The Canadian Mind – What’s Old is News

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By Sean Graham

We’re back with Season 2 of What’s Old is News and to kick it off, Sean Graham is joined by Andy Lamey, author of The Canadian Mind: Essays on Writers or Thinkers. They talk about Canadian literature in the second half of the 20th century, where nationalism fits into the story, and the how literary critics treated Canadian writing. They also chat about questions related to identity, language, and legacies and major literary figures.

Historical Headline of the Week

Bob Weber, “Vast Digital Trove of Recordings by Canadian Literature Greats Nears Completion,” Canadian Press, November 4, 2023. Continue reading

On Bill 18: Danielle Smith, the Calgary School, and the Politics of Academic Freedom

Mack Penner

Photo of a white woman with shoulder-length brown hair wearing blue and black in front of a blue background.

Manning Centre c/o: Jake Wright
Creative Commons Attribution 2.0

On 10 April 2024, the United Conservative Party (UCP) introduced Bill 18, or the Provincial Priorities Act, in order to “support Alberta’s government in pushing back against overreach by the federal government.” If passed, the bill would require “provincial entities” of all kinds to pass any agreements with the federal government through provincial review. The bill fits neatly into the ongoing agenda of the UCP and its leader, Danielle Smith, to resist the federal government at every possible turn.[1]

Immediately, the introduction of Bill 18 provoked outcry, including from academics, who rightly saw the legislation as a threat to academic freedom. Not only was it plain to see that the bill made room for political meddling with research funding, it could also potentially drive scholars and researchers out of the province or discourage them from coming in the first place.[2] With the total amount of tri-agency federal funding for research in Alberta totalling well over $300 million just in 2022-23 according to the CBC, the stakes are high. Continue reading

We Are What We Eat: A Review of “The Human Cost of Food” Digital Exhibition

Portuguese immigrant Rui Ribeiro and co-workers in a tobacco farm in Delhi, Ontario, September 1957. Clara Thomas Archives and Special Collections, Domingos Marques fonds, F0573, ASC29598.

To launch the exhibit The Human Cost of Food, part of the new Active History on Display initiative, we invited award-winning public historian Gilberto Fernandes, whose public history project City Builders was a major inspiration to the exhibit, to provide commentary.

By Gilberto Fernandes

Time is of the essence out in the fields. When to seed, water, feed, harvest or cure are decisions that dictate the fortune of crops and cause farmers to lose sleep. Laying in their own beds, own homes, own land, own country, where they raise their families and where many were raised themselves, most farmers would say that their stressful love of farming is permanent. Food is temporary. If left alone, its natural fate is to rot. It truly only becomes food when eaten. Such a simple and usually inattentive act, yet so fundamentally constitutive to all societies. Not just in an obvious biological sense, but also culturally, economically, emotionally, and in whatever other ways people make sense of their individual and collective identities through food; including those who preoccupy themselves with that annoyingly persistent question, what it means to be Canadian.

If we are what we eat, what then are those who feed us? For nearly six decades, immigration officials have asked that same question and decided that the over 70,000 temporary migrant workers from the Global South, whose seasonal labour has been critical to every stage of the annual farming cycle, are not to be Canadian. They don’t get to stay. Continue reading

More Than A Face

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Photo of the author, courtesy of Fung Ling Feimo.

To launch the exhibit More Than a Face, part of the new Active History on Display initiative, we invited   Fung Ling Feimo, one of the storytellers, to set the stage: 

More Than A Face opens at activehistory.ca!

It is a collection of soundscapes, visuals, written and spoken word, offering stories told through our individual voices.

We have storytellers from distinct backgrounds, time and space; from different places in the immigration cycle and eras. Yet our faces all fit the “Asian” catchall as if there’s a language and culture called “Asian”.

The irony is we often find ourselves the wrong kind of Asian while there is no one “Asian”. The diaspora identity is fluid, and the beauty is that is we can be “Asian” and “Canadian” and everything in between; free to choose which to embrace at a given moment. We can reminisce about ancient traditions, blurry memories, things lost, at the same time know English and French as “bad” as any other Canadian. Continue reading

Introducing Active History on Display

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Source: Bonifacio Eugenio Romero, a Mexican migrant worker who died from Covid-19 on 30 May 2020, in the Windsor-Essex region of southwestern Ontario. Source: Human Cost of Food Exhibit.

