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Updated – Spaces are still available.  Apply now!

. .  . The . The .

In May 2018, 杏吧原创 students will again be traveling to the 鈥楬oly Land鈥� and walking through these ancient sites, experiencing them not only as travelers but as young scholars.

The travel course poster touts 5000 years of religion and culture in 20 days.   If that sounds like a marathon, it is!

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Open to undergraduate and graduate students, the course explores religion and culture in the 鈥楬oly Land鈥� from the ancient period to the present day. Practically, that means that our traveling classroom will include exploring 14 archeological sites (including a Dig for a Day), walking each of the stations of the Cross along the Via Dolorosa, experiencing the beauty of Al Aqsa, moving through the cool stone interiors of a medieval fort in Akko, meeting contemporary activists such the Women of the Wall.

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This year鈥檚 course also brings together 杏吧原创 students with international scholars and students through a partnership with and Tel Aviv University. Fortified by much falafel and ice cream, students experience the rhythms of life in the ‘Holy Land’ as a culturally and religiously diverse modern country: from each of the traditional four quarters of Jerusalem (Armenian, Christian, Muslim and Jewish), to lunch with the Druze, to an Orthodox home Shabbat in Jerusalem, floating in the Dead Sea, crossing into the West Bank and camel riding in the Judean desert, hearing the call to prayer from Mosques against the chiming of church bells and the loud beats of dance music in the streets.

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FASS is home to several travel courses with good reason; former FASS Dean John Osborn fostered these courses that will stand out as bright memories of their time at 杏吧原创. For students in FASS, who have studied the texts, architecture, art, history, religion, literature, politics, and culture of what we call the 鈥淲est鈥�, the travel course experience brings their studies to life. It is one thing to study, for example, the diversity of Christianity from a textbook. It is another to see the infamous ladder that cannot be moved in the because of strict rules about each denomination鈥檚 rights in this venerated sacred space.

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Participants are characteristically diverse in their backgrounds and academic interests. The course has no prerequisites and attracts students from all programs at both the undergraduate and graduate levels as well as auditors who are interested in traveling with an academic focus and experts in the area.

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Religious difference is part of the history of this land, and part of the appeal of the course for many students 鈥� they want to understand what they see in the news. While the focus of the course is not the conflict, participants inevitably come away with a richer, more personal and more nuanced understanding of the history this place and how that history drives contemporary debates.

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This year鈥檚 course is again being offered by Professor Deidre Butler, program, College of Humanities.  In the hopes of building a long-term sustainable travel course bi-annual program through university partnerships, Professor Mary Hale (Religious Studies, St-Mary鈥檚 University, Halifax) will be joining the course with several of her undergraduate and MA students.

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• Spaces are available for both students and auditors with online applications and a 150$ refundable deposit.
• More info about the course (including fees and deadlines)
• Course travel itinerary

Questions? Contact Deidre Butler.

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The post REVISED VERSION – Blog by Prof. Deidre Butler, Travel Course to the 鈥楬oly Land鈥� appeared first on Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences.

I am writing this last blog of 2015-16, on a beautiful, sunny afternoon, contemplating the last 4 days that I have left in my term as Interim Dean. My thoughts are focused on the transition that has already begun, passing on to Dr. Wallace Clement, our incoming Dean, information regarding files, decisions, initiatives, and issues that will overlap into his term, so that he can step into his new role without too much uncertainty. Of course, for Wally, things are probably not too uncertain in many respects, given that he was Interim Dean of the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Affairs, only just a few years ago.

I am truly delighted that I am passing the torch onto Wally. His knowledge, wisdom, good humour, acute sense of numbers and data, and unflagging commitment to 杏吧原创 and FASS, make him the ideal candidate for this job. And it is comforting to know that even if I neglect to inform him about some FASS issue before I step down, he will be able to pick up the threads where I鈥檝e left off. In these past few weeks, as I consult with Wally on decisions that will affect the coming years, it has been reassuring to know that Wally and I seem to be on the same page in many regards, and I am confident that the faculty is in very good hands indeed.

It is also inevitable that at this time, I should look back on the year. It seems to have flown by at warp speed, and I can still remember moving into my new office last July, promising myself that I would keep my desk free of clutter, organizing documents into file folders without delay, and swiftly recycling what was no longer needed. That resolution didn鈥檛 last very long, and anyone who has been in my office over the past year can attest to the layers of papers and folders that completely cover my desk (though not for much longer, as I promised Wally a clean and clear desk). At the same time, while the year has gone by fast, in other ways, I do remember some of the especially busy and long weeks, with meetings scheduled back to back, day after day, along with evening events, email flooding in, remaining unanswered for several days if not longer, follow-ups and reports incomplete even after receiving several reminders, and meetings prepared just in the nick of time.

I will look back on this year with fondness. I鈥檝e gotten to know some truly wonderful people, both within FASS, and more widely across the university, including the supportive and congenial group of Deans, as well as other individuals from the community, connected to 杏吧原创 in various ways, as members of the Board, community partners, employers of co-op or practicum students, alumni, donors, etc. While I sometimes missed my life as a faculty member, it was rewarding to get a glimpse of the university from this broader perspective, to see how all the different moving parts actually move in harmony, ensuring, for example, that students apply for admission, register in their courses, seek advice, apply to graduate, and eventually, graduate.

