Dr. Malini Guha (she/her), Associate Professor of Film Studies and in Cultural Mediations, has been awarded the Ruth and Mark Phillips Professorship in Cultural Mediations for the 2025-2027 term with the theme: Traction, Flight, Becoming: Geographical Thinking Across Disciplines.  Watch our events page for upcoming events associated with her project on geographical thinking.

We invite you to join us Thursday, March 20th, 2025 for this year’s Ruth and Mark Phillips Professorship (RMPP) Lecture! The current holder, Dr. Philip Kaisary welcomes to deliver her talk, titled “Literary Trials and the Possibility of Justice” (abstract below). The lecture begins at 4:00pm, Room 2017 Dunton Tower (�Ӱ�ԭ�� University), with a Q&A to follow!

Dr. Carolyn Ownbey (she/her) is a scholar of anticoloniality, citizenship, and human rights in literature and other media since the mid-20th century. She is presently at Golden Gate University in San Francisco, where she previously served as Chair of English, Communications, and Literature and Faculty Director of the Degrees+ Programs. Her scholarship and teaching focus on anticolonial literature and other media; law, human rights and narrative; and theories of democracy and citizenship. Her current book in progress is an interdisciplinary project focused on questions of law, human and civil rights, nation, and state in several modes of political resistance writing since 1945.

“Literary Trials and the Possibility of Justice”
Abstract:

What purpose does the discipline of law and literature studies, as well as the literature and other media utilized within the discipline, serve? Many scholars have argued that their purpose is properly to serve law—that is, to illuminate the ways in which law and legal practice may be improved to better serve justice. This lecture will consider whether and how the scope and function of law and literature studies and its objects exceeds those legal bounds, and to what end, through a consideration of literary trials. Trials (and the law more generally) do not functionally “make a sharp and necessary break with the social relations that underpin” their crimes, to quote Rinaldo Walcott in a different context. It is difficult to overstate the stakes of this failure, though often relatively easy to cite its consequence—repetition of the crime because the conditions of that crime’s happening have not fundamentally changed. Does law (and/as the form of the trial) have the capacity to make such a break, and if so, might literary studies be an avenue through which to do so

To consider the place of literature in helping us to understand the capacity of law as it relates to trials and the social underpinnings of their crimes, I will focus on the work of two authors as primary case studies: Rebecca West and Caryl Phillips. Writing at different moments in the 20th and early 21st centuries, West and Phillips nonetheless cover curiously common ground. The trials that appear in their works, nonfiction and/or fiction(alized), highlight in particular the social conditions before and social legacies after crimes and trials—in Nuremberg, Leeds, and elsewhere—in addition to the ways in which trials narrate, or fail to narrate, their crimes. Each author provides a lens through which to focus on the place of literature and the possibilities of justice within and outside of the law.

Screenshot of from “The Conversation” webpage, featuring Dr. Philip Kaisary’s most recent publication.

In recent years, there has been an increased push for more diversity and representation on our entertainment screens. The campaign of 2015 and the enduring social justice movement it generated increased public awareness of the longstanding problematic issues of discrimination and exclusion in Hollywood.

The movement drew needed attention to Hollywood as an insular industry characterized by institutionalized racism and….

Dr. Mark Phillips was, and remains, a cherished ICSLAC and �Ӱ�ԭ�� community member. Already greatly missed, he leaves behind a beloved family and esteemed career. The department extends its sincere sympathies to the Phillips and Casteel family.

We mourn the death of Mark Salber Phillips, who died peacefully in Toronto on December 30. His death ended a life devoted to teaching, historical research and writing, and a politics of social justice. Equally important to him were his wife Ruth and his daughters Sarah Casteel and Emma Phillips, whom he loved and supported in innumerable ways.

Mark was born in Durban, South Africa and spent his childhood in Cape Town. He emigrated to the United States in 1956 after his parents realized that their commitment to a racially equitable practice of medicine would not be possible under apartheid. Mark earned his B.A in history at Harvard and, with Ruth, went on to pursue graduate work at University of California, Berkeley. Mark had been active in the anti-Vietnam war movement since his undergraduate years, and when he was called up for the draft in 1968 he and Ruth decided to emigrate to Canada – driving across the border sporting a new haircut they hoped would make him look more acceptable to Canadian immigration authorities. Mark and Ruth continued their graduate work at the University of Toronto, where Mark received his PhD in 1970.

