Approaching the Past: A Series Connecting People Teaching History

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On Wednesday, June 16th graduate students in History and Education, academic historians, history teachers, and public history professionals will gather at Black Creek Pioneer Village for an evening of discussion around the theme of “teaching history by doing history.”

The event is part of a new series called Approaching the Past: A Series Connecting People Teaching History, sponsored by The History Education Network/Histoire et Éducation en Réseau and Active History, and conducted with support from the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority and Toronto Culture.

The idea behind the series is to bring together educators working in middle and high schools, universities, and museums to discuss teaching history in a variety of contexts. Through workshops on diverse themes related to history education, the series aims to create and strengthen ties between historians, history teachers, and public history professionals across the Greater Toronto Area.  Workshops offer the opportunity to connect with colleagues, meet people teaching history in unique and engaging ways, and be challenged to teach history in ways that connect more deeply with our students. Continue reading →

What the Copyright Modernization Act Means for Historians

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Sean Kheraj

Last week the federal government tabled its long anticipated copyright reform legislation for first reading in the House of Commons. The Copyright Modernization Act or Bill C-32 attempts to overhaul many of the out-dated provisions of Canada’s copyright law that have fallen far behind major technological changes of the last thirty years. For instance, under the proposed legislation, it would now be legal for Canadians to rip a CD to an iPod. Unfortunately, as we give a sarcastic slow-clap for this long overdue “reform” to legalize what has been common (and soon to be obsolete) consumer behaviour for nearly a generation, the canonization of digital locks overrides all of the new fair dealing rights in the bill. And this may be a huge problem for history researchers and educators.

Read the full story here on the Knowledge Mobilization blog.

Active History Announcements June 5 – 12

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AH_LOGO_WEBThe following upcoming events may be of interest to our readers (click on ‘continue reading’ below for full descriptions):

1) Job Posting: NiCHE project co-ordinator.

2) Active History news from the CHA.

3) Canadian Industrial Heritage Centre (CIHC): Afternoon of History and Heritage in Brantford – June 12th

4) Approaching the Past: A series connecting people teaching history – Ruth Sandwell keynote speaker – June 16

5) Psychiatric Survivor Archives, Toronto (PSAT) Fourth Annual General Meeting – July 3

6) Digest of this week’s blog posts

If you have something to announce to the Active History community please contact info (at) activehistory.ca. Continue reading →

NiCHE looking for an Active Historian

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Canada Geese, by KeithIt’s not every day you see a job posting for an Active Historian, but that’s just what the Network in Canadian History & Environment (NiCHE) is looking for.

NiCHE is an international network of people interested in the study of Canada’s environmental history / historical geography. They are currently looking to fill a 2 year position: “Project Coordinator” to help manage the day-to-day operation of the network and to facilitate projects that engage a wide audience with Canadian environmental history.

The full job description can be found on the University of Western Ontario human resources page. Questions about the position can be sent to the NiCHE director, Dr. Alan MacEachern (amaceach@uwo.ca).

Like I said, it’s not every day you see a job posting for an Active Historian. Today is a special day.

Deadline to apply is June 24, 2010.

How Useful is the Library of Congress’ Twitter Archive?

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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 and set “Library of Congress” as a top trend for the remainder of the week. Considering that the site has evolved into one of the most efficient means of spreading information (even by Internet standards) such enthusiasm is understandable. Continue reading →

Tormorden Fantasy

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Toronto, known to some as The Big Smoke, has world class horrible traffic and at least a fair smattering of all your basic urban ills. The city that knows no hockey also has some unexpected lesser-known natural and historic charms. To begin with, the Toronto Islands get less attention than they deserve. Enough said. Stay away. Continue reading →

Congo: The Most Dangerous Place in the World for Women

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On 21 May 2010 Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported on a new round of mass killings and gross human rights abuses perpetrated by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DCR). This is the latest in a string of now familiar reports that are attempting to shed light on a part of the world that has been seemingly left to smolder in the dark.

What has characterized this particular war has been its brutalization of civilians, including, women and children. Women and girls are routinely subjected to mutilation and repeated gang rapes. In fact, no other feature has characterized this war more than the prevalence of rape. It is estimated that throughout the Congo, approximately half a million women have been subjected to sexual violence of the most brutal sort during an over decade long war. The DCR has been called the most dangerous place in the world for women.

Martial rape is, of course, not without precedence. Historically there are many recorded incidences of the use of rape in war. The twentieth century alone has numerous examples that include the rape of women in Nanking, China by Japanese troops in 1937-38 and the rape of German women by advancing Red Army soldiers at the end of the Second World War, to the mid 1990s, which saw the use of rape as a weapon against the women of both Rwanda and Bosnia-Herzegovina. Rape is more than a by-product of war, it used to further the destruction and disgrace of an enemy.   Within the Congo itself, its use was common during the Belgian colonial period where women were used to reward soldiers. But this history does not excuse its present day use, or explain its particular brand of viciousness in today’s Congo. Continue reading →

Heli-skiing and cultural heritage in contested landscapes

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by Jeff Slack

A recent BBC news report highlights some of the key issues in a decades-long debate over heli-skiing in the European Alps. First experimented with in British Columbia’s interior mountain ranges in the 1960s, heli-skiing entails using helicopters in lieu of chairlifts to shuttle small, guided groups of skiers to the top of otherwise difficult-to-access, and thus untracked mountain slopes.

Although this lucrative industry flourished in western North America’s wide open spaces, it also faces growing opposition, primarily over environmental concerns such as air pollution and other threats to fragile alpine ecosystems. In one recent controversy, however, opponents of a contentious heli-ski proposal voiced their concerns over potential conflicts between mechanized recreation and cultural heritage values in the region surrounding British Columbia’s highest mountain, Mount Waddington. As human demands on Canada’s natural spaces increase, such convergences of ecological and heritage concerns are likely to become a more common, and perhaps more effective, environmental strategy. Continue reading →

2010 G8/G20 Summit: Upcoming Actions and Events

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This photo was taken during the 2007 G8 Summit in Rostock, Germany.

This photo was taken during the 2007 G8 Summit in Rostock, Germany.

The G8 and G20 Summits are fast approaching.  G8 leaders will be meeting in Huntsville, Ontario at Deerhurst Resort on June 25, 2010; the G20 will be meeting in Toronto at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre on June 26 and 27.

At a cursory glance, the G8, or Group of Eight, extends back to the 1973 oil crisis; originally called the G6, leaders from among the most powerful nations in the world met to discuss solutions to the global economic recession.  Nations included at the first meeting in 1975 were France, West Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States.  Canada was invited to join the following year, causing the group to be renamed the G7.  Russia was brought into the fold in 1997, thus creating the G8.  Continue reading →

Historical Perspectives on Oil Gushers

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By Dana Johnson

At the end of April, I began a four-month internship at the Oil Museum of Canada. One of my major research projects involves examining primary source documents to gain a better understanding about the events of 1862, when Canada’s first oil gushers erupted from over thirty wells in Oil Springs, Ontario. I have discovered some interesting comparisons between accounts of those first oil gushers and the recent oil spill disaster (a British Petroleum rig exploded on April 20th, killing eleven men and causing an enormous leak into the Gulf of Mexico; thousands of barrels a day continue to spew into open waters, as containment efforts have proven inadequate to respond to the crisis.) Continue reading →