Active History is delighted to launch our digital history initiative, Active History on Display (en français: Expositions d’Active History). The project features two exhibits. The first, More Than a Face, engages with nine storytellers to challenge dominant narratives of what it means to be Asian Canadian – and indeed to challenge the very idea that such a capacious category can have a single coherent meaning. The second, The Human Cost of Food, examines the history of death, injury, and illness among migrant farm workers in Canada to reveal the suffering that underlays our food system – but also longstanding practices of worker resistance that seek to remake it.

Active History on Display builds on the mission of Active History while extending it in new directions. Active History began as a collaborative effort in 2009 to make history accessible to a wider audience and to provide a forum for a diversity of perspectives. Our mission states: “We define active history variously as history that listens and is responsive; history that will make a tangible difference in people’s lives; history that makes an intervention and is transformative to both practitioners and communities. We seek a practice of history that emphasizes collegiality, builds community among active historians and other members of communities, and recognizes the public responsibilities of the historian.”

Supported by the Government of Canada’s Canada History Fund, the Canadian Historical Association, and the Canadian Committee on Labour History, Active History on Display is the product of a partnership between Active History, McGill University, the Department of History and the Centre for Public History at Carleton University, HistoireEngagée.ca, and the Asian Canadian and Asian Migration Studies program at the University of British Columbia.

This post is the first in a three-part series to launch the project. Below, each curator will introduce their exhibit: Laura Madokoro for More Than a Face and Edward Dunsworth for The Human Cost of Food. On Wednesday, one of the storytellers of More Than a Face, arts and culture advocate, , Fung Ling Feimo, will introduce that exhibit. On Thursday, award-winning public historian Gilberto Fernandes will introduce and comment on The Human Cost of Food.  Continue reading

Contextualizing a Scandal: A Brief History of Library and Archives Canada

By Danielle Robichaud

In his recent callout “LAC: The scandal of the Archives”, Allan Greer shared his experience conducting research over the course of several decades at what is today Library and Archives Canada (LAC). There, he outlines how a shift from user-centered public services and spaces, driven by the expertise of trained archivists, has impacted LAC’s ability to support the meaningful use of its research collections. In doing so, the disjointed state of LAC’s online records is singled out as a point of divide between then (a golden era of people focused spaces and services) and now (a good-luck-out-there era of “digitize it” consequences). Greer calls the state of LAC and its services scandalous.

To fully understand the extent to which his claim rings true, however, the context in which this situation arose must be made clear.

Library and Archives Canada was launched in 2004 when the National Library (est. 1953) and the National Archives (est. 1872) were merged. Continue reading

Sadness, and sacrifice: A reflection on PhD training, comprehensive exams, and the discipline of history

Reading None Is Too Many: Canada and the Jews of Europe, Pelee Island. Photo by author.

Krenare Recaj

In the third year of my undergrad, I was sitting beside my friend Jeremy in a lecture for the class America: Slavery to Civil War. The professor was going into explicit detail – showing photos and drawings – of the torture enslaved people in America were subjected to. The logic was that these details were necessary to properly appreciate the gravity of the suffering. Sitting in the same place I sat no matter the class – last row, closest to the exit – I could see the laptop screens in front of me. Twitter. Facebook. Instagram. Online Shopping. Suddenly the professor’s alarm went off. He stopped mid gruesome detail, and told us it was time for the 20 minute break. I sat in the hallway with Jeremy and tried to hide my tears. I couldn’t reconcile the fact that while listening to the darkest depths of human suffering, the worst moments of real human lives, I too was scrolling Twitter. What does that say about our attention spans, I wondered? But more importantly, what does that say about our humanity? Jeremy is both kind and disciplined. He was one of a small handful of students in the entire class that was not scrolling the internet that day. He told me that I was being too hard on myself, and that maybe scrolling is how students coped with the heaviness of the class content. I told him that when I was in high school, I painted the words “apathy is the enemy” on my walls. I felt the weight of those words in that moment and promised both Jeremy and myself that I would never treat human suffering as dismissively as I had that day. After the break, I sat back down in the lecture hall, ready to take more notes on human suffering. My hand twitched. I kept nearly opening another tab.