He was hired to teach history at �Ӱ�ԭ�� University in 1971, with a subsequent appointment at UBC.  For four decades, he mentored students, teaching them to respect texts and read them closely as expressions of unique historical periods and cultures.  A historian of ideas, Mark’s teaching and work were interdisciplinary well before this approach was widely adopted, reflecting his deep love and broad knowledge of literature and art.

Mark worked initially on the Italian Renaissance. His first book, Francesco Guicciardini: The Historian’s Craft (1977), examined the work of one of Italy’s most important historians. In contrast, his second book, The Memoir of Marco Parenti: A Life in Medici Florence (1987), explored the texture of the daily life of a Florentine merchant. A major shift came in the 1980s when he began to work on eighteenth-century British historiography and the Scottish Enlightenment. Society and Sentiment: Genres of Historical Writing in Britain, 1740-1820 (2000), perhaps his most influential book, was followed a decade later by the work he regarded as his most important, On Historical Distance (2013). Beyond these monographs he also published a wide range of important scholarly articles and three co-edited volumes on concepts of tradition, historical distance, and, toward the end of his life, history painting.

Mark was the recipient of major honours including a Guggenheim fellowship, appointments as a fellow at Princeton’s Institute for Advanced Study and three Cambridge colleges, and membership in the Royal Society of Canada. On Historical Distance won the 2014 Wallace K. Ferguson prize from the Canadian Historical Association.

In both his personal and his professional life, Mark was noted for the passion for language that inspired his elegant prose, his teaching of the craft of writing, his incurable love of puns, and his fascination with etymology. He was devoted to his kayak at Bob’s Lake and his beloved dogs, most recently Wilkie who brought him great comfort as he battled Alzheimer’s.

In addition to his wife and two daughters, Mark leaves his five grandchildren, Harry, Isaac, and Miriam Casteel and Zelda and Avie Gillespie – to each of whom he leaves a legacy of  a love for language and a commitment to tikkun olam.

A memorial in his honor will take place on Saturday, February 8th, 2025 in the Palour, at the �Ӱ�ԭ�� Dominion-Chalmers Centre from 1:00pm-4:00pm.

An obituary ran in , and multiple departments and societies which Mark served through his incredible career released announcements to share his passing, a reflection of his ongoing effect and impact!

7:30 Thursday-Saturday

Join award-winning interdisciplinary artist Jesse Stewart for a one-person show that weaves together storytelling and music to celebrate individuals who have left an indelible mark on the playwright’s life. With a blend of humour, emotion, and introspection, each character comes to life through engaging anecdotes and musical interludes performed on a variety of unusual musical instruments. From an enigmatic factory worker with a teardrop tattoo, to a US-marine-turned-Buddhist-priest-and-sculptor, Characters delves deep into the profound impact that diverse personalities can have on our own lives and stories.

Suitable for all ages.

Run time approximately 2h

Holding degrees in music, visual art, and English and theatre studies, Oshawa-born/Ottawa-based interdisciplinary artist Jesse Stewart is dedicated to reimagining the spaces between artistic disciplines. His music has been documented on over twenty recordings including Stretch Orchestra’s self-titled debut album, which was honoured with the 2012 “Instrumental Album of the Year” Juno award. Having been widely commissioned as a composer and artist, he has created instruments, music, performance art works, and interactive sound art installations using such diverse materials as stone, ice, water, fire, glass, books, turntables, chemical reactions, and more.

His work has been heralded by critics, journalists, and creative practitioners from around the globe who have described it as “truly exciting” (Musicworks 76), “exceptional” (Cadence Oct. 2002), “phenomenal” (Cadence Nov. 1999), and “ingenious” (Exclaim! June 2006). “Stewart quietly opens the door for us to a limitless world of delicate sonic beauty” writes Randy Raine-Reusch in Musicworks 97. “Highly recommended ear-cleansing” states a review in Italy’s Touching Extremes (2007). “Jesse Stewart is an eloquent and poetically powerful percussionist, composer, improviser and teacher—a man of ideas and inventions,” writes jazz legend William Parker. “Jesse is an incredibly innovative artist. He’s a performance artist, he’s a jazz drummer, he’s an incredible creative force” states Roman Borys, cellist with the internationally acclaimed Gryphon Trio. “He’s extraordinary,” states creative polymath Michael Snow, “he is constantly surprising.”

