Active History

History Slam Episode Forty-Nine: Coming Out in the Classroom

August 13, 2014 2 Comments

By Sean Graham

In the spring, I taught HIS 3375, History of Popular Culture in Canada, at the University of Ottawa. Since the course had a participation element, I thought it would be fun to have an ice-breaker activity. So I compiled a list of ten questions that ranged from the hard-hitting “What is the first movie you remember seeing?” to the nonsensical “You get abducted by aliens – would you rather be in their zoo or their circus?” (A question first discussed on Seinfeld) which ten randomly selected students would have to answer. In prefacing the activity, I stressed that the students should not be worried because none of the questions were particularly personal and that I would answer the questions too.

In the past, I’ve been accused of being too private, so it’s not surprising that I wouldn’t include personal questions in the class. Afterwards, however, a colleague asked why I seemed so averse to divulging personal information in class when, on occasion, it might be relevant to the course material. In the case of popular culture, for example, does the fact that I have an irrational dislike of the NHL (hockey is great, but the NHL has destroyed the sport) not shape the way I discuss the league’s significance to Canada?

Not long after that discussion, I read Justin Bengry’s post on Notches entitled “‘Coming Out’ in the Classroom: When the Personal is Pedagogical” in which he discusses the issue of professors revealing their sexuality to their students, with specific reference to queer history courses. In addition to questions over an instructor’s personal background influencing their interpretation of the past, the post also discusses whether including personal information can help foster positive relationships in classes by breaking down barriers, and thus improving classroom dynamics.
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‘1914-1918 In Memoriam’: A View from the Grandstand

August 12, 2014 3 Comments

At the “In Memoriam” event , July 31st 2014: the speakers’ platform, seating for distinguished guests, and flags of Canada, its provinces, and territories.

ActiveHistory.ca is featuring this post as the first piece for “Canada’s First World War: A Centennial Series on ActiveHistory.ca”, a multi-year series of regular posts about the history and centennial of the First World War.

By Nathan Smith

A sizeable audience turned out for a First World War commemorative event held at the University of Toronto’s Varsity Stadium this past July 31^st. The grandstand was more than half full, so there were probably three thousands of us in attendance. We crowded near the centre to best view the proceedings on Varsity’s (sadly) artificial turf. Passing clouds occasionally filtered or blocked a setting sun, which dropped below the horizon near the end of the event. The beautiful evening light perfectly suited organizers’ plans.

“1914-1918 In Memoriam” was, as the Master of Ceremonies explained, held at sundown to echo the poetic hour given to mourning and remembrance, as in Binyon’s “For the Fallen”. The event’s timing, we were told, also paralleled the last hours of peace a century ago. On August 1^st 1914 Russia went to war with Germany and Austria, which in three short days pulled in France and Britain, and much of the rest of the world. I quibbled to myself that a war was already raging on July 31^st 1914 between Austria-Hungary and Serbia, but admitted such details, and others I noted during the evening, were not really the point at an event such as this. Unlike the “1914-1918: The Making of the Modern World” conference at the University of Toronto’s Munk School for Global Affairs that was tied to this public event, “In Memoriam” was about performing big, collective meanings for a general audience.

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Digital Approaches to 19th Century Globalization

August 11, 2014 1 Comment

By Jim Clifford

The map below drew a lot of attention on Twitter when I posted it a few weeks ago in advance of a presentation I gave at an environmental history conference in early July. It was retweeted, not just by friends and fellow environmental historians, but also by Shawn Donnan, a World Trade Editor at the Financial Times. I think it gained traction because it helps visualize something historians and students who take our classes know, but might not be general knowledge: globalization did not begin in the late 20th century with the rise of industrial economies in Asia.

Extensive trade networks predate Columbus and the flow of silver from mines in the Americas through Europe and to China linked and transformed the world economy during the Early Modern period. The scale of global trade and communications has changed significantly over the centuries, but globalization has very deep roots.

Far reaching industrial supply chains date back to the nineteenth century and in a few cases further back. British industrial development relied on importing raw materials from all over the world. Britain was simply too small of an island to supply all of the materials required by the growing factories and it did not have the climate to produce many of the materials required by innovative new industries. By the second half of the nineteenth century many of the products consumed and produced in London originated overseas. These included soap, candles, bread, margarine, marmalade, rubber rain jackets, leather shoes, inks, dyes, paints, fertilizers, and wooden furniture. These consumer goods were manufactured in factories in the Thames Estuary from raw materials imported, as the map above shows, from Canada, the United States, Jamaica, Peru, Brazil, Spain, West Africa, India, Sri Lanka (Ceylon), and New Zealand, among many other locations. You can zoom into the map and click on locations to see the range of commodities sent to Britain (the locations are rough approximations, as most of the underlying data is at the national level).

