Below are upcoming events as well as announcements that may be of interest. (A bulletin will be sent out each week with upcoming events and announcements.) Departmental events are also posted on our website.
Events
September 30, 2018 – Reflections on Gandhi, the Great Law of Peace and Indigenous Resurgence
The College of the Humanities, Carleton University and the Mahatma Gandhi Peace Council of Ottawa present the annual M.K. Gandhi Lecture in Peace and the Humanities: Reflections on Gandhi, the Great Law of Peace and Indigenous Resurgence by Dr. Taiaiake Alfred, University of Victoria.
Dr. Taiaiake Alfred is from the Mohawk community of Kahnawáke south of Montréal. He served in the United States Marine Corps and went on to do a PhD at Cornell University. He has been the recipient of a Canada Research Chair and is currently professor at the University of Victoria. His books include Wasáse: Indigenous Pathways of Action and Freedom, University of Toronto Press, and Peace, Power, Righteousness: An Indigenous Manifesto, Oxford University Press. The lecture will bring together the thought and praxis of Mahatma Gandhi, the Great Law of Peace of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, and Indigenous struggles today.
Please join us for this free public event on Sunday, September 30, 2018, 2:30 pm at Room 2200, River Building (Ritchcraft Hall), Carleton University.
October 3, 2018 – First Cultural Memory Workshop
Food DeTouring with Sarah Chelchowski and Michael Melvill
Join us at The Table, 1230 Wellington Street, 6-8pm on Wednesday, October 3rd.
Sarah and Michael will be introducing their ideas for a new DeTour on food waste in Ottawa. Check out DeTours at ottawadetours.ca
October 4, 2018 – India: Questions & Answers. An interactive session with India’s High Commissioner to Canada and the author of Q&A/Slumdog Millionaire
Mr. Vikas Swarup High Commissioner of India to Canada, & Author. Mr. Swarup will talk about different dimensions of Indian politics and society seen through the prism of his novels.
Talk from 2.30 pm- 3.30 pm, followed by reception. All are welcome.
Mr. Vikas Swarup’s career in the Indian Foreign Service has spanned more than 30 years. He has served in diplomatic assignments in Ankara, Washington DC, Addis Ababa, London, Pretoria and Osaka-Kobe. After serving as Joint Secretary United Nations (Political), he was appointed the official spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs until being appointed as the High Commissioner of India to Canada.
Mr. Swarup is also the author of three novels, Q&A, which was adapted as the multiple Oscar-winning film Slumdog Millionaire, Six Suspects, and The Accidental Apprentice. His books have been translated into more than forty international languages.
October 4, 2018 – GSA Annual Social Justice Speaker Series
From Tehran Streetstyle to the War on Terror: A Conversation on Gender, Feminism, Orientalism, White Supremacy, and Empire through Fashion
Presentation by: Hoda Katebi
Thursday October 4th, 2018 @ 6:00pm (608 Robertson Hall; Carleton University)
Besides being used as a measure of one’s clout, fashion is a powerful means of communication, oppression, and resistance. Between Kanye West’s ‘refugee camp’ collection and miniskirts being used as a sign of Afghanistan’s modernization, the way we chose to present our bodies for public consumption is more powerful than might meet the eye. Starting with the images of illegal fashion she documented in her book “Tehran Streetstyle”, Hoda Katebi will guide participants through an engaging conversation exploring the politics of fashion and what it reveals about contemporary structures of violence – and modes of resistance.
Hoda Katebi is a radical anti-capitalist, intersectional feminist, and Muslim-Iranian creative and community organizer living in Chicago. She is also the founder of JooJoo Azad, a radical publication that aims to challenge the narratives that fuel anti-muslim racism. She has recently launched her international book club #becauseWeveRead which now has thousands of participants around the world.
This event will be free and open to all students and community members.
