By Crystal Fraser and Ian Mosby As two young historians of Canada’s notorious Indian Residential School System – one finishing her PhD, the other currently in his second postdoctoral fellowship – we were wary when we saw Ken Coates’ recent opinion piece in the Dorchester Review.[1] At a first glance, the title, in particular, had us worried: “Second Thoughts about Residential Schools”… Read more »
By Sean Carleton In the fall of 2013, Active History.ca featured a blog post by the Graphic History Collective announcing the start of the Graphic History Project, an online series of short, accessible, and free historical comic books. In addition to outlining the aims and aspirations of the Graphic History Project, the post publicized the release of the first comic… Read more »
By Alan Corbiere This is the third part of a series of essays by Alan Corbiere focusing on Anishinaabe participation in the War of 1812. The Anishinaabeg (Ojibwe, Odawa, Potowatomi) have always revered the island of Michilimackinac, so much so that at the conclusion of the War of 1812, the Odawa tried to keep it in their possession. The Odawa suggested… Read more »
By Alan Corbiere This post is the second part of a series of essays by Alan Corbiere focusing on Anishinaabeg participation in the War of 1812. The Anishinaabeg (Ojibwe, Odawa, Potowatomi) have always revered the island of Michilimackinac. So much so that at the conclusion of the War of 1812, the Odawa tried to keep it in their possession. The… Read more »
By Kaleigh Bradley But remember that words are signals, counters. They are not immortal. And it can happen – to use an image you’ll understand – it can happen that a civilization can be imprisoned in a linguistic contour which no longer matches the landscape…of fact. Brian Friel, Translations Brian Friel’s play Translations takes place in 1833, in the Irish-speaking village of… Read more »
By Alan Corbiere This post is part of a series of essays – posted once a month – by Alan Corbiere focusing on Anishinaabeg participation in the War of 1812. The Anishinaabeg (Ojibwe, Odawa, Potowatomi) have always revered the island of Michilimackinac. So much so that at the conclusion of the War of 1812, the Odawa tried to keep it in… Read more »
Last month Karen Dubinsky published a post with us on Kingston’s preparations for commemorating the 200th anniversary of Sir John A. Macdonald’s birth. In that post she mentioned a symposium on “Critical Indigenous Reflections on Sir John A. Macdonald” that was held in November at Queen’s University. Much of that symposium was recorded and has now been placed on YouTube…. Read more »
By James Daschuk Ok, first things first: I do not hate John A. Macdonald. At the risk of maddening some colleagues out there, I am wary of trying to contort huge historical events and consequences into how they apply to a single individual’s psychological makeup, political vision or personal ambition. As a self-professed environmental historian, I have even joked with… Read more »
By Thomas Peace At the beginning of November I was asked to join a panel entitled “No One is International” as part of Huron College’s Centre for Global Studies‘s symposium “Critically Engaging: Global Awareness in the Academy.” As I considered the panel’s title, and the broader purpose for the conference (to critically engage with the meaning of “internationalization” for the college),… Read more »
Karen Dubinsky I live in downtown Kingston, Ontario. Two doors away from me are two sweet old white ladies. They live in John A. Macdonald’s boyhood home where, according to one of the two plaques outside, he spent his “character forming” years. When I first moved to this street I noticed that during relevant occasions (Macdonald’s birthday and Canada Day),… Read more »