Had callousness become a reflex?

I wish I could say that I haven’t opened Twitter in class since that day. But I can’t. However, that day has never left me. I have since spent a lot of time wondering what it means to be a historian. Not what it means for humanity, but what it means for the soul. I have tried to be intentional about how I study history and how I process the trauma experienced by others. I have tried to remind myself that human suffering is still suffering, whether it happened a millennium ago, a century ago, a decade ago, or yesterday. I have tried, and failed, but really really tried to center dignity even if it often feels like I am making a career out of the suffering of others. I work on histories of displacement involving the Kosovar Albanian diaspora, a history that I am bound up with. As I embarked on graduate studies I was determined not to sacrifice my humanity for a career… or that’s what I told myself at least.

But then comps happened.

Continue reading

Call for Contributors to Active History: Indigenous Voices

A red, green, and black design with words in white text reading Call for Contributors Active History: Indigenous Voices

Active History and Know History are partnering to publish Active History: Indigenous Voices.

Know History is generously sponsoring a series and providing honoraria for an editor and up to four contributors. The editor will receive $500 and each contributor will receive $125.

We invite proposals from First Nations, Inuit, and Métis editors and authors from all educational and occupational backgrounds. Proposals should include a series title, a one-paragraph statement explaining the theme and format of the series (essays, artwork with commentary, etc.), and short biographies of the editor and each contributor. Please send in your proposals by July 1, 2024.

For more information visit our Guidelines for authors and contact us at activehistoryinfo@gmail.com.

A Signature Pedagogy for History Instruction?

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Paul McGuire

This is the sixth entry in a monthly series on Thinking Historically. See the Introduction here.

Photo by author.

At least twice a year, we take a trip to the Annapolis Valley in Nova Scotia. One of the most beautiful parts of the valley is Grand Pré and Hortonville. From here, you can see Blomidon and the vast expanse of the Minas Basin. Hortonville is also one of the ports used during the British expulsion of Acadians in 1755. Just down the road, you can see a Parks Canada plaque commemorating a vicious massacre of New England troops by French and Mi’kmaq fighters in the dead of night during a winter blizzard; some New Englanders died before they could stir from their beds.

Plaque describing the Attack at Grand Pré. © Parks Canada Agency / Agence Parcs Canada.

When I read the plaque at Grand Pré for the first time, it caught my attention. Somewhere in the recording of the battle, there was the suggestion, just a suggestion, that this nighttime raid may have been one of the reasons the Acadians in the area were expelled from their homes eight years later.

This is what history does: It captivates the reader and hints at the consequences to come. This is the way we need to teach history in public schools: Give the students a spark to ignite their desire to dig deeper and explore further. But how do we do this? Is there a method, a pedagogy, that teachers can use to engage students in historical inquiry?

Continue reading

LAC’s Vision: What Future for the Past

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By Allan Greer

Libraries might be considered repositories of information, but archives are something else.  They collect and preserve documents – unpublished, one-of-a-kind texts such as letters, court records and business accounts – as well as images, maps and sound recordings.  It is all very raw material, and it tends to be biased, partial and incomplete; somewhat like archaeological artifacts, these sources provide scholars with clues about past events, which is not exactly the same as information.

Historians need to know what they are looking at, where it comes from and how it is situated in relation to other material.  The “archival turn” that swept the profession in recent decades amounted to a call for greater attentiveness to archival collections as constructed artifacts that need to be examined in their integrity and not simply treated as a mine from which to extract tidbits of information.[1]

Every collection has its peculiar structure and logic; each was assembled with a particular purpose; and researchers can easily be led astray if they read the contents naively, without regard to its context, its purposes and its biases.  But just as we have been sensitized to such methodological considerations, Library and Archives Canada have been making it harder and harder to examine collections in their integrity and to discern their nature and structure. Continue reading