Remembering Diana Young
Diana Young, Associate Professor of Law and Legal Studies, was a beloved colleague, teacher, scholar, and friend. On Tuesday 18 November, she passed peacefully with the support of Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) after living for two years with Stage 4 cancer. She was surrounded by friends and family at Princess Margaret Hospital.
Joining the Department in 2002, Diana worked in the fields of criminal law, law and film, and law and literature. A regular attendee at the Critical Perspectives in Criminology, and the international Association for the Study of Law, Culture, and the Humanities, Diana presented on American Western films, Foucault, parenting, assisted suicide, and more. Many of us were lucky to share vibrant post-conference dinners and karaoke with her in Washington, Winnipeg, New Haven, Vancouver, and Ottawa, to name but a few. At Carleton she supervised a wide range of graduate student topics from wrongful convictions to feminist legal theory. Students remember her as a patient, thorough, helpful, and highly reliable mentor. Co-supervisors and colleagues remember her as unendingly generous with her time and energy and as a model of intellectual rigour and an ethics of care. In her final days, Diana emphasized how fulfilling she found teaching and graduate supervision.
Modest but not shy, and utterly lacking in ego, Diana reserved her insights for the right moment, choosing to speak if needed, but not unnecessarily. She valued good conversation, good films, good cheese – especially a taste of Délice de Bourgogne – and good scotch, particularly when shared with others. She was dreadfully open-minded, seeing many sides to any issue, which resulted in her having a wide array of multi-disciplinary friends and colleagues representing varying ideological constituencies – a rare quality for anyone, but especially an academic.
She was also a beloved citizen of the Centertown/Chinatown community. It was easy to run into Diana on Somerset or Gladstone, doing neighbourhood shopping or out for a bike ride. Although she loved her hometown of Toronto, Ottawa’s Bell Street also took good care of her, as well as her several guitars and painting studio, for many years. And she took good care of Bell Street; Diana was a calm but steady defender of her neighbours. She opposed the incursions of gentrification and criminalization of those living around her.
Diana once floated the idea of a new academic publication called “The Devil May Care Law Journal”. It would be reserved for content of any kind, drawing on multiple fields of inquiry and rebuffing the pretentious professionalism that stifles so many other law journals. In a way, the characteristics of this would-be journal highlight the same wonderful qualities of Diana Young: interesting and interested, committed but non-dogmatic, thorough, creative, and shockingly well-adjusted.
Diana, you were loved. You will be missed.
Those who wish to share any memories or condolences can do so below.