I could not have gotten through this year without the support of the FASS Associate Deans, the amazing administrative staff in ODFASS, as well as that of many others across the university. I鈥檇 also like to recognize the friends who understood why I couldn鈥檛 join them for lunch or coffee or a run, but who continued to check in regularly just to make sure that I was doing okay. And I must also thank Gordon and Leo, for they bore the brunt of this year鈥檚 workload, which took away time I would normally spend with them.

Finally, as I think about the days that are left for me as interim Dean, I am also gleefully anticipating my upcoming sabbatical! I am itching to get back to my research, to start reading and writing again, to think about literature and story-telling, and to make up some of that time with G & L.

I鈥檇 like to wish Wally all the very best as he carries the torch for FASS for the next two years. It has been an honour and a privilege to serve as Interim Dean for this past year, and I thank you for your patience, kindness, and trust.

The post FASS Blog – Final Words From an Interim Dean (Dr. Catherine Khordoc) appeared first on Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences.

In Canadian politics, values seem important. Justice and fairness are concerns that can wreck any political campaign that seems to ignore them. Not only do we have a museum of human rights (in Winnipeg), but we are sufficiently proud of Canadian diplomat John Humphrey鈥檚 role in drafting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to place a statue commemorating this at a prominent location in Ottawa.

Wearing values for political colours is fashionable, and, frankly, I would rather live with this than with a politics of cynicism, 鈥榬ealism鈥�, or patronage. But there is a worry: is it real, or is it show? To paraphrase Plato, are these political values mere images flashed in the political shadows, or are there some actually good ideas here that would bear inspection in the light of day?

Philosophers are not insensitive to these worries, and contemporary analytical philosophers began waking up to them in the 1970s, with some cutting examinations of social injustice, duties across borders, and environmental ethics. The 鈥榮ocial philosophers鈥� among them have focused especially on what is right and wrong about our social relations and institutions.

The state of the art in this critical and analytical brand of social philosophy will be on display in Ottawa this July, as the holds its here at 杏吧原创.

Power is the focus of this year鈥檚 conference. The conference theme, Power and Public Reason, presupposes that anyone who exercises power owes an explanation and justification to those over whom it is exercised.

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Power and Public Reason

Since when is power a topic of interest to philosophers? At least since 1784, actually, when Kant discussed 鈥榯he public use of reasoning鈥� in his famous essay, 鈥榃hat is Enlightenment?鈥� While Kant urged rulers of his time to regard the public use of reasoning not as a threat to their power but rather as an aid to good governance, he did not go so far as to state publicly that rulers are in any way accountable to public reason. Now, 250 years later, social philosophers contend that the legitimacy of power and its exercise depend on public reason, which has become a central topic for such intellectual luminaries as John Rawls, J眉rgen Habermas, and Amartya Sen.

One of the plenary addresses, by Prof. Noelle McAfee of Emory University, assesses gaps between public reason and the current state of public opinion on duties to assist refugees. In many (or perhaps all) countries, feelings of obligation to fellow citizens are stronger than feelings of commitment to outsiders, yet people鈥檚 need for protection is greatest when they cannot count on fellow citizens for protection.

In another plenary, Prof. Gerald Gaus (University of Arizona) raises a persistent theoretical problem. Given what Rawls acknowledged as 鈥榯he fact of pluralism鈥�, how can public reason forge agreement on important public issues when its premises are supplied by so many conflicting conceptions of what is right and good?

Parallel sessions will include upwards of 120 presentations on topics ranging from the theory and practice of public reason to specific issues concerning climate change, democratic deliberation, disability, First Nations, gender justice and feminism, hate speech and slurs, migrants and refugees, and racism.

Reading groups will be organized for interested faculty and students, and for interested members of the public (contact philosophy@carleton.ca). Conference support is being provided by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada as well as the and the Dean of Arts and Social Sciences at 杏吧原创.

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The 33^rd International Conference on Social Philosophy sponsored by the North American Society for Social Philosophy will be held at 杏吧原创 July 21-23, 2016. For more information, visit the . 

is a Professor of Philosophy at 杏吧原创 who has specialized in globalizing the concerns of social philosophy. His books include Displacement by Development: Ethics, Rights and Responsibilities (with Peter Penz and Pablo Bose), Human Rights: India and the West (with Ashwani Peetush), Theorizing Justice: New Insights and Future Directions (forthcoming, with Krushil Watene), and the Routledge Handbook of Development Ethics (forthcoming, with Lori Keleher).

The post NASSP Conference (North American Society for Social Philosophy) appeared first on Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences.

It鈥檚 a common problem for students and admissions offices alike: numbers don鈥檛 always tell the whole story.

20 years ago, FASS faculty members saw missed opportunities in admission policies that don鈥檛 always see the personal situations behind high school grades and decided to do something about it. Today, the , a one-year transition program addressing that policy gap, is one of the University鈥檚 most innovative success stories. A first in Canada, the program helps hundreds of students a year reach their true potential.

The stories on show that potential clearly.

