Due to a technical error (and we all know who made that!), this blog post of late August was lost.  So here you go – you will all be up to date now…

It’s almost time to welcome everyone back to campus! As always, the students and faculty associated with ICSLAC are busy but especially so with classes starting on Thursday, September 4th and our Meet & Greet scheduled for Friday, September 5th. We will be welcoming incoming Cultural Mediations students as well as incoming Digital Humanities students this year!

We also have much to celebrate (listed in no particular order!)

  • Marc Furnstenau, Associate Professor with ICSLAC and SSAC, has been appointed co-editor of the Canadian Journal of Film Studies, which is published by the Film Studies Association of Canada. Please join me in congratulating Marc on this achievement!
  • At its recent annual conference as part of Congress 2014, the Film Studies Association of Canada awarded its annual Student Writing Award to David Richler, PhD Candidate in Cultural Mediations. David’s winning essay, entitled “Film, Realism, and the World According to Jia Zhangke”, was presented at the conference, and will proceed through review and revision for publication in a future issue of the Canadian Journal of Film Studies. More information (bilingual) and a list of past award winners is available at: http://www.filmstudies.ca/gradute-students/169-2. On behalf of all us, David, this is a wonderful achievement – please accept our congratulations!
  • We had our first cohort of graduates of the Collaborative MA in Digital Humanities – a lovely article about one of the graduates, Danuta Sierhuis was highlighted by FGPA – you can read the full article here. Shawn Graham’s HIST5702 course in Digital History last year produced some interesting work, including an augmented reality faux 1960s airline magazine. You can find out more here.
  • Further on the film front – Johnny El-Alam produced a film for a competition meant to represent the hardships of filmmaking.
  • Over the summer, comprehensive exams were written, theses were submitted, student research profiles were updated, publications were finalized and edited, babies were born this year and I’m aware of at least 1 book and 1 book chapter to be released sometime this year. Share your stories with me at Dawn.Schmidt@Carleton.ca so we can all enjoy your successes. In saying that, even I got into a celebratory mode as I was recently awarded the Barbara Sudell Book Prize for Outstanding Part-Time Student of English Literature for the 2nd year. I won’t congratulate myself but in the spirit of sharing our successes I wanted to be a positive role model!

All in all, we are all doing extremely well and with the new Culture Hub initiative to look forward to, we have more to look forward to as the year progresses. All the best to you this holiday weekend. Stay safe and I look forward to seeing everyone next Friday!

-Dawn