, the Law Society of Upper Canada Gold Medal and several honorary degrees.
There is more to community or national well-being than economic growth. Panelists in this symposium discuss different approaches to measuring well-being, including the Canadian Index of Wellbeing (CIW), Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada’s (AADC’s) Community Well-Being Index (CWB), and other applied examples of well-being measurement in communities.
Close Add to My Schedule TweetWhat does it mean to be a faculty member? An administrator? How do you best prepare for and position yourself for an academic life? What’s involved in planning for and conducting yourself during the interview process? Are all pathways to the professoriate the same? Join us to discuss these and other questions with a panel of new and experienced faculty members from a range of disciplines. See for yourself what it means to be an academic and a member of the academy. This session is designed for graduate and postdoctoral students as well as new faculty members who are exploring an academic career path.
Facilitator: Dr. Jeanette McDonald
Close Add to My Schedule TweetHow might art address systemic violence in African-Jamaican and African lives? Emerging artists from Nia Centre for the Arts articulate their life stories through spoken word, theatre and photography while exploring the complex ways in which Afrodiasporic identity is textured, disrupted and devalued by everyday occurrences of violence.
Close Add to My Schedule TweetCo-sponsored by the Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA)
How has the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms impacted human rights discourse and democratic participation in Canada? This panel of distinguished lawyers, including Doug Elliott, Marlys Edwardh and Ryder Gilliland, chaired by Nathalie Des Rosiers (Ottawa), will reflect upon the experiences of Aboriginal people, women, racialized minorities and LGBT people in order explore the Charter’s impact on rights and freedoms, social inclusion and democratic participation.
A reception will follow.
A panel of scholars will facilitate a discussion on the changing public/political roles of Christianity in Canada and the implications of these changing roles for Christian scholarship.
Close Add to My Schedule TweetBy the mid-1990s the former industrial basin of the Waterloo region located in downtown Kitchener had lost most of its manufacturing activities and left behind acres of abandoned factories and contaminated brownfield sites. On the walking tour of downtown Kitchener’s brownfield redevelopment you will get an inside look the amazing transformation of these spaces into exclusive residential lofts, three university campuses, and the headquarters of Google and other hi-tech firms.
Departure Location: Kitchener City Hall Rotunda
This address is part of a study of royal pardon in Scotland between the 11th and 16th centuries. Cynthia J. Neville, a prize-winning scholar, has published extensively on the legal and social history of northern England in the period 1200–1500 and, more recently, on the subject of Gaelic lordship in later medieval Scotland.
Close Add to My Schedule TweetThe research grant proposal is arguably one of the most important texts written in university settings. Learning how to write successful proposals, and how to support students learning to write them, are primary goals for graduate students and the faculty members who supervise them. This presentation will discuss evidence-based strategies for how to write SSHRC, NSERC, and other funding proposals. Drawing on research from the field of writing studies and an analysis of successful grant proposals, participants will learn which elements to include/exclude and how to mobilize rhetoric and language to write concise, comprehensive and compelling proposals.
Close Add to My Schedule TweetTwo leading Canadian labour and social historians—Andrée Lévesque and Gail Cuthbert Brandt—will share their insights and scholarship in a discussion of the many changes and challenges facing feminist scholars teaching women’s and gender history from the 1960s to the present.
Close Add to My Schedule TweetDistinguished speaker, Andrew Hodges, discusses his 1983 work, Alan Turing: The enigma, which combined his interests in science, technology, history, and gay rights. He maintains his interest in Alan Turing along with his research and teaching in mathematics and fundamental physics.
Close Add to My Schedule TweetEmmanuel Bochud, Manager of Social Circus Training, Global Citizenship, Cirque du Soleil will present: At the heart of Cirque du Soleil Social Circus: Where circus arts and social development come together.
Headsets for simultaneous translation will be available for pick-up from 17:00–17:25
Reception to follow the keynote address.
Close Add to My Schedule TweetTerry Marsden is internationally respected for his interdisciplinary work on local and global food systems, alternative and conventional food chains, and rural-urban dynamics. In this talk, he addresses these various “crossings” of food and the challenges they pose to scholars and citizens alike.
Close Add to My Schedule TweetJoin us for hands-on “Thinkering” (Thinking +Tinkering) with interactive display technologies at the University of Waterloo’s newest high-tech business accelerator REAP (Research Entrepreneurs Accelerating Prosperity). During the 30-minute session, you will be introduced to – and do some ‘serious play’ with – new interactive displays that may transform the way you teach and the way you present ideas to students. The display’s venue in St. Jacob’s is a 10-minute drive from Waterloo, or you can take the train from Waterloo’s Clay and Glass Gallery and the Perimeter Institute (16:15 departure; $15 round trip).
Please register: http://reapwaterloo.eventbrite.ca
Close Add to My Schedule TweetDuring Congress 2012, we’re joining the Community, Campus and Congress in the CONNECTENT (at the corner of Father David Bauer Drive & Erb Street) for a celebration of local foods, beverages and entertainment. We invite you to celebrate on three different evenings —May 28th, 29th and 30th— under the same rooftop from 18:30 until 21:30.
Make the connection! Buy your tickets today at http://congress.catertrax.com
Close Add to My Schedule TweetThe Multicultural Cinema Club will hold its spring film festival during Congress and will showcase international films focusing on the theme of “uncertain worlds.” A local film buff will introduce the films and a short discussion will follow each screening.
Free. The Registry Theatre, 122 Frederick Street, Kitchener.
Partially funded by the host universities, Wilfrid Laurier University and the University of Waterloo.
These two nights of literary readings will feature Congress writer-scholars and creative writers from Waterloo region: Amanda Jernigan, Carrie Snyder, Brian Henderson and more! Come and reconnect with literature as the foundation of our scholarship! Food for mind and body available. All those interested in reading, contact Tanis MacDonald at tmacdonald@wlu.ca.
Close Add to My Schedule TweetJoin us for hands-on “Thinkering” (Thinking +Tinkering) with interactive display technologies at the University of Waterloo’s newest high-tech business accelerator REAP (Research Entrepreneurs Accelerating Prosperity). During the 30-minute session, you will be introduced to – and do some ‘serious play’ with – new interactive displays that may transform the way you teach and the way you present ideas to students. The display’s venue in St. Jacob’s is a 10-minute drive from Waterloo, or you can take the train from Waterloo’s Clay and Glass Gallery and the Perimeter Institute (16:15 departure; $15 round trip).
Please register: http://reapwaterloo.eventbrite.ca
Close Add to My Schedule Tweet