Family, social, economic and cultural factors were roadblocks for some students on the way to University, and admissions standards could have been yet another. With the helping hand of ESP, many went on to graduate. Others continued their studies and earned professional and graduate degrees – ESP counts teachers, lawyers, and PhD graduates among their success stories. For many, post-secondary goals simply weren鈥檛 reflected in their grades, but through ESP they were able to prove that a degree program was where they belonged.

After 20 years, over 3,200 of these students have proven 杏吧原创鈥檚 thinking right. The unprecedented program has evolved into a unique and structured opportunity for students from varied backgrounds, placing hundreds of them in degree programs. Its, introduced in 2003, was designed to increase Aboriginal student participation at university and support the needs of Aboriginal learners.

But looking back at so many of these accomplishments, as the program celebrates a milestone this year, many acknowledge its first steps were a challenge. 杏吧原创 University was founded in 1942 and expanded to meet the needs of returning veterans. Part of its tradition has included offering broader access to higher education. However, as the university underwent a renewal process in the mid-90s, some of its faculty sought new ways to welcome non-traditional students while recognizing that merely opening the doors was an inadequate response to the needs of these students.

FASS faculty members and program co-founders Dr. Aviva Freedman and Dr. Dennis Forcese recognized that offering opportunities for participation was one part of the puzzle, while providing adequate supports to ensure students鈥� success once they were here, was another. 鈥淲e wanted,鈥� Aviva remembers, 鈥渢o address these challenges, and to make sure we were providing appropriate support, pedagogy and curriculum.鈥�

To that end, Aviva applied for a Teaching and Learning Fellowship for the 鈥�96/鈥�97 year, to fund a pilot program. The program allowed a small group of 42 students, who would not normally have been accepted into university, conditional entry after an initial stringent screening.  They were then enrolled in first-year university courses and required to enrol in Enriched Support Workshops which provided contextualized academic skills and support (and later provided a model for the PASS program, another CIE initiative). The ESP cohort was taught and evaluated in exactly the same way as all other students in the courses.  This ensured the credibility of the program 鈥� in terms of both students鈥� performance and the authenticity of their academic experience.  At the same time, Dennis Forcese worked to create the institutional structures for this new pathway. Now, students would have the opportunity to realize their potential through the bridge-to-a-degree program that the pilot created.

Today, all of this has evolved into a program sought by hundreds of students a year, housed by the Centre for Initiatives in Education (CIE). ESP provides a supportive transition year to a variety of learners: those who whose previous academic record may be inconsistent, students who want a supported first-year experience, or mature learners who are apprehensive about returning to studies after an absence.

Over the years, those of us who work with the program have had the privilege of working with an amazing variety of students 鈥� it鈥檚 difficult to choose just a few stories to highlight. I remember very well the former firefighter who was injured on the job and forced to rethink his career. He returned to school through the ESP as a mature learner, earned his degree and went on to achieve his goal of becoming a teacher. Another student, Kim Taylor, is as part of an ESP 20^th anniversary success stories series. Kim lacked confidence and focus in high school but with support from our program, she worked hard to establish better habits and stronger skills. A 杏吧原创 grad, she now works to help develop the potential in others through her job with Up with People.

Our students have included cancer survivors, single parents, and mature learners, recovering addicts, refugees and differently-abled students. We鈥檝e had students who have come from impoverished backgrounds, who made poor decisions in their teen years that threatened to limit their future pathways. Some experienced bullying, or the loss of a parent in high school, or were working too many hours to contribute to their family income. And others were high school students who failed to make the most of their high school years and have simply needed a second chance to prove their ability. Through determination and will, they have made use of this opportunity to earn degrees and open up new possibilities for their lives.

It鈥檚 an experiment that has become a best practice, with connections and recruitment efforts that now extend across the province, to charitable and not-for-profit communities and to other institutions. Students, staff and friends alike plan to mark the occasion this year with an official 20th-anniversary celebration this October.

It鈥檚 all about realizing potential. Since 1996, the success of so many students has made this program a real cause for celebration.

Learn More

The post FASS Blog – Second Chances and Student Success: 杏吧原创鈥檚 Enriched Support Program Celebrates 20 Years appeared first on Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences.

If you鈥檝e been to one of the opening receptions at (CUAG), you probably know what to expect: every few months, on a Monday evening, students, professors, artists, and art lovers visit the St. Patrick鈥檚 Building to celebrate the debut of new exhibitions. You鈥檇 have seen the crowds mingling by the food table, chatting about and pointing at particular works of art, or perhaps taking selfies. CUAG is where you鈥檝e encountered Canada鈥檚 best contemporary visual artists. But this past January, it also became a place where art, music, improvisation, and 杏吧原创 University history came together to surprise and delight the lucky attendees.

At around 6 p.m., with everyone鈥檚 attention focused on director Sandra Dyck鈥檚 welcome remarks, a high, operatic voice resounded through the crowd. Everyone swivelled around to find where the voice was coming from, and saw artist standing on the stairs. As she began singing, she slowly started walking through the audience towards the open gallery, where an ensemble of 杏吧原创 University music students and alumni had gathered to join her in a special, improvised performance.

Sawyer鈥檚 exhibition, , was opening at CUAG that night, and the performance featured some signature pieces from Brettschneider鈥檚 repertoire. In the exhibition, Sawyer  continues her decades-long project of 鈥渞econstructing鈥� the life and work of Natalie Brettschneider, her fictional alter ego and an avant-garde performance artist active in the early-twentieth century.