, his first one-person show that was performed at the Gladstone Theatre in July 2023, received rave reviews. A film of that show has been making waves internationally as an official selection at multiple film festivals and was named “Best Feature Film” by the Experimental Dance & Music Film Festival in Toronto.

Jesse Stewart is a professor of music in �Ӱ�ԭ�� University’s music program and an adjunct professor in the visual arts department at the University of Ottawa.

Regular $41

Regular(65+) $37

Student/Artist/Unwaged $26

Angel $75**

*All prices include taxes and non-negotiable facility fee

**Angel tickets are for any “Angel” who wants to go above and beyond in supporting Jesse Stewart.

The Gladstone only retains the facility fee.

Written eight decades before Dracula, Frankenstein often earns Mary Shelley the title “the mother of science fiction.” At the same time, this novel also converges around conventions of Gothic fiction and horror to express anxieties about modern technology and science and its relationship to the human, concepts which remain integral to contemporary examples of the genre across mediums.

When writing about modern horror  reflects how the genre has largely evolved beyond its historical depictions of Black and BIPOC individuals as casualties or monsters to the driving force of the story. Gaines addresses how racism in Jordan Peele’s Get Out functions as the monster, and narrativizes the horror of racialization. Per Gaines’ argument, Peele draws on the tradition in the horror genre of complicating perspectives on race or class, as many argue original Night of the Living Dead film did.

The standards of monstrosity of a particular era manifest in its films, television series, novels, games, and other materials in or adjacent to the horror genre. The definition of horror or monstrousness changes continuously according to the evolution of culture and societal norms and as generic themes and modes of horror enter into the broader cultural consciousness. This call for papers seeks articles that explore what contemporary horror deems monstrous, in what ways, and how this presentation has changed over time. We hope to present an interdisciplinary exploration of how the horror genre has influenced aspects of contemporary culture, including its narratives across media forms and beyond media.

Possible topics for exploration include but are not limited to:

• A close reading of modern (2010 and later) horror novels, films, television series, or games that critically analyze their relationship to modernity
• The evolution of an archetype: how have depictions of original horror icons (the vampire, the zombie, Frankenstein, etc.) changed over time? How have they been typified, particularly in their more modern iterations?
• The transition of depictions of horror icons across media – how have depictions of, for example, zombies, changed across media, such as in the Night of the Living Dead film, the Walking Dead comic or TV series, the Last of Us video game?
• Real-world ‘horror’ (climate themes, pandemic themes)
• How have modern horror video games tackled their subjects compared to older iterations in the same or similar series?
• Topics that explore how horror conventions change across media modes
• The true crime phenomenon – the rise in popularity of true crime media and its influence on the broader cultural consciousness
• Exploring the aesthetic differences in presentations of horror across different media modes
• Compare the evolution of horror in different national contexts
• Address the lineage of horror in relation to its Gothic origins to a contemporary understanding of the genres

We are seeking articles of 5000-7000 words for publication in the next issue of Scaffold: theJournal for the Institute of Comparative Studies of Literature, Art, and Culture, an open-accessgraduate student journal. Articles will be double-blind, peer-reviewed, and published digitally through OJS. More information can be found here: 

Please email proposals of approximately 300-500 words to scaffoldjournal@gmail.com, including a brief author bio, by April 29th 2024. Accepted authors will be informed by early May, with full articles due for review by August 5th 2024.

CFP link:

Issue publishes December 2024.

The event will take place at the National Gallery of Canada Lecture Hall. Free event, no registration required.

The book can be purchased in the NGC Boutique and is available online at . The author will be available to sign copies following the event.

In English, with simultaneous French-language translation.

For full details: /ctca/cu-events/sarah-phillips-casteel-black-lives-under-nazism-making-history-visible-in-literature-and-art/

This event is organized by the Centre for Transnational Cultural Analysis in partnership with the National Gallery of Canada. The CTCA gratefully acknowledges the support of the Institute for Comparative Studies in Literature, Art, and Culture, and the Department of English Literature and Language at �Ӱ�ԭ�� University.