Identifying and following industrial supply chains is difficult enough in the present and it is even more complicated for the nineteenth century. I’ve found a lot of information in British archives, but these sources only get me so far. The internet, however, makes it possible to find, organize and read digitized government reports, newspapers, and books from a wide range of sources. Continue reading →

Is it time for the dinosaurs to go extinct? A response to “A Brief History of the Laptop Ban”

August 7, 2014 4 Comments

By Gregory Kennedy

Mark Garlick, “The Dinosaur Extinction Event”

Last week, as I was sitting down to write my regular contribution to ActiveHistory.ca, Sean Kheraj’s brief history of banning laptops in the classroom was published. It really struck a chord. I had been planning to write yet another piece about the commemoration of the First World War and how historians have a unique opportunity to be leaders in a national narrative. But this question about laptops, and their place in the classroom, struck me as a fundamental question for those teaching history in universities. The debate that has developed around this issue is, in my view, not only a proxy for larger questions about what universities are for and the nature of learning, but it also has far broader implications beyond the university classroom.

For those of us interested in history and historical practices, discussion over the place of technology in the classroom points to four issues that regularly affect the culture of teaching and learning history. First, the pace of transformation matters. People fear change. They especially fear change that threatens their reputation or livelihood. Second, change is not benign. The social sciences and humanities are under significant pressure today and technology has been a significant factor eroding its influence. Third, especially for those of us teaching history in universities, the ease with which information can be accessed has changed both the skills and behaviour of not only our students but – increasingly – the demands of our profession. Finally, and relatedly, we need to ask whether a wholesale embrace of teaching digital skills should be a task for the university history classroom. There are definitely areas in which we should integrate technology, but are we equipped to teach these skills well? And are the students adequately prepared to receive this teaching? Continue reading →

New Paper: Travel and Access to Abortion

August 6, 2014 No Comments

With the Abortion: The Unfinished Revolution Conference beginning tomorrow, ActiveHistory.ca is proud to publish “Travel and Access to Abortion,” a paper written collectively by Nancy Janovicek, Christabelle Sethna, Beth Palmer, and Katrina Ackerman.

On July 18^th, the Morgentaler Clinic in Fredericton performed its last abortion. Without government funding, and the generous support of Dr. Henry Morgentaler, the clinic is no longer sustainable financially. The closure of this clinic is a reminder that although abortion is legal in Canada, there are still significant disparities in timely access to abortion services. The closure of the clinic is part of a long history of the undermining of women’s access to abortion services at the local level before and after the legalization of abortion in 1969 and the decriminalization of abortion in 1988. The lack of access at the local level has a major impact on access to abortion services in much wider contexts because women have tended to travel to other jurisdictions for pregnancy termination. Travel is one of the main barriers to access to abortion. Yet travel is often the only way women can access abortion services. In this essay, we use four responses drawn from an article we published in Labour/Le Travail that examines Canadian women’s transnational travel to access abortion services as well as their attempts to defend access in their home communities. [read more]

In addition to our group blog, ActiveHistory.ca strives to provide timely, well-written and researched papers on a variety of history-related topics. If you have a paper that resonates well with our mandate please consider submitting it to us. For more information visit our Papers Section or contact papers@activehistory.ca. All of our papers are peer reviewed to ensure that they are accurate and up-to-date.

Call for Blog Posts – Canada’s First World War: A Centennial Series on ActiveHistory.ca

August 4, 2014 66 Comments

Harold H. Piffard, His Constant Companion. Originally appeared in Canada in Khaki, no. 2 (London: The Pictorial Newspaper Co. for the Canadian War Records Office, 1917).

By Sarah Glassford, Christopher Schultz, Nathan Smith, and Jonathan Weier

August 4^th is an important day in the centennial of the First World War. It was on this day a century ago that Britain declared war on Germany, committing Canada to the “Great War” as a British Dominion, confirming its alliance with imperial France and Tsarist Russia, and making enemies of imperial Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The decision was itself a link in the chain-reaction of responses to a conflict between Serbia and Austria-Hungary that began weeks earlier. The escalating conflict would later draw in the Ottoman Empire, Italy, Japan, China, and the United States, among others. August 4^th was the crucial step towards global war.

The meaning and impact of the war that began in 1914 are still being contested in the media, at academic conferences, by official commemorative projects, and in many other sites. In Canada, we can expect to see the war presented as a foundational narrative of a nation in its infancy maturing and persevering through hardship, but nation-building is only one way to interpret the war’s meaning and impact. ActiveHistory.ca hereby invites blog posts that draw different conclusions about the war’s social and political effects on Canadian society, its legacy in culture, and how these mixed with the problems of demobilization and reconstruction after the war. We especially invite posts that recognize the transnational currents flowing through Canada, the significance of non-national contexts for war experience, and the war’s global dimensions, all of which can tell us important things about local communities, Canada, and the nature of our world.