The Canadian-born Brettschneider鈥檚 performances in Europe were influenced by the absurdist aesthetics of Dadaism, and incorporated fashion, opera, and improvised scores. They were typically ephemeral in nature, often only documented with a single photograph. These kinds of performances redefined art and its possibilities, and we know that Brettschneider鈥檚 work, like that of her contemporaries Emmy Hennings and Claude Cahun, pushed up against the construction of the male artist as 鈥済enius鈥� and their female contemporaries as passive muses.

After she returned in 1937 to Canada from Paris, Brettschneider must have felt isolated from her avant-garde artistic community. As Carol Sawyer discovered, however, Brettschneider continued performing in Canada, even travelling to Ottawa in 1947. The CUAG exhibition gave Sawyer the opportunity to investigate the cultural scene in the capital city. Sawyer鈥檚 most recent addition to Brettschneider鈥檚 archive is a photograph she found of a performance that took place in Booth House, on Metcalfe Street in Centretown. The artist is surrounded by a small ensemble, some playing conventional instruments, such as a cello, while others perform using strange objects like a large trophy bowl, a cardboard box and a pot lid.

So where does 杏吧原创 University come in? During her time in Paris, it鈥檚 quite possible that Brettschenider might have met Frances Barwick, a harpsichordist and art collector from Ottawa who frequently performed in Paris. Barwick bequeathed a selection from her art and music instrument collections to the university in the 1980s, along with a remarkably generous financial gift that ultimately secured the founding of the 杏吧原创 University Art Gallery.

Mrs. Barwick probably never imagined that the harpsichord she donated to the university would one day form the centerpiece of an avant-garde musical performance in the gallery she was so instrumental in founding. But Carol Sawyer, an intrepid collaborator and researcher, followed up a recommendation from music professor James Wright, which led her to Jordan Zalis, a graduate music student. He brought together members of the 杏吧原创 music improvisation community for this performance of Natalie Brettschneider鈥檚 repertoire. In this case, the instruments were bass flute, cello, and violin, played by Tariq Amery, Agnes Malkinson, and Reiko Lokker, respectively, along with Zalis on voice and Nicolas Fobes playing Mrs. Barwick鈥檚 harpsicord, a new experience for him.

Zalis had met a few of the students in music professor Jesse Stewart鈥檚 seminar on improvisation in theory and practice. As he said, 鈥淚 like that we were able to draw improvisers from a pool of 鈥榗lassical鈥� musicians who are so often accused of keeping music on the page.鈥� The lyrics reflected Brettschneider鈥檚 eclectic influences and artistic contemporaries, and were taken from a vintage Electrolux brochure, a poem by Dadaist writer Celine Arnaud, and a poem by Hugo Ball, written for his Cabaret Voltaire co-founder Emmy Hennings.

Reflecting on the performance, Jordan Zalis writes, 鈥淚 find that the people that this type of music attracts are so wonderfully open to challenging themselves, the art, and the crowd, that it is contagious and in all honesty, feels so good. What might come off as noise and madness and chaos is, to me inside, so calm.鈥�

The Brettschneider performance was the result of an exciting partnership with the music department, and is a great example of the kind of creative collaborative relationships the gallery is forging across campus. This collaboration gave FASS students the opportunity to stretch, to take a risk, to use their knowledge outside the classroom, and to create something unique with the passions and skills they develop during their studies.

You can see the performance in its entirety below, recorded and edited by film studies students. The videographers, Landon Arbuckle and Lewis Gordon, working under the guidance of Jack Coghill, also participated in the performance. At one point, they respond to the cacophonous sounds of the music with erratic camera shots, building the tension and atmosphere of the performance. This is no lost photograph; we are very lucky to have such a high-quality record of an unforgettable Natalie Brettschneider performance.

An unexpected and fun experience on a Monday night, an homage to women like Frances Barwick and Natalie Brettschneider, who pushed the expectations of their art and society, and a celebration of 杏吧原创 creativity: CUAG is proud and excited to produce this kind of work for our community.

Visit Carol Sawyer: until 19 April.

The post Natalie Brettschneider at CUAG appeared first on Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences.

In the dwindling months of my tenure as Director of the , I find myself not only planning out my coming administrative leave, but also reflecting on my eight years in this role, which has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. For someone like me with a deep interest in language, working in SLaLS is a constant pleasure. Sure, the many administrative challenges in overseeing a unit as large and complex as SLaLS can be overwhelming at times, but being constantly surrounded by interesting work on language is a fulsome reward.

Because we do so many things, we鈥檙e quite well known at 杏吧原创 鈥� but in a rather strange way. Often, people may know us for the work we do that is most relevant to them (or their immediate concerns) while being completely unaware of our many other endeavours. There is no getting around that fact that many people think we do no more than offer the 鈥渟ervice鈥� program(s) that they are familiar with. This may be one of the many that we offer 鈥� up to a Minor in seven of them 鈥� in which students can become Independent or Proficient Users of the language, according to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages. Or it might be the credit-bearing program that each year prepares our many new international students for studies in their second language and in a different academic culture. Or familiarity may be with the for Disciplines and Professions that help all Engineering and Information Technology students develop written and oral communication skills consistent with the generic standards of their chosen community of practice. Far fewer know that we offer all of these service programs, which together demonstrate that language learning is often a lifetime endeavour, even in one鈥檚 own first language.

