Canadian Studies Events Archives

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Enrichment Funding Recipients

2004-05

Katherine Barber

In October of 2004, at the joint invitation of Andrew Nurse, professor of Canadian Studies, and Wendy Burnett of the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures, Katherine Barber, distinguished lexicographer and Editor-in-Chief of the Canadian Oxford Dictionary, visited our campus. Ms Barber joined Oxford University Press in 1991. Since then, she has guided the production of two editions of the Canadian Oxford Dictionary, an abridged high school version, and the Canadian Oxford Thesaurus. Ms Barber lectured on the topic of Canadian English as a separate entity. Until recently, the English spoken by some 25 million Canadians has been little studied by scholars, in contrast to the considerable attention given to the several dialects of Canadian French. Indeed, most English speaking Canadians “hardly seem aware” of the existence of Canadian English as unique. Barber spoke to an enthusiastic audience of faculty, students, and members of the Sackville community about the challenges inherent in creating a distinctive Canadian dictionary. Her informative witty talk, entitled “Blogs, Banquet Burgers, and Puck Hogs: updating the Canadian Oxford Dictionary,” addressed the importance of having a dictionary that reflects a Canadian, as distinct from a British or American, social and cultural world view.

For a word to be included in the dictionary, she explained, it must be supported by at least 15 separate citations of its appearance in publications of record. The second edition of the Canadian Oxford Dictionary contains some 5000 new words, each additional entry being the result of a painstaking search of current books, periodicals, and newspapers. A consultative group of approximately 100 respondents across Canada, including linguistics students at Mount Allison, contributed to the process, especially with regard to regional pronunciations and usages.

Ms. Barber received the Canadian Booksellers Association Editor of the Year award in 1999 and the University of Winnipeg Distinguished Alumni Award in 2000. She makes frequent appearances on CBC Radio and Television to discuss matters of language and Canadian English in particular.

Gwynne Dyer

On Tuesday November 2, the eve of American election day, Gwynne Dyer, acclaimed journalist, author, and filmmaker, spoke to Mount A. students on what he termed the Bush strategy to further his agenda of confirming the United States as the only power that can assure world peace, i.e. “Pax American.”. Dyer asserts that the so-called “war on terror” is an overrated and misleading ploy, aimed at striking fear in the hearts of Americans in order to gain their support for waging war, with or without the approval of the United Nations. He suggests that the real terrorist threat is very small; that there has been no attack in North America since 9/11 and that there is no connection between the war in Iraq and 9/11. Dyer asserts that Bush’s neo-conservative advisers had long before 9/11 been looking for a motive for controlling the “threat” of such countries as North Korea, Iraq, Iran and Libya. Dyer fears that the progress made by the United Nations since the end of WWII is at risk and that 60 years of work will have been lost if the other world powers and the American people aren’t able to make their voices heard.

Liz Finney

Elizabeth Finney, Director of Government Liaison at the University of Toronto, visited the campus on February 7th, 2005. Liz graduated from Mount Allison in 1994, with an Honours B.A. in Sociology and Political Science and was the first recipient of the Department of Sociology's Donna L. Purdy Memorial Award.

During nine years of working in government in Ottawa, Liz served as Special Assistant to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and in that capacity attended the G8 Summit and the related G6B (civil society) event in Kananaskis in 2002. She was also Policy Advisor and Legislative Assistant to the Minister of International Co-operation, which led to her participating in the World Education Forum in Dakar, Senegal in 2000. Duties as Assistant to two Prime Ministers included her functioning as the Prime Minister's Tour Director for Atlantic Canada during the 2004 General Election.

Liz visited Sociology and Political Science classes discussing her experiences in working in government. Her public talk was entitled "To the Heart of the Beast, Nine Years in Ottawa". Her visit was an inspiration to sociology and political science students, indicating the possible uses of their undergraduate educational pursuits.

Eleanor Bond

Invited to Mount Allison by the Department of Fine Arts, Eleanor Bond is one of Canada's premier painters. Bond was artist in residence at Concordia University in 2002-03 where she is presently teaching. Her solo exhibitions include the Musee d'Art contemporain de Montreal; the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art in Toronto and the Museo de Arte Moderna de Sao Paulo, Brazil. Since 1985, Eleanor Bond has produced large canvases that represent the city based on her reflections on contemporary ideas of space, place and community. These works evoke actual and imaginary urban environments in which shapes and forms coalesce and then decompose at a fast pace. Using unusual perspectives and saturated colours, her unstretched canvases possess the capacity to engulf the viewer in a surreal world that encompasses the dilemmas of current social and cultural realities. Bond has influenced a generation of artists in her use of the tradition of landscape painting as a forum for discussion. The title of her Public Lecture was ”The Dead Horse: contemporary art about issues of landscape.”

