New Publication: Congratulations to our previous Ruth and Mark Phillips Professor of Cultural Mediations and Associate Professor in the Department of Art and Architectural History and the Institute for Comparative Studies in Literature, Art, and Culture at Carleton University, Dr. Birgit Hopfener on the publication of her co-edited special edition issue Towards a Multi-Temporal Pluriverse of Art. Decolonizing Universalized Historiographic and Temporal Frameworks in 21: Inquiries into Art, History, and the Visual. Beiträge zur Kunstgeschichte und visuellen Kultur, Vol. 5 No. 1 (2024)
This special co-edited version is the outcome of Dr. Hopfener’s work as the inaugural (2021-2023) Ruth and Mark Phillips Professorship in Cultural Mediations. You can read this issue here.
New Publication: Congratulations to the 2023–2025 Ruth and Mark Phillips Professor of Cultural Mediations and Associate Professor in the Department of Law and Legal Studies, the Department of English Language and Literature, and the Institute for Comparative Studies in Literature, Art, and Culture at Carleton University, Dr. Philip Kaisary on the publication of his new book, From Havana to Hollywood: Slave Resistance in the Cinematic Imaginary.
From Havana to Hollywood examines the presence or absence of Black resistance to slavery in feature films produced in either Havana or Hollywood—including Gillo Pontecorvo’s Burn!, neglected masterpieces by Cuban auteurs Tomás Gutiérrez Alea and Sergio Giral, and Steve McQueen’s Oscar-winning 12 Years a Slave. Philip Kaisary argues that, with rare exceptions, the representation of Black agency in Hollywood has always been, and remains, taboo. Contrastingly, Cuban cinema foregrounds Black agency, challenging the ways in which slavery has been misremembered and misunderstood in North America and Europe. With powerful, richly theorized readings, the book shows how Cuban cinema especially recreates the past to fuel visions of liberation and asks how the medium of film might contribute to a renewal of emancipatory politics today. For more information, visit philipkaisary.net.
New Publication: Congratulations to ICSLAC faculty member Professor Barbara Leckie (English/ICSLAC) on the publication of her new book Climate Change, Interrupted: Representation and the Remaking of Time (Stanford University Press). In this new monograph, Barbara Leckie “considers the climate crisis as a problem of time. Spanning the long nineteenth century through our current moment, her interdisciplinary treatment of climate change at once rethinks time and illustrates that the time for climate action is now.” Professor Leckie’s full profile can be found here.
New Publication: Congratulations to ICSLAC faculty member Professor Mitchell Frank (SSAC-Art History/ICSLAC) on the publication of his new book The Met and the Masses in Postwar America: A Study of the Museum and Popular Art Education (Bloosmburry Press). In his new monograph, Professor Frank “explores the collaborations, during the mid-20th century, between the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Book-of-the-Month Club… Using never before published archival material, the book demonstrates how the Met sought to bring art to the masses in postwar America, whilst upholding its reputation as an institution of high culture.”Professor Frank’s full profile can be found here.
New Publication: Congratulations to ICSLAC faculty member Professor Stuart Murray (English/ICSLAC) on the publication of his new book The Living from the Dead: Disaffirming Biopolitics (Penn State University Press). In this new monograph, Professor Murray considers how “In a society that aims above all to safeguard life” we might “reckon with ethical responsibility when we are complicit in sacrificial economies that produce and tolerate death as a necessity of life?” Professor Murray ‘s full profile can be found here.
Professor Ruth Phillips
Prestigious Award: Congratulations to Professor Ruth Phillips, ICSLAC retired faculty member and Carleton Professor Emerita, who received the 2022 Universities Art Association of Canada Lifetime Achievement Award. The UAAC Lifetime Achievement Award “is presented to a senior scholar who has made an outstanding contribution to the profession over the whole of a career either through leadership, creation, education, curatorial projects, service or publications.” You can read more here about the UAAC 2022 award.
New Publication: Congratulations to ICSLAC faculty member Professor Ming Tiampo (SSAC-Art History/ICSLAC) on the publication of her new book Jin-me Yoon: Life & Work (Art Canada Institute). Jin-me Yoon: Life & Work “considers how one of Canada’s most important voices on the nature of identity developed a critical perspective on the representation of this country in museums, art history, the tourist industry, and monuments with groundbreaking works…” Professor Ming Tiampo “reveals how Yoon’s multidisciplinary art—which includes photography, video, and performances—investigates how we engage with our surroundings and offers hope for a better tomorrow.” Professor Tiampo’s full profile can be found here.