Please check out the GSA Facebook link for more info and to order your free tickets: https://www.facebook.com/events/1787816194650203/
October 10, 2018 – Beyond the Academy: CU History Community Mentor and Networking Night
A community mentorship and networking night intended for Carleton University undergrad history students to meet with and hear some of the stories of others trained in history, now working as professionals in various fields of work. Four speakers will each share stories of their career trajectory and how their training in history helped them achieve their goals. This will be followed by a ‘speed dating’ session when students will have an opportunity to speak with these individuals in small groups, ask questions and learn more about the wide range of opportunities that are potentially open to history students. Those who attend will learn new perspectives of what they can do with their history degree and potentially build connections with those out in the world of work ‘beyond the academy’.
Numbers are limited and registration is required! Please RSVP by October 1st or before: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/beyond-the-academy-cu-history-community-mentor-and-networking-night-tickets-49369573724
6:30-9:00pm, 482 MacOrdrum Library
October 11, 2018 – Hungry Listening, Ethnographic Redress
The 2018 Vickers-Verduyn Lecture entitled Hungry Listening, Ethnographic Redress is set to go for Thursday Oct 11 at 6:00 p.m. in DT 2017. Please see attached poster for more details.
October 11, 2018 – From C.L.R. James to Tomás Gutiérrez Alea: Radicalism, Conservatism, and the Haitian Revolution
October 11, 2018 at 3:00 PM to 5:00 PM
Gordon Wood Lounge, Room 1811 Dunton Tower
October 12, 2018 – Shannon Lecture with Donna Yates, “Ancient Art and Modern Crime: How Stolen Antiquities End Up In Our Most Respected Museums”
The History Department invites you to the first talk of the 2018 Shannon Lecture Series at 2:30pm in 252 MacOdrum Library. A reception will follow.
Lecture abstract: In 2011 a visitor walked into the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts and stole a 2500-year-old relief of a guard’s head valued at over $1.2 mil. In July of 2018, the New York Supreme court ordered that the sculpture, which had been seized by the District Attorney of New York from a London-based antiquities dealer, be returned to Iran. How the artefact was stolen from the famous archaeological site of Persepolis and ended up in Canada, and what happened after the piece was stolen again give us a glimpse of the dark underbelly of the art world. This is where high culture meets smuggling, desire, greed, and white collar crime.
Many of our most respected museums house stolen antiquities. High-end auction houses and antiquities dealers sell loot on a daily basis. Upstanding and elite citizens freely engage in this criminal market. But unlike with most illegal commodities, trafficked antiquities can be openly bought and sold, and are often put on public display. How is this possible? Using the Persepolis relief as a case study, this lecture will discuss how research from criminology can be used to understand white collar crime in the art world.
October 18, 2018 – Psychology Mental Health Day
The Department of Psychology at Carleton University is hosting Psychology Mental Health Day on Thursday, Oct. 18, 2018. This Day’s event is a follow up to World Mental Health Day (Oct. 10, 2018) and is intended to continue the conversation on mental health, as it affects all of us. We hope our event will raise awareness, educate on current mental health issues, and promote well-being. Our goal is to connect our community to resources that promote well-being on and off-campus. Join us for an expert panel discussion on mental health today, a variety of workshops (such as personality types and mental health, anxiety disorders, etc.), followed by a keynote address on “Stress and Coping”. This event is free, and all are welcome to attend. Attendees may drop-in to events throughout the day as they are available.
October 19, 2018 – Shannon Lecture with Steph Halmhofer, “#InventedFantasies – Using Social Media to Talk About Pseudoarchaeology”
The lecture will take place in room 2017 Dunton Tower (20th floor) starting at 1:00 p.m. followed by a reception at 2:30 p.m.
Lecture abstract: Skeletons of giants in British Columbia. People using psychic abilities to find proof that the empire of Atlantis included Nova Scotia. A cult in Quebec proposing aliens invented life on Earth. These sound like something you would find Dana Scully and Fox Mulder investigating in The X-Files. But I’m not Dana Scully, I’m an archaeologist. So why am I talking about aliens and giants? Because pseudoarchaeology, which includes the topics I’ve mentioned above, is a real concern facing both archaeologists and non-archaeologists. These theories can be found in books, television shows, and on social media but their negative impacts reach far beyond these pages and screens.