Since ActiveHistory.ca wishes to contribute informed and engaging work on the war and the centennial, we seek blog-posts that expand perspectives, deepen insights, and challenge assumptions. Our project is Canadian-based, but its outlook is thematically and spatially broad. Our unifying theme of “Canada’s First World War” should be understood to include a multiplicity of experiences and stories, not limited to those having taken place in Canada or involving Canadian actors. Blog post contributors will help complicate, demystify and diversify the history Canada’s First World War. Continue reading →

Podcast – A Scholarly Tribute to Bettina Bradbury: Feminist Historian of the Family: A Roundtable Discussion

August 1, 2014 2 Comments

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

On May 26^th, a group of historians gathered as part of the 2014 Canadian Historical Association Annual Meeting to discuss the work of historian Bettina Bradbury.

Chaired by Magda Fahrni (UQAM), the panel featured Dominique Marshall (Carleton), Mary Anne Poutanen (Concordia), Liz Millward (University of Manitoba) and Jarrett Henderson (Mount Royal).

ActiveHistory.ca is pleased to feature a recording of the roundtable.

A Brief History of the Laptop Ban

July 31, 2014 12 Comments

“Laptop Toss” by The B’s

By Sean Kheraj

In recent years, several scholars have expressed a desire to ban laptop computers and smartphones from the classroom. This urge to prohibit the use of computing devices, however, may be a reflection of our own shortcomings as educators. It may also be a future liability for higher education. What are the implications of excluding technologies that have revolutionized information gathering, analysis, and communication from our teaching?

As a historian, I am all too familiar with the sentiments expressed in a recent article on NewYorker.com, “The Case for Banning Laptops in the Classroom,” by mathematics and computer science professor Dan Rockmore. To support his case, Rockmore points to a handful of studies of student performance, comparing students with laptops to students without. For example, he looks at an often-cited 2003 paper in Journal of Computing in Higher Education titled “The Laptop and the Lecture: The Effects of Multitasking in Learning Environments” [PDF], which found that students who multitasked on laptops during a lecture had poor performance on subsequent quizzes. A 2013 study by a team at York University found similar results. According to their conclusions:

We found that participants who multitasked on a laptop during a lecture scored lower on a test compared to those who did not multitask, and participants who were in direct view of a multitasking peer scored lower on a test compared to those who were not. The results demonstrate that multitasking on a laptop poses a significant distraction to both users and fellow students and can be detrimental to comprehension of lecture content.

Some university faculty have since relied on these kinds of studies as scientific evidence that proves that computing devices are detrimental to learning. Their solution? Ban computers from the classroom! Continue reading →

Podcast: Nutritional Research and Human Experimentation at the Shubenacadie Indian Residential School in Historical Context

July 30, 2014 No Comments

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

On September 18, 2013 Ian Mosby delivered an invited lecture at Acadia University and the Millbrook First Nation. Activehistory.ca is pleased to feature a recording of his talk “Nutrition Research and Human Experimentation at the Shubenacadie Indian Residential School in Historical Context.”
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History Slam Episode Forty-Eight: Ian Mosby and History in the Media

July 29, 2014 3 Comments

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

By Sean Graham

Just over a year ago, Canadian news outlets started to report on nutritional experiments that had been conducted on First Nations kids at Residential Schools. For a couple of weeks the stories continued to appear on the front pages of newspapers and on nightly newscasts across the country. Featured prominently in many of these stories was Ian Mosby, the historian who wrote the article for Social History/Histoire Sociale detailing the experiments that spawned the media frenzy. As I wrote at the time, it was particularly impressive how Ian navigated the media attention. It would have been easy for him to attempt to take centre stage and use the exposure to further his career. Instead, he was steadfast in ensuring that the story remained the focus.

In the year since, Ian has continued to shed light on the experiments and their long-term ramifications. (Check back tomorrow for a podcast of a talk he delivered in the fall at Acadia). As he wrote in his wonderful piece “Of History and Headlines: Reflections of an Accidental Public Historian”, the stories that have emerged in the past year from survivors of these experiments have been powerful and serve as a reminder of the humanity that can occasionally be lost in studying the humanities.

For as much as Ian stayed in the background during the story, however, I was curious to know what exactly the experience was like. After all, it’s not every day that an article you write spawns front page stories across the country. Dealing with the media (I’ve done some radio interviews on my research on the CBC) can be difficult, time consuming, and intimidating. At the same time, however, it can be fun and rewarding.
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