For those familiar with one of our degree program areas, Linguistics or Applied Linguistics & Discourse Studies, the same partial knowledge often holds. For example, while our undergraduate program in Linguistics is known to our colleagues in the , and to most in the departments of our sister disciplines in Cognitive Science (Psychology, Philosophy and Computer Science), they may not know about our work in Writing Studies or Critical Discourse Analysis, which our colleagues in English are much more likely to know about.

Part of this is simply because it is very rare to have so much diversity in a single unit 鈥� much of what we do is housed in multiple places on other campuses. And the range of what we do really is massive. In my own field of expertise, phonology, we are concerned with things like what enables us, when we have something to say, to properly assemble words and associated sound strings into well-formed syllables, rhythmic units, and phrases, and deliver them to our interlocutors and, on the receptive side of things, to parse an incoming speech signal into discrete sounds and map them on to words and pieces of grammar so as to understand our interlocutors鈥� message. This is pretty far removed from a lot of the work going on in the School, where another colleague explores written or multimodal genres of things ranging from suicide notes to the teaching of mathematics.

The jewel in our crown is our graduate program in . We have a PhD program just wrapping up its third year, and a long-standing MA program (the first thesis appearing in 1992). Our program produces work that really matters. Much of it matters here at 杏吧原创 and/or in the higher education context generally, focusing on issues in teaching, learning, and assessment. Since language use is crucial in knowledge making and knowledge transfer, this work touches not only on the expected teaching, learning, and assessment in English as a Second Language, and foreign language programs, but on teaching, learning, and assessment in a range of disciplines including economics, engineering, mathematics, medical physics, history and biology. Some of this work has changed the face of 杏吧原创 University. The most obvious examples are the , the Communication Courses for Disciplines and Professions, and the Academic English as a Second Language program, but scholarship from our School has also contributed to the Educational Development Centre, the , the First-Year Seminar program, as well as to the Faculty of Engineering and Design in the form of post-entry diagnostic testing of first-year students to identify those 鈥渁t-risk鈥�.

Our international graduate students often produce work that will have an impact on teaching, learning, and assessment in their home countries. They have studied things like the impact of study abroad scholarship programs in Libya, negative consequences of the School Leaving Certificate Examination in Nepal, and a variety of issues related to English language teaching and/or assessment in the educational systems of countries like Japan, Korea, Mexico, Nepal and Tunisia.

Back to relevance here in Canada, but outside of higher education, our students have produced work related to literacy programs, immersion and Core French programs, language testing in the public service, on-the-job development of workplace writing ability, and language use by children with Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Other important work from the Critical Discourse Analysis side of our School has explored things like the discourse around climate change, generic features of suicide notes, biculturalism in Canadian immigrant populations, the discursive construction of belonging in Quebec, and racialized discourse around national security. I鈥檓 very proud that since 2010 there have been four theses on Indigenous language issues, and we are hoping to further our strength in this area with a new hire that will be finalized in the coming weeks. This is just a taste of the type of scholarship coming out of our graduate program, which has produced over 100 theses and many more research essays.

For a sampling of this year鈥檚 work, please come to our : Language, Learning, and Society. The symposium will take place from 3:00-5:00 on Friday, March 4th, in 303 St. Patrick鈥檚 Building.

The post Language in Learning, Language in Life appeared first on Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences.

Why did 杏吧原创鈥檚 special film screening and Q&A on the roots of hip-hop culture attract such a diverse audience, which included students and faculty, poets and artists, Muslim and Indigenous activists, as well as fans of 70s music who heard about the event on CBC radio?

1. Because it鈥檚 2015 2016
2. Because hip-hop culture was born in the diverse streets of New York, and thrives in diverse settings around the world
3. Because there is a widespread desire to think more deeply about diversity, art and the academy
4. All of the above

杏吧原创 University hosted two guests during Black History Month who are renowned for their explorative, innovative and provocative work: (a founding member of the legendary Last Poets), and (a poet shaped and encouraged by giants of the spoken word genre such as Jalal and Gil Scott-Heron).

After delivering masterclasses and spoken word performances in Toronto and Ottawa, Jalal and Malik visited 杏吧原创 for a special screening of two films: Word Up from Ghetto to Mecca, a short film that goes on a poetic journey with Malik that crisscrosses across the Atlantic, and , a new documentary that provides a unique insight into Jalal鈥檚 role in the evolution of hip-hop.

Two members of the audience, , an Associate Professor of and who helped to organize the event, and , a community member and writer, shared their reflections about the politics and poetics of the evening with the FASS blog.

Q&A

Daniel: The event was called 鈥淭he Revolution will be Live鈥� in homage to Gil Scott-Heron, and his famous poem about a revolutionary spirit that would not be commodified or sold on television screens.

I hoped that the film would be an entertaining and enlightening portrayal of the history of hip-hop in the African diaspora, and help us to map examples of creative artistry that grew up in . I also expected that the Q&A would bring together students and faculty at 杏吧原创 who are interested in exploring a global present in which hip-hop is a lingua franca for young people around the world.

I didn鈥檛 anticipate the level of interest in the event from the wider Ottawa community, and I was fascinated by the ways in which people from various communities related to the stories of Malik and Jalal.

I鈥檓 still taking time to think through the range of issues covered during the Q&A. The public event spoke to so many important topics 鈥� from the deep connections between Islam and hip-hop, to the power of the arts to address the pain and suffering wrought by Canadian colonialism on Indigenous communities, to forms of that are associated with a willingness to fight necolonial practice rather than skin pigmentation.

What were some of your hopes for the event Fazeela? And how did they relate to your experiences with art and public discourse in Canada?

Fazeela: My hope, which was certainly fulfilled by the words I heard that evening, was to hear yet another way in which radical artistry both celebrates the community it rises from, and subverts the system that seeks to exploit it. This is the story of hip-hop and so many other art forms 鈥� they are born from political dissent and then become co-opted to reinforce the very thing they critique.

In a specifically Canadian context, inclusion, representation, recognition are things that many people of colour struggled for in Canada during the 70s, 80s and 90s. By now, I think it’s become clear that industries like producing or publishing or the academy are adept at co-opting any narrative to suit simplistic renderings of ethnicity because that is palatable and profitable.

Through observation and conversation I have recently come to believe that many artists of colour are disillusioned by the process of 鈥渋nclusion鈥� into the public discourse in Canada. I have noticed that ingenious people are, more and more, finding ways to communicate their art and their ideas to and for their own local, global, and virtual communities.

People are seeking out radical art that questions boundaries and institutions, and they name these connections decolonization 鈥� as a few folks did in their questions for Jalal and Malik. How to use art as one tool toward decolonization, they asked, and by even asking this I think they reach toward an anti-capitalist, anti-racist, equality-seeking art that reflects and creates a liberated world.

Daniel: Such reflections about the radical imagination, and the ways in which it can be appropriated by corporate forms of multiculturalism, also make me think about the struggles of the 1970s.

From Gil Scott-Heron reminding Americans that the revolution would not be televised and would not go better with Coke, and the anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko expressing concern about people from 鈥淐oca-Cola and hamburger cultural backgrounds鈥� shaping cultural and political institutions in South Africa, I鈥檓 fascinated by global revolutionary protest in the 70s. It seems like the best of times and the worst of times. An age of musicians putting the UN Declaration of Human Rights in the hands of ordinary people, and an age of authoritarian populists waging war against the blues philosophy and DIY spirit expressed by reggae, disco, spoken word and punk.

But I鈥檓 also aware that many others would prefer to look forward and connect the global story of resistance in the 70s to our contemporary moment of , and the performance art of the Donald in North America, as well as the widespread attacks on forms of North American hip-hop that are deemed socially irresponsible.

How did you feel about the documentary鈥檚 attempt to position Jalal as the foundation for today鈥檚 hip-hop scene, and one of the missing links between Soul Power and hip-hop?

Fazeela: I appreciate the point made in the documentary that the Last Poets, The Hustlers鈥� Convention, and Jalal himself present the 鈥渕issing link鈥� that connects hip-hop to its revolutionary political roots. It’s definitely sad, to say the least, to see the co-option of these roots toward glorifying capitalism and class hierarchy in a lot of contemporary hip-hop.

But you can鈥檛 have revolution without dismantling patriarchy. The story of The Hustlers鈥� Convention, though well-worded and subversively critical of racism in the U.S, relies on the exploitation of 鈥渂itches鈥� in the background of the 鈥減imp,鈥� and it didn鈥檛 really speak to the powerful women wordsmiths on the scene then or now. The Hustlers鈥� Convention as a poem, as well as the documentary about it, are very limited to a male narrative, so can’t be posited as the missing link because there’s still a lot missing.

Daniel: Thanks Fazeela. The perils of power, objectification and patriarchy bear repetition, especially when they help to remind us about the dangers of privileging male stories of pain, anger and validation as part of the 鈥渃hanging same鈥� of hip-hop and Black History Month.

Inside and outside of the academy, we may have to curb our enthusiasm for contemporary celebrations of diversity that do not involve a concomitant resolve to revisit the missing pages of our historical accounts. If there is a desire to shame contemporary forms of corporate multiculturalism, we may also have to ask more questions about desires to interpret (and misinterpret) hustlers of the 70s, 80s and 90s as crusading and romantic anti-capitalists rather than rugged and self-motivated entrepreneurs. After all, the answers to our historical and contemporary questions may not only lie in taking the politics of hip-hop seriously, but in questioning those who treat the work of hip-hop artists too seriously and too literally.