With rising popularity in social media and a currently combined total of around 440 million monthly users on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, it’s not difficult to imagine how quickly pseudoarchaeological theories can spread online. But just as we use our knowledge and trowels, social media can also be a powerful tool in the archaeological toolkit, a toolkit I want to share through this lecture. We’ll talk about what pseudoarchaeology is, focusing largely on Canadian examples, and how you can identify it. We’ll talk about the racism of pseudoarchaeology. We’ll also talk about how various media platforms are used to spread pseudoarchaeology. And finally, we’ll talk about how archaeologists and non-archaeologists can use social media to talk about and de-bunk pseudoarchaeology.
November 8-9, 2018 – RMC History Symposium 2018
The program for the Royal Military College’s history symposium, Manpower and the Armies of the British Empire in Two World Wars (8-9 November 2018) is set and we have a great schedule lined up this year!
More details and registration info is available at http://rmcclub.ca. Fees: Regular $185, Students $125. Includes registration, lunch and coffee breaks for both days, and dinner at the Fort Frontenac Officer’s Mess on 8 November.
Recommended Hotel, Holiday Inn Kingston Waterfront, 2 Princess Street, Kingston, ON K7L. Preferred rate of $124 for a single occupancy room, breakfast included, available until 1 October. See attached poster.
November 9, 2018 – Shannon Lecture with Kisha Supernant, “Good Intentions, Bad Archaeology: The uses and abuses of Canadian archaeology against Indigenous people”
The lecture will take place in room 2017 Dunton Tower (20th floor) starting at 1:00 p.m. followed by a reception at 2:30 p.m.
Lecture abstract: In the lands currently called Canada, archaeology is often used to tell stories about the history of this place, but often at the expense of Indigenous nations. Throughout our disciplinary history, archaeologists have positioned themselves as experts on and stewards of the past for the good of all, even though those pasts are sometimes not our own. In this talk, I explore how archaeology in Canada has been and continues to be part of the settler colonial state, centering knowledge from archaeologists and heritage practitioners rather than Indigenous peoples. I provide examples of how archaeological research has marginalized Indigenous voices, even when archaeologists have good intentions, and make some suggestions for how we can move toward a better archaeology for the future.
November 23, 2018 – Shannon Lecture with Katherine Cook, “There is no ‘net neutrality’ in digital archaeology”
The lecture will take place in room 2017 Dunton Tower (20th floor) starting at 1:00 p.m. followed by a reception at 2:30 p.m.
Lecture abstract: Colonisation, at its core, is the extraction of resources from those without power. What then gets extracted in digital colonialism and what does this have to do with archaeology in Canada? Considering the critiques, questions, and fallout regarding digital corporations, capitalism, and politics over the course of the past year, we are ever more acutely aware of the much darker underbelly of the digital world. Yet we still act as if digital technology is ‘the answer!’ to solving those ‘Great Challenges’ facing archaeology today, namely the lack of equity, inclusivity, access and the unwavering manifestations of (neo)colonialism. This discussion will consider the realities of digitally disrupting archaeology, the opportunities it presents but also the dangers it poses to argue that not all data, not all audiences, and not all archaeologists are treated equal in digital practice. Digital archaeology will not save us from bad archaeology, so we must decolonize the digital first.
November 30, 2018 – Shannon Lecture with Morag M. Kersel , “The Pathways of Pots: The movement of Early Bronze Age vessels from the Dead Sea Plain, Jordan”
The lecture will take place in room 2017 Dunton Tower (20th floor) starting at 1:00 p.m. followed by a reception at 2:30 p.m.
