https://activehistory.ca/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Srigley-Edit.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadBy Sean Graham During the CHA Annual Meeting last year in Waterloo, I went to the book launch for Finding a Way to the Heart: Feminist Writings on Aboriginal and Women’s History in Canada, during which Sylvia Van Kirk addressed the crowd. The one thing that really stuck me was how passionately she spoke… Read more »
By Kaitlin Wainwright Recently, I was lamenting the challenges historians face in the form of changing names of various government organizations in Canada: The Canada Food Board, the Health League of Canada, and Board of Broadcast Governors are now the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, the Canadian Public Health Association, and the CRTC respectively. Researching the past often means paying attention… Read more »
By David Webster “More lies from Amnesty International!” screamed a headline in a Kenyan newspaper, back in the 1990s. When assailed for their human rights records, the unimaginative response of many governments has been to attack the messenger. If Amnesty International criticizes a repressive regime, the regime tends to shout back that Amnesty is being unfair, dishonest, and even imperialist…. Read more »
By Gregory Kennedy I know what you are thinking. Not another commemoration of some dusty old treaty or some gruesome colonial war! Still, since both Thomas Mulcair and Thomas Peace called our attention to the 250th Anniversary of the Royal Proclamation of 1763 , it seems only fair that the Treaty of Utrecht of 1713 should get its due.
By Thomas Peace Last month, Terry Glavin wrote a syndicated op-ed piece that appeared in The Ottawa Citizen and Vancouver’s The Province, delivering a strongly worded dismissal of the historical profession in Canada. Historians and others have responded elsewhere to his indictment of the profession (see here, here and here). Today, I want to respond to the broader ideas that… Read more »
By Michele A. Johnson, Funke Aladejebi & Francesca D’Amico On February 4th a group of academics, students and community members came together to explore the intersection of the past and the present in making African identities in the Americas. The “Contemporary Griot” event, organized by the Performing Diaspora project, combined a public lecture, documentary screenings, discussions and performances. As you… Read more »
https://activehistory.ca/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Placing-Memory-Edit.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadBy Sean Graham Over the past few months, the City of Ottawa has started to make progress on its redevelopment of Lansdowne Park. The plans new condos, retail outlets, and major renovations to Frank Claire Stadium in order to welcome a CFL franchise to the capital next spring. The project has been hotly contested,… Read more »
Did Torontonians accept different ethnic cultures before the federal government initiated the road towards “official multiculturalism” during the early 1970s? If so, why? Where can we find examples? Award-winning historian Franca Iacovetta explored these questions in front of a public audience at the Toronto Public Library’s Dufferin/St. Clair Branch on February 28th as part of the 2013 History Matters lecture… Read more »
By Pete Anderson Sensing Changes: Technologies, Environment, and the Everyday, 1953-2003 Joy Parr University of British Columbia Press Paperback, 304 pages, $32.95 Just as all politics can be viewed as local, so, too, can history. Joy Parr’s Sensing Changes: Technologies, Environments, and the Everyday, 1953–2003 (UBC Press, 2010) explores local reactions to a series of “megaprojects,” with a focus on… Read more »
By Kaitlin Wainwright Last Wednesday, Canada lost its “national troubadour”, an “icon”, and “one of [its] most prolific and well-known country and folk singers”; a man who ranked 13th in CBC’s The Greatest Canadian list. Stompin’ Tom Connors is credited with writing three hundred songs, many of which are loudly and proudly Canadian. Upon his death, online tributes poured in… Read more »