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For those of us working in the humanities it is, as Charles Dickens once said, the best of times and the worst of times. The digital revolution has unleashed a range of cultural changes that are in many ways far more radical than the ones generated by the invention of the printing press over five hundred years ago, and they have made their presence felt far more swiftly. The advent of new technologies and the new forms of textual community they enable have, in turn, cast earlier technologies of writing in a new light by helping to expose many of the assumptions that had, until the last couple of decades, been so thoroughly naturalized that they resisted analysis. But if these changes have shaken up our most entrenched assumptions in critically exciting ways, it is equally true that it is hard to think of a time when the humanities were so badly besieged on any number of levels, the most serious of which has been a jarring shift in student numbers and research-funding priorities towards market-driven forms of applied knowledge. At times, the discussion can get pretty gloomy. As one former President of the MLA, Marjorie Perloff, put it in an article entitled 鈥淐risis in the Humanities,鈥� 鈥渙ne of our most common genres today is the epitaph for the humanities.鈥� Google the phrase 鈥渃risis in the humanities鈥� and (.27 seconds later) the search generates 鈥渁bout 339,000 results.鈥�

Fortunately, in the past couple of years talk of 鈥渃risis鈥� seems to have begun to give way to more constructive discussions about how best to respond to the pressures that face humanities teaching and research. It鈥檚 not that the picture has gotten sunnier. Numbers are still down and research funding remains at an all-time low. But a crisis mentality is rarely conducive to the sort of genuinely creative thinking that these kinds of problems demand. Samuel Johnson may have overrated the tendency of imminent execution to clarify the mind. The humanities aren鈥檛 facing execution any time soon. Even with sagging enrolments, the number of humanities majors around the world is at a level that would have been unthinkable not that many decades ago. But it is also true that these pressures have intensified the need to re-imagine our answers to questions about the nature and role of the humanities, about their potential benefits to contemporary life, and about how our programs can best to structured in order to meet these challenges. The good news is that in many ways, this self-reflexive challenge is precisely what the humanities have always done best: highlight the nature and the force of the narratives that have helped to define how we understand our society 鈥� its various pasts and its possible futures 鈥� and to suggest the larger contexts within which these issues must be situated.

A conference on The Future of the PhD in the Humanities that took place at McGill University last May offered a compelling example of precisely this sort of discussion. One thing that immediately became clear to those of us who attended was just how high the enthusiasm level was. We had gathered there from across the country because we felt an urgent need to ask hard questions about PhD programs in the humanities and to try to tackle problems that people were raising, but the atmosphere was buoyant. And because most of us who attended were wearing two hats, being both academics and administrators of one kind or another, there was an unusual combination of 鈥渂ig ideas鈥� thinking and practical concerns about the nuts-and bolts side of how to get to where we need to be.

Most of us left Montreal feeling like we had been part of the beginning of something important rather than having brought anything to a close. People felt that a follow-up conference one year later would be crucial in order to keep our feet to the fire and to sustain the momentum that we had generated there. We didn鈥檛 want it to be another feel-good occasion whose potential for real change quickly dissipates as we fanned back out across the country and buried ourselves in the e-mails that had been accumulating in our in-boxes.

This follow-up conference will be held here at 杏吧原创 University on May 17-18. Four of us are organizing it (John Osborne, Susan Whitney, Dominique Marshall, and myself), but it has also been developed in collaboration with the organizers of the McGill event, as well as with related organizations such as SSHRC, CAGS, and the Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences. It will feature many of the leading voices in these debates from across the country, though like last year, the real emphasis will be on the larger discussions these presentations generate.

We have organized the program around the three main issues that emerged at the McGill conference. The first is the practical question of the structure of doctoral programs. Given that the bulk of most students鈥� funding packages run out after their third year, are there better ways to design them? Does it make sense to front-load programs with so much course work and comprehensive exams that students have no realistic hope of getting close to tackling their thesis until the point when their funding is about to expire? But at the same time, what are the trade-offs to any changes?

A related issue is the challenge of preparing our students for the wide range of non-academic career paths that the vast majority of them will pursue. This task involves two changes. One is training. We know that humanities students develop skills that are highly valued outside of the academy but we do a poor job of preparing them to convey these strengths in ways that potential employers appreciate. But the more difficult challenge may lie in changing the culture within universities so that non-academic career paths do not seem like an inferior option.

Then there is the larger question of how we might do a more effective job of articulating the public value of the humanities to audiences within and outside of the university. Given the emphasis on applied knowledge these days, it is more important than ever that we manage to communicate why the kind of work we do matters within the broader context of larger social issues.

One of the key factors that helped to make last year鈥檚 conference such a success was the active participation of a strong group of graduate students from across the country. Like last year, we will be hosting a one-day mini-conference for grad students only on the day before (May 16th), which will lead into the main conference on the two following days. We would love to have any and all interested doctoral students participate.

For more information, visit the conference website at (/phdhums/) for links that will enable you to register and see the program. There is no charge but we鈥檙e asking people to register so that we have a sense of numbers. We hope that you can join us in May!

Paul Keen is Associate Dean of the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Affairs.  His current book project, which is forthcoming with Palgrave MacMillan, is entitled The Humanities In A Utilitarian Age: Imagining What We Know, 1800-1850.

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I鈥檝e come to realize that there are three pre-requisites for my mental well-being: anger, love and humour. Yet, these three things are more elusive than you would imagine. I鈥檝e been told not to express my anger, 鈥測ou don鈥檛 want to be that angry black woman鈥�. It鈥檚 hard to love those you perceive to be your oppressor; especially when time and time again, you get hurt: When people throw stones at you, because you dare to assert your right to public space. When somebody looks down at you and spits on your face, it鈥檚 hard to wipe it off, and say, 鈥渋t鈥檚 okay, I can still love you.鈥� And most especially, it鈥檚 hard to still laugh, when your racial wounds and injuries have barely healed.