Lecture abstract: What is the pathway of a pot? How do Early Bronze Age (3600–2000 BCE) pots from Jordan end up in Canadian institutions – and why does it matter? These particular pots are from sites along the Dead Sea Plain in Jordan, which have been identified as the “Cities of the Plain” mentioned in Genesis. One of the sites, Bab adh-Dhra’ is thought to be, by some, the original city of sin – biblical Sodom. “Who doesn’t want a pot from the city of sin?” declared one interviewee when I asked why they were purchasing (legally) what most would consider a fairly unattractive, non-descript pot. Over 15 years of investigation have led to interesting insights related to why individuals and institutions want to own artifacts from the Holy Land?
Tracing how pots move (both legally and illegally) involves archaeological survey, aerial investigations using unpiloted aerial vehicles, archival research, and ethnographic interviews in order to understand better the competing claims for these archaeological objects and the often deleterious effects of demand on the landscape. In this talk, I will look at how artifacts go from the mound to the market to the mantelpiece or museum vitrine and why this matters.
Announcements
Library Research Space for Faculty
The MacOdrum Library is now offering up a dedicated office space where faculty and instructors can conduct research using library material from our shelves.
This space is located in 238 MacOdrum, within the Research Support services group, giving users access to the unique research opportunities offered at the Library and is deal for when they need to do in-depth research, but have trouble finding a semi-private space.
Booking of the room can be done through contacting the Research Support Services (RSS) student desk at refstud@carleton.ca or by calling extension 8204. The space will be available from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday and bookable for up to four hours.
Although drop-ins will be accommodated when possible, booking in advance is preferred.
Call for Papers
Left History is planning a special edition issue to be published in Fall 2019, with the theme “what does it mean to write ‘left’ history?”
Left History 11.1 (2006) asked this question, and we ask it again over a decade later, amidst increasing socio-economic inequality and wage stagnation, the normalization of precarious labour, the emergence of powerful protest groups within a fragmenting Left, and the global resurgence of racist, neo-fascist movements. Within academia, neoliberalism has had profoundly stifling effects, even as innovations in the digital humanities open new avenues for the dissemination of knowledge. What can left histories contribute against this backdrop?
While we pose the question in the broadest possible terms, there are a number of related questions that can be considered in answering (these are suggestions only):
Is left history a workable category, or is it too broad and varied? Are there new or emerging genres of historical analysis that should be considered left history? Is left history activist by definition? Do current works of left history adequately counteract the neo-liberal politics of advanced capitalist societies? Does left history connect with and appeal to an audience outside the academy—perhaps an audience experiencing the varied oppressions that so many works of left history reveal and condemn?
If you wish to submit an article for consideration, please let us know in advance by emailing lefthist@yorku.ca. To ensure adequate time for submissions to undergo the peer review process, we have set a submission deadline of March 31, 2019. Follow the general guidelines set out by the Chicago Manual of Style, 17th ed., and for more specific style instructions see our guide at https://lefthistory.ca/style-guide/. Please submit an electronic version of your manuscript as a Word .docx file, and include a brief abstract, not exceeding 250 words. We ask that authors do not simultaneously submit their articles to more than one journal. Please ensure that copyright laws are followed when including images.
We also continue to invite original, unpublished submissions for our regular issues, from both established and early-career scholars. Issues of Left History regularly include articles from a variety of academic disciplines, on topics including race, politics, gender, sexuality, culture, the state, labour, the environment, human rights, theory, and method. An online archive of past issues can be found at https://lh.journals.yorku.ca/index.php/lh/issue/archive.
Once submitted, articles are circulated to two or three anonymous readers with expertise in the field. The readers are asked to assess the article’s contribution to the relevant scholarship and return a report to the editors. Both the author of the article and the reviewers remain anonymous at all stages of the evaluation. Ideally, the journal editors are able to report back to the author within four months of receiving a submission.
To send complete submissions for either a regular issue or our planned special edition, or to enquire about the journal, please write to lefthist@yorku.ca. The editors are happy to answer any questions.
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