2003-04

Stephen Haff, Crake Drama Graduate-in-Residence

Drama Graduate-In-Residence Presents “Tough!”

The 2003-04 Crake Drama Graduate-in-Residence was Mr Stephen Haff, a member of the class of 1988 who describes himself as "a proud alumnus of the Windsor Theatre." Alex Fancy, Director of Drama and his colleagues were pleased to welcome home this distinguished former student who is widely known for his leadership on the New York theatre scene.

After graduating from Yale, Mr Haff served as Workshop Director for New Dramatists, the foremost American centre for the development of new plays, and taught playwriting at Bennington College, theatre at Fordham University, and writing at the New School University.

A teacher of English and Drama at Bushwick High School in Brooklyn, New York City, he is Founder and Co-Director of The Real People Theater Company, a young troupe which has played to enthusiastic acclaim in professional New York City theatres, throughout the United States and abroad.

Speaking of the troupe's tours, Haff says that, "as a direct result, two former Latin King gang members are now enrolled at Bennington College and all graduating RPT actors have gone on to higher education, something that wasn't even on their radar before joining the company."

Dedicated to developmental drama and to the power of theatre to effect social change, Mr Haff is known for his imaginative stagings of Shakespeare in English, Spanish and 'Street' and, more recently, for his production of 'Tough!', a script by the famous Canadian playwright, George
Walker. This hour-long script features three 19-year-olds who face their tragi-comical transition into adulthood. This production was staged at Windsor Theatre by Haff and three actors who accompanied him to Mount Allison. Mr Haff also gave a public presentation entitled "How I Got There From Here" and he and his actors participated in classes, gave workshops and met students on a one-to-one basis.

These events were sponsored by the J. E. A. Crake Foundation and the Canadian Studies Enrichment Fund.

Charting Chignecto: An Exhibition of Historic Maps

This unique exhibition is rooted in the history of the region showing how Sackville, which has just celebrated its 100th anniversary, has been depicted in maps over the years. Surveyors’ maps, explorers’ maps, maps of roads and bridges connecting communities, campus maps, and early town maps document 500 years of activity. Paul Bogaard, philosopher and co-organizer of the project with Rob Summerby-Murray, geographer, observed “We live in an extraordinary place with layer upon layer of resources so deep we can only see part of them until an exhibition like this comes together to show the richness of our archival holding , and our ability to unite cross disciplines. "Charting Chignecto," was made possible with support from the Mt. Allison Library (Archives, Bell & Davidson Collections), and with funding from the Bell Fine Arts & Music Committee and the Canadian Studies Enrichment programme.

Atlantic International Studies (ATLIS) Inaugural Conference

Student Journal on International Studies Published

The first two issues of the student refereed journal ATLIS (the Atlantic International Studies Journal) are now up on the ATLIS website at www.atlis.ca After organizing a successful inaugural conference back in January 04 which drew 60 students and where 17 papers were presented, the student editors oversaw a formal peer review process that selected 9 manuscripts for publication.
Faculty advisers, Professors Owen Griffiths and Tom Legler, indicated their pride in this student-run initiative and in the students' achievement. “Their undertaking establishes Mount Allison University as a rising leader in the Atlantic region in undergraduate international studies.
Conference speaker Jean Louis Roy, president of Rights and Democracy with the International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development, said that Canada has the ability to be a leader in the fight for human rights. "We have the means to work seriously. We have the means to take away poverty."
Professor Kathleen Mahoney, who serves as chair of the Board of Directors for the Centre on Rights and Democracy and has organized and participated in a variety of human rights projects around the world, urged today's students to get involved.
President MacKay stated that human rights need to be implemented at the state level. He brought up various Canadian cases as examples to show where laws need to reflect today's disparities.
Several Mount Allison and Maritime students presented and debate their papers, giving them a chance to display and share their knowledge in a professional capacity.
The Centre for Canadian Studies was pleased to be a co-sponsor of this initiative along with Leadership Mount Allison, the Office of the President, and the Pottle Fund.