Just about a week before I began teaching at 杏吧原创 in Fall 2015, an 鈥渁untie鈥� called me aside at a gathering and told me that she and her husband have been meaning to speak to me. They expressed their fears that I may get into trouble and not progress in my career, if I show my anger. I didn鈥檛 know whether to cry or to laugh. They were referring to the diatribes that would come from me when a black man is shot by the police, when a Sikh man (mistaken for a Muslim) is beaten up and told to go back home, when another Aboriginal woman goes missing and murdered, and when the likes of Rachel Dolezal are exposed. You get the point. But I was told, 鈥淵ou don鈥檛 want to isolate people鈥� You don鈥檛 want them to only see your anger鈥�.

I wanted to cry because I believed that they had failed to understand me. And I wanted to cry because they had internalized the dominant discourse which enabled them to truly believe that my anger was unjustified. And I wanted to cry because they thought that I would not know how to put my anger into productive use in the classroom. Yet, I wanted to laugh because, ironically, one of the reasons I wanted to be a professor was because I was angry. I was angry that people like me were marginalized in academia and I was angry about injustices in the world, and I wanted to help my students understand issues of injustice and participate actively in transforming the system through constructive engagement with oppressive systems and structures.

Believe you me, there is nothing like righteous anger. It fuels me. Especially given how far I had come. I used to think all was hopeless, especially after you witness/experience one injustice after another. When I learned that it was okay to get angry 鈥� that being angry is only human, humanizes you and enables you to see the need for humanization 鈥� I embraced it, and came to see how it could be a useful pedagogy in the classroom. Not violent anger. No. But an anger that means you can鈥檛 be neutral in the face of injustice but makes you want to speak the truth, to testify, and to love.

Love. I recall things got a little emotional during the last day of my WGST 2800 course, Intersectional Identities, as I implored my students to stay human and to choose love. I quoted bell hooks, 鈥淎 culture of domination is anti-love. It requires violence to sustain itself. To choose love is to go against the prevailing values of the culture. 鈥� The moment we choose to love we begin to move against domination, against oppression. The moment we choose to love we begin to move towards freedom, to act in ways that liberate ourselves and others. That action is the testimony of love as the practice of freedom.鈥� It鈥檚 not easy, but I鈥檓 slowly starting to liberate myself.

This liberation that comes from choosing love, I believe is key to parenting my toddler especially given how much angst I have about his survival. Some think this angst is unfounded: 鈥淐anada is safe, there鈥檚 no racism here.鈥� 鈥淲e embrace diversity鈥� (tell that to the Muslim women who got beaten up in Toronto after the Paris bombing). When you know the injuries of racism yourself it鈥檚 not far fetched to imagine how the stones that were hurled at you not too long ago, could easily be a gun that鈥檚 pointing at your beloved because of his 鈥減rofile鈥�. On those days that you are a time traveller, and find yourself in your worst nightmare, and travel back again to your present day, you can only try to plan. Map out his life. Then you realize that you鈥檙e not moving against domination. In your perplexity, you talk to your friends. You hear their stories about parenting while Black and the stereotypes they encounter from teachers in school that inexplicably links their parenting skills to criminalized black masculinity, you can only start to laugh after you鈥檝e become angry. In that rage, you find humour, and it eventually leads you to choose love. Otherwise you could go mad. Seriously.

So, this is what my talk, Hashtags Can鈥檛 Resuscitate: Reproductive Justice and Black Masculinity is partially about. It is inspired by a poem I wrote after I got tired of all the hashtags I was seeing on social media, in that moment of anger, I asked: what would it be like, if some of us began to practice love in a manner that would finally start to lead towards social transformations, rather than thinking that hashtags would suffice?

Another Damn Hashtag

Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night

#Hyperventilating

#Sweating

#Afraid

I dream that you are dead

#Gunshot

#Blood

#Tears

I scurry out of bed and run to your room

#Asleep

#Peaceful

#BeautifulAngel

Then I turn on the TV and the nightmare begins again

#Criminalized

#Blackness

#RightProfile

I shudder because I can鈥檛 imagine the pain

#Injustice

#Ignorance

#Racism

In my mind, I begin to map out my plan for your life

#PerfectDiction

#NoHoodie

#Policedbehaviour

But then I catch myself at the stupidity of it all

#Whiteprivilege

# 鈥淩acialuplift鈥�

# Damnunfair

I know that it doesn鈥檛 matter what I do or you do

# Can鈥檛escape

# prejudicerules

#hardknocklife

I can鈥檛 protect you and it hurts; society doesn鈥檛 care about you and it breaks my heart

#Disposablebodies

# Justanotherday

#Industrialprisoncomplex

And as much as I try, it鈥檚 hard to be optimistic

Even though I say a prayer

Reality stares me in the face

I see the flurry on social media

#indignation

#policebrutality

#飞丑补迟鈥檚苍别虫迟?

I鈥檓 scared

And I鈥檓 so sick and tired

Because nobody鈥檚 life should have to be reduced to another damn hashtag

#Hashtags.

#can鈥檛 .

#resuscitate

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