New Publication: Congratulations to ICSLAC faculty member Professor Carol Payne (SSAC-Art History/ICSLAC) and Cultural Mediations alumna Dr. Christina Williamson on their recent co-edited book,Atiqput: Inuit Oral History and Project Naming. Published with McGill-Queen’s University Press, Atiqput offers “A multigenerational discussion of culture, history, and naming centring on archival photographs of Inuit whose names were previously unrecorded.” Professor Payne’s full profile can be found here.
Professor Jesse Stewart
Prestigious appointment: Congratulations to ICSLAC faculty member Professor Jesse Stewart (SSAC-Music/ICSLAC) who has been named as a member of the Royal Society of Canada’s College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists. You can read more on Professor Stewart’s nomination here. His full profile can be found here.
Professor Sarah Phillips Casteel
The Institute for Comparative Studies in Literature Art and Culture is delighted to announce that Professor Sarah Phillips Casteel will be delivering the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences’ Marston LaFrance Lecture on March 23, from 3-4 pm. You can register here for this online event.
Professor Casteel’s talk, “Making History Visible: Black Lives Under Nazism in Literature and Art”, addresses a little known chapter of World War II in which Black people living in Germany and occupied Europe found themselves caught up in the Nazis’ genocidal campaign. For more information on the lecture, Professor Casteel’s current book project, her profile and doctoral supervisions, please read here.
Professor Ellen Waterman
Music, Sound and Society in Canada: Dr. Ellen Waterman launches a new research centre
Congratulations to ICSLAC faculty member Professor Ellen Waterman (Helmut Kallmann Chair for Music in Canada, Music/ICSLAC) on the launch of Music, Sound and Society in Canada (MSSC), a new research centre under her directorship. MSSC will take a critical lens to music and sound in this country, bringing together scholars from Carleton, external research fellows, and members of the community. For more information…
Professor Malini Guha
Focus on grants and research: Dr. Malini Guha awarded a FASS research grant
Congratulations to ICSLAC faculty member Professor Malini Guha (Film Studies), who was awarded a FASS Mid-Career Research Grant for her current research project On Traction: Moving Images and Realities. Professor Guha’s full profile can be found here.
Professor Birgit Hopfener
ICSLAC Appointment: Dr. Birgit Hopfener Appointed to the Ruth and Mark Phillips Professorship in Cultural Mediations
The Institute for Comparative Literature, Art and Culture (ICSLAC) is delighted to announce the appointment of Dr. Birgit Hopfener (SSAC/ICSLAC) as the inaugural holder of the Ruth and Mark Phillips Professorship in Cultural Mediations. This exciting new position is intended to provide an ICSLAC faculty member with the opportunity to shape a doctoral seminar and year-long program of intellectual engagement around their ongoing interdisciplinary research. Dr. Hopfener, an art historian of contemporary art and theory in the global context, will be focusing her two-year tenure on critical temporalities. She invites students, faculty as well as other colleagues and friends to explore how scholarly writing, art and cultural artifacts engage with the temporal heterogeneity of our time, its socio-political, geo-political and historical conditions and the multiplicity of temporal assumptions that shape us, art and knowledges. Entitled The Temporal Diversity of our Time. Pluralizing time and unlearning the modern Western temporal regime, her graduate seminar will be offered in the fall of 2021, with more information to follow around the program of events enhancing the seminar throughout the 21-22 academic year. The Professorship in Cultural Mediations is named in honour of Professors Emeriti Ruth Phillips and Mark Phillips, two long-time ICSLAC faculty members.
Professor Franny Nudelman
Focus on publications: Franny Nudelman publishes Fighting Sleep. The War for the Mind and the US Military
Congratulations to ICSLAC professor Franny Nudelman (English/ICSLAC) on the publication of her new monograph, Fighting Sleep. The War for the Mind and the US Military, published by Verso Books and reviewed in the Los Angeles Review of Books.
Professor Catherine Khordoc
Focus on publications: Dr. Catherine Khordoc’s awarded a Canadian Studies Network’s 2019 prize
Congratulations to ICSLAC professor Dr. Catherine Khordoc (French/SICS/ICSLAC), who was awarded the Canadian Studies Network’s 2019 prize for the best article published in the Journal of Canadian Studies. Her essay “Worlded Literature in Quebec: Wajdi Mouawad’s Le Sang des promesses Cycle” can be accessed here. Follow this link for more information on Dr. Khordoc’s profile.
Drs. Birgit Hopfener and Ming Tiampo
Focus on grants and research: Congratulations to Drs. Birgit Hopfener and Ming Tiampo
Drs. Birgit Hopfener and Ming Tiampo (SSAC/ICSLAC) received a Social Innovation Grant from the Trans-Atlantic Platform for the Social Sciences and Humanities for their project Worlding Public Cultures: The Arts and Social Innovation, spearheaded in the context of the Transnational and Transcultural Art and Culture Exchange (TrACE). Read more: Worlding Public Cultures: The Arts and Social Innovation