Category Archives: History and Everyday Life

Integrating History and Fashion: an interview with Dorothy Grant

Brittany Luby interviews fashion designer Dorothy Grant on the intersections of history, fashion, art and culture.

Historical Preservation in Comparative Perspective

Toronto’s lack of history, heritage and culture is a myth, but does it thrive in the city’s municipal structure?

Contextualizing G20 Policing in Toronto

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A brief trip through Toronto’s 20th century past can show us two things: firstly, that police violence and arbitrary use of power has a long history in Toronto. More importantly, however, we see that citizen action can spur meaningful regulatory change. We can do something.

The Moral Economy of the 2010 Toronto G20 Crowd?

A brief discussion of the G20 peaceful protests largely overlooked in the mainstream media, and the relevance of historian E.P. Thompson’s work to our times.

Waving the Flag in Distress

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Today is the one-hundred and forty-third anniversary of Canada’s Confederation and the formal birth of the country’s federal political system. And instead of waving the flag in a perfunctory fashion (yes, I know the Queen is visiting), I’d like to wave it in distress over the present dysfunction in our federal politics by briefly singling out four serious issues in… Read more »

International Museum Day at the Canadian Museum of Civilization – May 18th, 2010

Since 1977, International Museum Day has taken place across the world on, or around, the 18th of May. This day is meant raise public awareness towards some of the daily challenges that museums face and allows members of the public a glimpse into the way a museum operates. Each year the International Council of Museums (ICOM) chooses a theme that it… Read more »

Giving voice to history

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by Laura Madokoro Last week, the first event by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission on residential schools was held in Winnipeg. In the same week, British Prime Minister David Cameron issued an apology on behalf of the British government for the “unjustified and unjustifiable” killings of thirteen people in Londonderry, Northern Ireland in 1972 – an event now famously known… Read more »

The possibilities of digital media and print publication

The use of new digital media in conjunction with conventional print publication is one of the many important contributions that Joy Parr’s recent Sensing Changes: Technologies, Environments, and the Everyday, 1953-2003 (2010, UBC Press) makes to our understanding of the past.  The book examines how Canadians living in environments affected by megaprojects built after the Second World War responded to… Read more »

How Useful is the Library of Congress’ Twitter Archive?

On Wednesday 14 April, the United States of America’s Library of Congress (LOC) announced a deal with the popular social networking service, Twitter, to archive all public messages on the site right down to the first “tweet” from @jack (Jack Dorsey, Twitter co-founder) on 21 March 2006, at 3:50 PM. Response to the news can generally be described as positive… Read more »