The Great Hall at Hart House, University of Toronto. Photo used with permission of Hart House. In 1952, Canadian historian Donald Creighton took “a room at Hart House” so that he could finish a book. See Donald Wright, Donald Creighton: A Life in History (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2015), 187. Notably, Hart House did not allow women entry into its building, except on special occasions, until 1972. This exclusion honoured the stipulation of Hart House’s founding donor, Vincent Massey. See https://harthouse.ca/blog/40-years-of-women-at-hart-house.
In this three-part series, Dr. Donica Belisle of the University of Regina suggests that by expanding the ways students’ work is assessed, it is possible to expand the practice of History itself. By way of example, she explores the results of a recent experiment in which she assigned undergraduate students a “research creation” option. She concludes that despite the difficulties inherent to such an assignment, it is important to enable the inclusion of visual, audio, literary, dramatic, and other elements within scholarly communication. This series has been cross-posted with the CHA’s teaching blog.
Part 1 of 3: Professionalization, Exclusion, and Scholarly Writing
WHEN IT comes to scholarly dissemination, academic writing remains the gold standard. Through academic writing – by which I mean formal prose based on deep reflection, presented in a linear way and with clear citations – scholars communicate complex thoughts and findings.
But is scholarly writing the only method of dissemination by which historians should assess students’ work?
Within the field of history particularly, it is well recognized that scholarly writing – replete with footnotes, third-person prose, and an ‘objective eye’ – is itself a product of long and exclusionary processes. Particularly, and as Bonnie Smith, Mary Jane Logan McCallum, Donald Wright, and many others indicate, the academic discipline of History itself emerged at the turn of the 20th century via a complicated process of professionalization, one that sought to elevate certain voices through the exclusion of many others. These striving voices held high the values that were also attributed to liberal citizenship itself: rationality, objectivity, empiricism, and, more subtly, a commitment to nation building.
The notion that it was possible to discern and communicate the past via careful research had value. Yet in the process of elevating the ideals of empiricism, objectivity, and paper-based research in archives, particularly, it also became clear that many scholars also associated rationality, objectivity, and citizenship with white masculinity. That is, just as the ideal citizen at this time was framed as white, genteel, and male, so was the ideal historian. In tome after tome, and in seminar after seminar, the true historian was one who constructed narratives of state achievement. Such narratives, in turn, were effaced of all hints of subjectivity, passion, or story-telling. They were, in a word, dry. Continue reading
Captain 
Toffan suggests that the increasing prevalence of spree killers, mass murderers and serial killers in the 1960s and 1970s reflected a profound social fracturing in North America, and the rise of a new type of personality: the criminal psychopath. In the book, Toffan combines extensive research into Lamb’s life and crimes with the stories of the more infamous psychopathic killers: Zodiac, Ted Bundy, David Berkowitz, John Wayne Gacy, etc. He also details the fascinating history of psychological research into psychopathy as a mental disorder, from the 1940s work of prison psychologist Hervey Cleckley to the later analyses of Robert Hare in British Columbia, whose checklist of psychopathic traits is widely used today.
In 1935, a group of Ottawa social workers came together to form the Eastern Ontario Branch of the Canadian Association of Social Workers. Over the next 85 years, the group underwent a number of changes, including becoming part of the Ontario Association of Social Workers, but its role in representing the social work community never wavered. Whether it was organizing social events, pushing for professional recognition, or organizing social justice campaigns, social workers and their clients have benefited from the Eastern Branch’s work.