Dr. Micheline White’s (College of Humanities) article, , Renaissance Quarterly, 76 (2023), 39–83, was the winner of the Sixteenth Century Society’s 2024 “Raymond B. Waddington Prize” for the best English-language article on the literature of the Early Modern period (1450-1750).

This essay examines deluxe copies of Katherine Parr’s “Psalms or Prayers” (1544) distributed as gifts as part of Henry VIII’s wartime campaign. The book promoted supplication for the king, and Parr used hand illumination to amplify its aesthetic and sacred character and to elicit political loyalty. I discuss two copies annotated by Henry, one previously unknown. I argue that the volumes shed new light on Parr’s role as queen/author, on Henry’s final illness, and on their transactional relationship: Parr’s giftbooks advanced Henry’s cause and enabled him to display exemplary piety; Henry’s marginalia activated Parr’s text and thanked her for her labor.

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Professor Robert Holton, Department of English Language and Literature, translated and edited Scenes of Bohemian Life by Henry Murger. This 1851 set of stories is the basis for Puccini’s La Boheme, the Broadway hit Rent, as well as the many and varied bohemian communities and styles that have proliferated since.

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With seven articles, this special Theme Issue invites our readers to conversations with our writers from the Global South about knowledge of disability from the decolonial perspectives. The Theme Issue is a collective effort in the context of the ongoing global issues of colonization, coloniality, and violence. Our initiative aims to bring about the possibility of disrupting the traditional power relations in knowledge production, which is based on the assumption of the privileged Global North theorization while marginalizing the voices from the Global South. While seeking the possibilities for decolonial disabilities studies, our works also acknowledge the tensions associated with knowledge transformation.

This research is led by Associate Professor Xuan Thuy Nguyen from the Institute of Interdisciplinary Studies.

For more information visit the Decolonial Disability Studies Collective website and the Transforming Disability Knowledge, Research, and Activism website.

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Dr. Siobhain Bly Calkin, Department of English Language and Literature.

Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies (2024) 54 (2): 299–332.

This article analyzes an English miracle narrative in which a portion of the Holy Cross is implanted within a knight’s body in the Holy Land and is translated to Cornwall. The text raises important questions about what implantation means for the relic and human matters so conjoined and their respective agencies. Drawing on ideas about prostheticized bodies developed in disability studies can help scholars better understand the ontological questions raised by the melding of human and nonhuman matters, the profound vulnerability this entails for the devout human subject, and the ways in which this fusion of relic and human matter is socially transformative for the broader community. The article thus outlines some of the complex negotiations of matter and agency that could be imagined as part of the affective world of late medieval and early modern Passion relic veneration.

The post Passion Relic Devotion, an Implanted Relic, and a Prostheticized Body: Rethinking Matter and Agency in “A Grete Myracle of a Knyghte Good Callyd Syr Roger Wallysborow” appeared first on Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences.

The post MeWeRTH Funded Projects. Learn more about projects funded by the Mental Health and Well-being Research and Training Hub appeared first on Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences.

Learn more about the current projects MeWeRTH members are working on.

The post 2024 MeWeRTH Projects. Learn more about the current projects Mental Health and Well-being Research and Training Hub members are working on appeared first on Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences.

Dr. Anne TrĂ©panier’s new book De l’hydre au castor. ReprĂ©sentations de la ConfĂ©dĂ©ration dans la presse de l’AmĂ©rique du Nord britannique (1844-1867) will be released Frebruary 13th.

At a time when historical events and figures are celebrated, criticized, or toppled, and as Canadians contemplate the continuity and uses of the British monarchy, this book seeks to answer a historical question: how was the Confederation of Canada perceived without knowing its fate in advance?

The book draws from a rich tapestry of representations found in newspapers and satirical publications from the four provinces of British North America before their entry into Confederation: Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Canada East, and Canada West. Through an exploration of diverse media, including editorial writings, whimsical illustrations, and biting satire, the author examines whether there were common representations of what Canada would become in 1867. Tensions, twists, monsters, drapery, and exaggerations emerge as a baroque world in the mirrors of paper held up by newspapers.

The book examines the tension between the peril of assimilation and the belonging to a great people, as reflected in the fears and hopes surrounding Confederation. The imaginary map of a projected Canada becomes a canvas for interpreting the roles of various communities, including French Canadians, Irish, Scots, English, First Nations, Catholics, Protestants, Loyalists, and Americans.

Newspapers are employed as a primary source, emphasizing their unique ability to reflect the contemporary concerns and thoughts surrounding Confederation projects. The press becomes a lens through which the reader can witness the thematic occurrences that populated the satirical newspapers of the time.

This book goes beyond a mere historical exploration; it presents a curious and careful examination of images that gave substance and form to the commonplaces of argumentation during the formative years of political and human Canada in 1867. The representations, whether depicting gain and loss, unity, and rupture, or change and tradition, are analyzed as artifacts of anticipation, providing historical traces of a projected, feared, or desired future.

The post De l’hydre au castor. ReprĂ©sentations de la ConfĂ©dĂ©ration dans la presse de l’AmĂ©rique du Nord britannique (1844-1867), (Anne TrĂ©panier, Department of French, School of Canadian Studies) appeared first on Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences.

Ajjiliurlagit (“let me take your picture”) is an online exhibition of photographs from the 1950s by Inuk hunter Joseph Idlout. The exhibition is organized thematically around Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit (IQ) principles. The exhibition has been curated with the collaboration of the Nunavut Archives.

The post Ajjiliurlagit: The Photographs of Joseph Idlout / Augatnaaq Eccles (Carol Payne, SSAC) and Department of History appeared first on Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences.

Our peer review edited collection, “Appartenances, marchĂ©s et mobilitĂ©s. Penser la valeur des langues” published in 2023, presents current research in French Sociolinguistics on the “value” of languages. Throughout their articles, authors of this collective book address the varied ways (economic, affective, political or social) in which languages and dialects are valued (or devalued) in society and study what it means for their speakers.

The post “Appartenances, marchĂ©s et mobilitĂ©s. Penser la valeur des langues” (Emilie Urbain, Department of French) appeared first on Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences.

“We cannot ignore the signs: The development of equivalence and arithmetic for students from grades 3 to 4” (authors C. Xu, S. Burr, J. Si, J. LeFevre, and X. Zhuo). Journal of Cognition and Development, 2024. DOI: 10.1080/15248372.2023.2245507 (open access).

In this paper, we show that for Chinese students in grade 3, fluency of access to arithmetic facts supports their knowledge of the meaning of the equal sign in grade 4. This research was done in collaboration with two of my former Ph.D. students, Xu and Burr, and colleagues in China. It highlights the interactions among knowledge of basic facts and conceptual understanding in the development of children’s arithmetic skill. Fluency of access to mathematical knowledge is a fundamental feature of skilled performance.

More information on the Math Lab website.

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Department of Psychology) appeared first on Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences.