Thursday, February 23, 2017
| 5:00 p.m.
6:00 p.m. |
Registration Opens
Roundtable on Interdisciplinary History – Vari Hall 1005 |
Friday, February 24, 2017
| 8:30 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. | Registration Opens
Breakfast – Coffee/Tea/Juice Fruit/Bagels/Scones/Spreads |
| 9:30 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. | PANEL A Vari Hall 3003
Gender & Identity Julia Pyryskina, York University, “Meaning Shifts in Transgender as a Category of Identity” Chris Vogel, York University, “Him, Her, Dan: Third Gender Figures in Late-Qing Opera” |
| 9:30 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. | PANEL B Vari Hall 3004
Inconvenient Children Victoria Jackson, York University, “Too Great Indulgence Killed Them: Death-by-food Discourse as the Jesuit’s Wendat School, 1636” Patrick J. Connor, York University, “State and Family Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Ontario, 1791 to 1867” Virginia Grimaldi, York University, “Single, Unwed, and Pregnant in Victorian London: Narratives of Agency and Negotiations”
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| 11:00 to 11:15 | Coffee Break! |
| 11:15 to 12:45 | PANEL A Vari Hall 3003
Immigration & Identity Shelisa Klassen, University of Manitoba, NO TITLE Alberto Milan, Cornell University, “Farther North from Mexico: Recent Mexican Migrants in Vancouver, Canada” Desanka Djonin, York University, “Plural Identities in Folk Dance: Spectacle as Vehicle for Hyphenated Identities, 1965-2015” |
| 11:15 to 12:45 | PANEL B Vari Hall 3004
Canadian Colonialism Anna Jarvis, York University, “Colonial Criminal Justice and the Mi’kmaq: The Case of Tom Williams, Prince Edward Island, 1839” Courtney Mrazek, University of New Brunswick, “Joseph Howe’s 1842 ‘An Act to Provide for the Instruction and Permanent Settlement of the Indians:’ The Rise and Fall of Agricultural Policies in Colonial Nova Scotia” Johanna Lewis, York University, “‘Ask the Colonial Ghosts’: Unsettling Toronto’s History through Autoethnographic Place-Making” |
| 1:00 to 2:30 | LUNCH: Open to All Attendees – Vari Hall 3005
Pizza & Drinks |
| 1:30 to 2:30
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Lunch Talk by Dr. Margaret Schotte, Assistant Professor of History, York University
“Cats, Raccoons, and Twins, Oh my! Tales from the Academic Job Market” |
| 3:00 to 4:30
|
PANEL A Vari Hall 3003
Remembering & Remembrance Moira H. Scott, York University, “Death and the Convergence of Space and Time on the Battlefield at Vimy Ridge” James During, St. Mary’s University, “A Discourse of Healing in Dynamic Commemorative Space: Remembering the Vietnam War at the Moving Wall” Alexander Hughes, York University, “Which West? The Many Wests of Disneyland’s Frontierland and the “West” in American Popular Culture”
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| 3:00 to 4:30 | PANEL B Vari Hall 3004
Rewriting the National Agenda Daniel Xie, York University, [TITLE] Anran Wang, Cornell University, “Between Communist Doctrine and Nationalist Agendas: Writing Reform in Inner Mongolia, 1954-1980” |
| 6:00 | Keynote & Dinner (ticketed Event, please register here) |
Saturday, February 25, 2017
| 8:30 | Registration Opens
Breakfast – Coffee/Tea/Juice Fruit/Bagels/Scones/Spreads |
| 9:30 to 11:00 | PANEL A Vari Hall 3003
Race & Racial Integration(s) Elysa McConnell, University of Ottawa, “Fascist Approaches to Diversity: Assimilation and ‘Othering’ in the Italian Borderlands, 1922-1943” James Romisher, Simon Fraser University, “100 Years of Educational Integration at Haddon Heights High School: An Analysis of Race-Relations in Lawnside, Haddon Heights and Barrington, New Jersey” Jaclyn Allen, “How do we work with these differences?: Conceptualizing Nationhood, Citizenship, and the Myth of Canada’s National Identity” |
| 9:30 to 11:00 | PANEL B Vari Hall 3004
Education and Schooling Joanna Pearce, York University, “This, I suppose, has been on account of my blindness: Blind Autobiographies in Nineteenth Century North America” Chelsea Bauer, York University, “Academic Labour as Feminist Activism: Women Historians and the Institutionalization of Feminist Ideals in Ontario University, 1970 to 2000” Lisa Pearl McIntosh, University of Guelph, “Learning from the Past, for the Future: An Examination of Canadian Educational Policy, Indigenous History, and Epistemology, 1969-1999” |
| 11:00 to 11:15 | Coffee Break |
| 11:15 to 12:45 | PANEL A Vari Hall 3003
Protesting in Canada Trevor R. J. Parson, Nipissing University, “Reinterpreting the Rebellion of 1837 in Upper Canada: A Transnational Maritime Perspective” Travis Hay, York University, “‘Jolly’ Wally and the Queen: Colonial Masculinities and Local Memory in Thunder Bay, Ontario” Michael Rowan, McMaster University, “‘On Their Knees’: Politics, Protest, and the Cancellation of the Pickering Airport” Maija Duncan, York University, “Revolutionary Nationalism in 1960s Québec: Vadeboncoeur, d’Allemagne, and Vallières” |
| 11:15 to 12:45 | PANEL B Vari Hall 3004
Interpretation Matters Aaron Miedema, York University, “Variations on a Severed Finger” Carly Naismith, York University, “The Lunatics Cadaver: Medical School Connections with Asylums” Deborah George, Saint Mary’s University, “Dr. Cluny Macpherson: Reflections on the Life of a Newfoundland Physician and Soldier” |
| 1:00 | LUNCH: Open to All Attendees – Schulich Executive Dining Room
Soup & Sandwiches |
| 1:30 to 2:30 | Lunch Talk by Dr. Jay Young, Outreach Officer at Archives of Ontario
“Family Ties: Ontario 150 at the Archives of Ontario”
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| 2:30 | Conference Ends |
ABSTRACTS
Bonnie Bates
Carleton University, Ottawa ON
From Gun to Guitar: The Performance of Tuareg Nationalism
This presentation will explore how contemporary Tuareg musical and video performance is a form of translation, to elaborate and communicate Tuareg nationalism on a global stage. The Tuareg have utilized their traditional oral history and culture as a form of resistance, translating the traditional into modern performance, to promote a modern political identity. The evolving methods of performance as translation for the Tuareg will be considered. Such an evolution has transformed Tuareg forms and stages of resistance, from the gun to the guitar and from the local to the global. Utilizing the Tuareg language of Tamasheq and drawing inspiration from their traditional oral archive, Tuareg performance is preserving and safeguarding their intangible cultural heritage as an ethical and political act in a war of liberation. Identity, culture, agency and power are highlighted and promoted in contemporary Tuareg performance in an artistic call to arms, advancing notions of Tuareg collectivity and nationalism. The revolution will no longer be fought with guns, but through oral art, performed on the global stage for the safeguarding of Tuareg intangible cultural heritage and recognition of modern Tuareg nationalism, to liberate their traditional Saharan lands.
Anran Wang
Cornell University
Between Communist Doctrine and Nationalist Agendas: Writing Reform in Inner Mongolia, 1954-1980
During the Maoist era, the Chinese government promoted reforms on writing systems of various languages in China. Compared to the relatively successful simplification of Chinese characters and introduction of Pinyin system, the writing reforms on minority languages were mostly unsuccessful. The writing reform of Mongolian language in Inner Mongolia is an important case, where two consecutive reforms featuring Cyrillization and Latinization, respectively, were proposed but neither one succeeded. The reform proposing replacing the traditional Mongolian script with Cyrillic script started in 1954, but was stopped in 1958. Then the second reform promoting Latin script was proposed, but never realized within the context of the chaotic political campaigns, and was formally abandoned in 1980. This paper explores the domestic and international dynamics behind these two consecutive reform attempts through examining declassified governmental documents, newspapers, state-sponsored academic works, and memoirs of policymakers in Mongolian, Chinese, and Russian. It argues that the two reforms share similar features in that they were both promoted based on communist doctrines favoring easier and more regular writing systems which help improve literacy rate. Yet both reforms had nationalist agendas hidden behind with the Cyrillization reform seeking unification of Mongolian dialects among Mongols inside and outside China and the Latinization reform seeking unity with Pinyin system and disconnection with Mongolia and USSR. In both cases, the alternative contending nationalist agendas resulted in the failure of the reforms. The Cyrillization reform was replaced by Latinization, while the latter was abandoned in favor of accommodating ethnic identities of the Mongols.
Eric Franklin
St. Mary’s University
A Perfect Union: The Accession of James VI to the English Throne and Early Modern English National Consciousness
This project seeks to determine the state of English national consciousness in the early modern period, specifically during the early years of James’s reign in England, in particular from 1603 through 1612. For practical reasons, this timeframe must remain narrow, for the object of this study is to ascertain the response of the English to a Scottish monarch and to observe the effect of James’s nationality and efforts to create a unitary state on English notions of themselves as a unique people. The earlier year, 1603, marks the start of the Stuart king’s tenure as English monarch, and with his accession, the start of his diplomatic efforts to attach Scotland to the extant English-Welsh state. By 1612, any hope for political union during James’s reign was dead. As such, this paper seeks to answer three primary questions: To what extent did the English see themselves as a nation with their own unique culture? Did their relationship with their Scottish neighbours shape the English sense of nationhood? Did the accession of a Scottish king alter the perception of national self? This paper will suggest that the early years of James’s reign in England heightened the English sense of nationhood, one that was primarily English rather than British. Indeed, the Scottish king’s efforts to forge a political union cleaved the two countries apart, amplifying cultural and ethnic fault lines.
Moira H. Scott
York University
Death and the Convergence of Space and Time on the Battlefield at Vimy Ridge
On April 9, 1917, the Canadian military proved their mettle by securing Vimy Ridge but at an enormous cost. Many believe that Canada became a nation that day. Today, the Canadian National Vimy Memorial sits atop Hill 145 where the names of 11,285 Canadian soldiers who were listed as “missing, presumed dead” are inscribed. The dead whose bodies were recovered are buried within vast graveyards in the vicinity of the memorial, keep permanent watch over what is now peaceful terrain. It is here where the liminality between past and present and life and death can be strongly experienced. It is here that the dead speak in whispers, memories and, at times, explosions. On October 27, 2016, as part of my research work, I visited the site and was overwhelmed by its massive size, consisting of over 107 hectares of forests, fields, monuments and graveyards. Despite its haunting beauty, stark warnings of unexploded mines and munitions, invisible to the eye, remain as solemn reminders of the horrors of a war that catapulted western culture from the progress and enthusiasm of high-modernity forward into the uncertainty and fear of a post-modern world. On an intellectual level, it is difficult to conceive battlefields of the past to be places of contemplation but here, one’s sense of connection and strong feeling that one is not alone distinguishes it from other memorials. I will be exploring these aspects with my diary’s notations, research and photographs and showing them via a Powerpoint presentation.
James During
St. Mary’s University
A Discourse of Healing in Dynamic Commemorative Space: Remembering the Vietnam War at the Moving Wall
In 1984, Vietnam War veteran John Devitt and the Vietnam Combat Veterans Ltd. of San Jose, California, created a half-size touring replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Subsequently named “the Moving Wall,” this travelling replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was conceived as an attempt to bring the experience of the memorial wall to those in other American communities who could not make the trip to Washington. As it travelled, the Moving Wall temporarily occupied and transformed disparate spaces into profound sites of commemoration for people throughout the country. However, considering the importance of the original memorial’s spatial context and the potential transformative effects the mobile replica had (and has) on its surrounding space, this paper will argue that the spatial dissonance of the temporary memorial and its detachment from any static interpretive landscape presents potential issues in the commemorative process. This paper will highlight a number of examples of such issues related to the spatial dimensions of the Moving Wall as it travelled across the United States. It will address the significance of the interpretative landscape of the Washington Mall, recognition of spatial incongruities from visitors to the replica, and one effort to address the spatial void left by replica’s inevitable departure. While it was conceived as a reproduction of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, the Moving Wall’s mobile and temporary nature invites a number of incongruities to surface as it occupied and transformed a given space, only to depart and create a void in the space it left behind.
Alexander Hughes
York University
Which West? The Many Wests of Disneyland’s Frontierland and the “West” in American Popular Culture
Disneyland Park in Anaheim California opened in 1955. In 2013, Disneyland recorded 16.2 million visitors, while the Smithsonian National Museum for American History in Washington D.C. only had 4.9 million visitors. What is interesting about this statistic is that both locations present American history. Can an amusement park be an instrument for historical representation? This presentation will explore Disneyland’s Frontierland. Frontierland is one of the “lands” of Disneyland and aims to replicate the American frontier and western experience. This presentation explores the factual American western experience and contrasts this with the roots of Frontierland in Popular Culture, including Disney films and television productions. One would assume that this scenario is inherently problematic, yet this presentation explores what is factual and fiction in Disneyland’s presentation of the West. This presentation fits into academic debates including Manifest Destiny and the Frontier thesis.
Johanna Lewis
York University
Ask the colonial ghosts”: Unsettling Toronto’s history through autoethnographic place-making
Settler logics – so reliant on notions of clean breaks and blank slates – position the histories of Toronto and the people who lived here long ago as irrelevant to contemporary realities. Drawing on critical Indigenous approaches to time, land, and the connections between the two, I seek to contribute to the many voices undermining this dangerous settler amnesia. By productively combining autoethnography with historical research, I move through different places in this city that have significance in my life in order to reflect on the many others to whom they have mattered. I will share some of these connections as a personal case study, but also offer my theoretical and methodological contours in hopes that this strategy can be useful for others as well. I believe that this method of rethinking familiar geographies can enable an order honest exploration of the ways that we are all implicated in colonial processes, and facilitate a fundamentally relational approach to our intertwined histories.
Anna Jarvis
York University
Colonial Criminal Justice and the Mi’kmaq: The Case of Tom Williams, Prince Edward Island, 1839
On March 14th, 1839 Tom Williams, a Mi’kmaw man living in the colony of Prince Edward Island, was convicted of capital murder for killing Joe Louis, another Mi’kmaw. The judge presiding over the case, Chief Justice Edward Jarvis, passed a sentence of death but was concerned over the lack of precedent: no Indian had ever been hanged on the Island. Those administering colonial justice in the Williams case faced a dilemma: how to uphold British law within the colony while at the same time recognizing the particular considerations regarding its Aboriginal inhabitants. During the trial Williams was described as being “much addicted to spirits” and “of wild and savage habits.” In my paper I will attempt to put William’s case in the wider context of First Nations and Canadian colonial history, in particular the situation of the Mi’kmaw and the politics of Prince Edward Island, which at that time was experiencing widespread white tenant protests against the system of landlordism within the colony. The Williams case raises numerous issues, such as the question of colonial jurisdiction over Aboriginal defendants, the lack of precedent of capital cases involving the Mi’kmaw, and white settler stereotypes that attributed diminished responsibility to Aboriginal defendants because of negative stereotypes regarding their intelligence and their presumed propensity to drink and become violent. I will argue that, while Williams’ life was spared, it was, as in numerous cases in which Canadian Aboriginal and Inuit defendants escaped the ultimate legal penalty, at the cost of a racist paternalism that saw the reinforcing of white settler dominance which, in the end, only served to further undermine their unequal status.
Courtney Mrazek
The University of New Brunswick
Joseph Howe’s 1842 ‘An Act to Provide for the Instruction and Permanent Settlement of the Indians:’ The Rise and Fall of Agricultural Policies in Colonial Nova Scotia
The Act to Provide for the Instruction and Permanent Settlement of Indians was a major turning point for agricultural policies in nineteenth century Nova Scotia. Whereas the colonial government was previously of the mind that temporary relief funds in the form of blankets and coats were what was needed, Joseph Howe and others fought for these funds to be used instead to encourage settlement and agriculture, to reform Mi’kmaw people’s concepts and utilization of land, and in this way, to ‘civilize’ them. The policies the colonial government aimed at Indigenous people in Nova Scotia were sporadic, poorly funded, and poorly managed. They ranged from distributing blankets and coats, purchased with temporary relief funds, to refusing those who asked for these products in winter, in favour of encouraging and pressing the Mi’kmaq to instead take seed potatoes and tools (when they could be given, which was not often) and cultivate the lands they were given. These agricultural and settlement policies were not helpful to the Mi’kmaq, and they also took their toll on Indian Commissioners. The Mi’kmaq who did try to adopt a farming way of life were dealt a hard blow, which was further compounded by diseases that appeared to have hit them harder than they did settler farmers. A widespread potato blight destroyed all potatoes planted for three seasons, from 1846 to 1848, effectively ending the colonial implementation of agricultural policies. The relief policies that agricultural approaches had evolved from were again sought out and enforced, until Confederation in 1867 when interest in Indigenous people became a federal concern. This presentation will argue that although the agricultural policies the British hoped would “civilize” the Mi’kmaq fell short of their intended outcome, Mi’kmaw communities negotiated their pressures and possibilities, managing to use agricultural opportunities to alleviate difficult social and economic circumstances through a myriad of treaty expectations and negotiations, friendships, petitions, and gift-giving.
Virginia Grimaldi
York University
Single, Unwed, and Pregnant in Victorian London: Narratives of Agency and Negotiation
Unmarried working women who got pregnant in Victorian London and were abandoned by the fathers were in a sticky situation. If a woman kept the baby, she would unlikely be able to provide for it, especially under the ‘Bastardly Act’ of the 1834 Poor Law, which deemed all illegitimate children under the sole responsibility of the mother. If she concealed her pregnancy and abandoned the child, or risked her life by having an illegal abortion, she would at best be held liable for infanticide, at worst, dead. One institutional option available to these vulnerable mothers was the London Foundling Hospital (orphanage). The LFH aspired to be respectable, and as the demand for illegitimate child care exceeded the supply, the directors – all men – could select whose babies they chose to shelter and whose they rejected. Their criterion was “respectability”: whether the mothers had been respectable before their “fall” and would become so again if ‘relieved’ of their offspring. Application for admission involved the application itself, an examination of the mother recorded in a transcript, and personal references. In an assessment of these documents, coupled with extensive secondary research, this paper emphasizes the agency of the petitioners that other historians have downplayed by showing how these mothers crafted their stories to fit the ascribed rules and conventions of the Victorian charity. The analysis aims to strike a balance between the power of the institution and the mothers’ agency among limited options that complicate the widely held assumptions about Victorian sexuality and motherhood.
Patrick J. Connor
York University
“State and Family Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Ontario, 1791-1867”
The family was the central organizing principle in colonial Ontario society and, in the absence of formal social welfare programs, was the principal mechanism for the support and protection of minors. At times, however, the family was unable to fulfill this role and, in many cases of sexual abuse, was itself the primary threat to children. In a setting where incest was not considered a criminal offense, victims were unable to depend upon the state for protection, and were forced to rely upon a criminal justice system that was ill-equipped to resolve their situation and often saw their abusers escape punishment altogether. This paper examines strategies by which victims of incest both successfully, and unsuccessfully, used the colonial legal system to pursue justice. It further highlights the numerous areas in which the colonial state offered strong protection for the interests of youth (master/servant legislation, regulations concerning orphans), and contrasts this to the almost complete absence of formal protection afforded to the victims of child sexual abuse.
Alberto Milan
Cornell University
Farther North from Mexico: Recent Mexican Migrants in Vancouver, Canada
On 28 June 2016, in an effort to encourage travel between Canada and Mexico “while preventing any increase in asylum claims or other irregular migration,” Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that the Government of Canada had moved to lift visa requirements for Mexico beginning 1 December 2016. The new policy ostensibly allowed Mexican nationals to visit and tour Canada without much restriction. Although Prime Minister Trudeau’s motives and claims for sharply breaking from his predecessor’s immigration policies merit further scrutiny, the focus of my proposed paper for the “New Frontiers” Conference at York University rests elsewhere. My paper, tentatively titled “Farther North from Mexico: Recent Mexican Migrants in Vancouver, Canada” examines the understudied history of Mexican nationals in Vancouver, British Columbia. Building off of oral interviews I have conducted in Vancouver, I argue that while the 2011 National Household Survey Profile has noted that only about 0.3% of Canadians traced their ancestry to Mexico, the importance of Mexican immigrant communities to Canada should not be overlooked. In particular I am concerned with the “irregular” migrant the Government of Canada knows exists, but cannot trace and count in official statistics. These undocumented immigrants have over the course of many years established a chain migration which, given Vancouver’s ever-increasing desire for cheap labor and the potential adoption of draconian immigration policies in the U.S., is only bound to grow. By examining how these undocumented Mexican immigrants have navigated their experience in Canada, we can better understand what may lie ahead.
Shelisa Klassen
University of Manitoba
**No Title
During the 1860s, Red River was fully independent from the rest of what would become Canada. The inhabitants of Red River were comfortably debating and envisioning their future as either an independent British Crown colony or an American state, when John A. Macdonald’s vision for a continental Canada brought them into a new sort of debate. Suddenly, Red River became the province of Manitoba, without control over its own culture, language, or immigration. This paper traces the debates around immigration and identity at Red River from the 1860s into the 1870s, as an outside government (in Ottawa) began dictating new laws and policies, which privileged new arrivals to the Red River settlement, while removing rights from Indigenous peoples and non-Indigenous long-term residents. There were several newspapers being published out of Red River, including both French and English-language papers, as well as a designated Métis newspaper and the official newspaper of Louis Riel’s government, The New Nation. Little is known about the years following the Red River resistance and how the political power in Manitoba shifted, but after a few years of outside immigration, most of the Métis population were leaving for the Northwest Territories, out of the reach of Ottawa’s regulation. This paper seeks to prove that the Métis and non-Indigenous long-term residents were engaged in political debates and asserted their own agency against the Canadian state in the early years of the province of Manitoba.
Deborah George
St. Mary’s University
**No Title
Dr. Cluny Macpherson (1879-1966) was a remarkable and resourceful Newfoundland physician who lived and practiced in the St. John’s area for over 60 years. During his lengthy career he made many significant contributions to his profession, and to the people for whom he cared. Consider the following examples: in the early years of his career, Macpherson played an active role in the delivery of health care services to remote and isolated areas of northern Newfoundland and Labrador, as part of Sir Wilfred Grenfell’s Labrador Mission. When war broke out in 1914, Macpherson enlisted with the Royal Newfoundland Regiment and organized their first Ambulance Unit. While serving in Gallipoli he developed the first effective gas mask, a chemically treated canvas hood that later became known as the ‘Hypo helmet’, and which was distributed to over 20 million people before the end of the war. When the war was over, Macpherson returned to his practice in St. John’s and took on leadership roles in several medical associations and societies, including the Newfoundland Medical Association, and, after Confederation, the Medical Council of Canada. Thus the life and work of Dr. Macpherson touches on many aspects of Canadian history and the development of medical care, yet historical scholarship has tended to overlook his contributions in favor of the larger characters with which he was associated, and the bigger narratives through which he moved. It is the purpose of this project to address this gap, and to explore the ways in which Macpherson’s commitment to medicine impacted the medical profession, and the communities he served, through the tumultuous years of the twentieth century.
Carly Naismith
York University
The Lunatic’s Cadaver: Medical School Connections with Asylums
Canada passed an Anatomy Act in 1843, granting medical schools in the Province of Canada the use of cadavers which died in publicly funded institutions. However roughly 10 years later, following the very public discovery that the superintendent of the Toronto asylum was dissecting former patients, the asylum, the most plentiful legal source of cadavers was excluded from the anatomy act and lunatic cadavers were officially ‘off limits’. Despite the law, lunatic cadavers were used by medical schools across Canada, though each had it’s own approach to acquiring said cadavers and while the irrepressible pull to open supply lines to lunatic cadavers was a constant, just how critical they were to body supplies for anatomical pedagogy varies from school to school.
Julia Pyryeskina
York University
“Meaning Shifts in Transgender as a Category of Identity”
In his 2007 ethnography Imagining Transgender: An Ethnography of a Category, David Valentine argues that a central tenet of contemporary transgender theory and identity is that ‘transgender’ is a category of gender identity, which is separate from sexual orientation. However, his fieldwork in New York in the 1990s has shown that this separation is not universal; the gender-variant identities of his interviewees (including identifiers such as trans, fem queen, girl, or “living as a woman”) did not preclude them from also identifying as gay, where “gay” indexes erotic desire for someone who is male-bodied. Read against Joanne Meyerowitz’s historic study of the emergence of the ‘transsexual’ in How Sex Changed: A History of Transsexuality and George Chauncey’s analysis of the changing meanings of homosexuality in Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890-1940, this paper will analyse Valentine’s central argument: that the split between ‘transgender’ and ‘gay’ as separate categories of experience has allowed for the displacement of the visible racial difference, gender variance, and sexual deviance, underwriting a gender-normative, middle-class white gay male identity.
Chris Vogel
York University
Him, Her, Dan: Third Gender Figures in Late-Qing Opera
This exploration of the status of young boys who played female parts (dan) in Qing dynasty opera questions the hegemony and transhistoricity of gender binaries and exposes possible new dimensions of Late-Qing understandings of gender. It challenges contemporary research on the relationships between literati and the dan in the Qing operatic demimonde by asking what if the partners of the literati were not men? Contemporary scholars studying biographical guides to the dan (huapu), accept that these documents tell us about the dimensions of male/male homoeroticism in Late-Qing China. However, when huapu are considered in terms of gender, new dimensions of their discourse emerge which yield new insights and clarify conflicts in existing studies. I argue that we can understand huapu better by considering their gendered rather than their sexual dimension. Analyzing Yanlan Xiaopu 燕蘭小譜 (A brief record of the orchids of Yan, 1770) shows that the actors were not understood to be men, but rather were suspended between the male and the female as third gender figures. Employing Judith Butler’s first principles and considering whether both participants in these relationships were understood to be ‘male’ reveals the ways in which the gender of performers was imposed and enforced. It also reveals the operations of status and power on the performance and experience of gender. Examining the language deployed in huapu to mark the genders of actors reveals dimensions of understanding more complex, negotiated, and shifting than a transhistorical male/female binary.
Jaclyn Allen
Nipissing University
**No Title
Canada is applauded on a global scale for its model of mosaic adeptness. The experiences of some Muslim women in Canada problematize the discourse and narrative of Canadian multiculturalism. Canadian media coverage of the murder of Aqsa Parvez, Zainab Shafia, Sahar Shafia, Geeti Shafia, Rona Amir Mohammed, and the disappearance of Nuseiba Hasan exemplify how Muslim women are victimized ideologically and physically in Canada today. These case studies can be applied to a larger understanding of race, gender, and immigration in Canada and to an understanding of violence against Muslim women in Canada. It is clear that migration to Canada is not a linear process. The creation of new lives, identity formation, dual identities, xenophobia, and rejection make the transition process complicated and may lead to tension between family members, between the individual and Canadian society, and between the individual and themselves. I examine The Globe and Mail, The Mississauga News, The Kingston Whig-Standard, and local news reports from Hamilton area to expose how ideology and terminology of Canadian journalists maintain spaces and opportunities in Canada for violence against Muslim women. I will investigate the ways this violence is gendered and racialized in Canada. I will also investigate House of Commons debates through Hansard with the key terms; Muslim Women, gendered islamic violence, human rights, Muslim migration. Close examination of Canadian media coverage and House of Commons Debates will uncover the reality of Canada’s responsibility, historically and in present day, in the victimization of Muslim women in Canada.
James Romisher
Simon Fraser University
100 Years of Educational Integration at Haddon Heights High School: An Analysis of Race-Relations in Lawnside, Haddon Heights and Barrington New Jersey.
On May 12, 1971, Haddon Heights High School erupted in a race riot. Haddon Heights, New Jersey is a defacto white segregated community a short drive across the Delaware River from Philadelphia. The town’s high school is also attended by students from two neighbouring towns; Barrington, another defacto white segregated community, and Lawnside, the only self-governing African-American borough in New Jersey. Lawnside has a long and rich history with the town’s origins dating back to the 17th century as a Quaker established haven for runaway slaves. It is an example of an African-American suburban town in a separated environment which also had an independent Black Power organization. Haddon Heights High School was integrated as early as 1916. Thus, the school provides a 100 year case study of educational integration. From 1965-1971, there were several incidents of racial violence among Haddon Heights High School students which culminated in the 1971 riot. The school also experienced a sit-in on Martin Luther King’s birthday in 1969, and a protest march and boycott in May of 1971. Haddon Heights was not the only school in South Jersey to experience racial tensions during the Civil Rights Era. In fact, high schools in Woodbury, Vineland, Glassboro, Bridgeton, Willingboro, Trenton, Camden, and Somerdale also succumbed to fights, riots, and school closures during this time period. My thesis examines what caused the violence and tensions, how this situation was addressed, and what issues have arisen from 1971 to the present due to the ongoing segregated nature of the communities.
Elysa McConnell
University of Ottawa
Fascist Approaches to Diversity: Assimilation and ‘Othering’ in the Italian Borderlands, 1922-1943
This paper will examine Fascist approaches to the Jewish and ethnic minority communities in the north-eastern borderland regions of Italy from 1922-1943. Bordering Austria and the Slovenian and Croatians lands of the former Yugoslavia, these borderland regions were inhabited by a range of ethnic, cultural and linguistic groups, such as Germans, Italians, Slovenes, and Croats. There were also a number of Jewish communities within these regions. This essay will analyze the ideological foundations of Italian Fascism – specifically their ideas concerning nationalism, race, culture and identity – and will examine the changes that occurred within the Fascist program with the invasion of Ethiopia in 1935 and the introduction of the Racial Laws of 1938. I will demonstrate the effect of these changes on the inclusionary and exclusionary policies of the regime and the impact of this ideological shift on the status and treatment of Jewish and ethnic minority communities in the borderland regions. Initially, Italian Fascists attempted to assimilate and suppress the diversity of the border region through an ‘Italianisation’ campaign. Fascists believed that certain groups could become Italian due to their cultural, not biological, conceptions of race and citizenship. However, this program was eventually overtaken by one based on racial ideology and the exclusion of the racial ‘other’ from the nation. In the north-eastern borderland regions, we witness an important shift within Italian Fascism, from a program intent on ‘making Italians’ in order to include them into the Italian nation, to a program based on ‘racial essentialism’ and exclusion.
Chelsea Bauer
York University
Academic Labour as Feminist Activism: Women Historians and the institutionalization of Feminist Ideals in Ontario Universities, 1970-2000
This paper explores the academic labour done by women historians and the impact this labour had within history departments across Ontario universities between 1970 and 2000. Academic labour is defined as women-centred curriculum development, behind the scenes lobbying for resources and benefits, committee work and feminist mentoring of both students and junior faculty. I address the new responses of these women historians as they embarked on this work in order to challenge the patriarchal nature of the institution. As well I address how the university valued this work, the various challenges they faced as well as the added burdens they experienced as they began to take on this kind of work. Using university archives, published interviews with these women’s history pioneers and other sources from the Canadian women’s movement archive, I address the political and intellectual implications of this academic labour within the university. Through analyzing this academic labour, I uncover the tensions that emerged as women historians worked to merge their feminist ideals with their commitment to the university as an institution. By willingly taking this academic labour, these feminist historians carved out an intellectual and political space for women’s history, which worked to institutionalize the feminist activism that had previously only been associated with the grassroots Canadian women’s movement. Understanding the historical impact of this academic labour done by women historians illustrates the continuing importance of women’s history as a tool to challenge the continued gender imbalance and over-representation of middle class Euro-Canadians in the historical profession.
Lisa Pearl McIntosh
University of Guelph
Learning from the Past, for the Future: An examination of Canadian Educational Policy, Indigenous History, and Epistemology, 1969-1999
Since the 1960s Canada’s understanding, and implementation of education policy and epistemology has changed dramatically. To create a more inclusive description of Canadian history, and provide more welcoming atmospheres for all students, federal and provincial education policies adopted and included more aspects of Indigenous life, culture, knowledge and oral traditions. Emphasis was placed upon the creation and implementation of new curricula that depicted Aboriginal peoples in a more accurate light for both Native and non-Native youth. Furthermore, after the publication of the National Indian Brotherhood’s Indian Control of Indian Education in 1972, education policies revealed, and highlighted, Indigenous pedagogy and epistemology as necessary components of future Canadian curricula. Through an examination of this highly influential paper, in addition to subsequent collections regarding Native education in Canada published in the latter half of the twentieth century, and a brief introduction to Indigenous epistemological philosophies, this study produces a contemporary understanding of Indigenous education policy. This comprehensive analysis suggests that despite often failed efforts to include Indigenous perspectives and methodologies, there is hope for the future of Canadian public schools.
Michael Rowan
McMaster University
“On Their Knees:” Politics, Protest and the Cancellation of the Pickering Airport
The Pickering Airport in Ontario was announced in March 1972 and cancelled in September 1975. During that three year period there was a bitter struggle between protestors, whose land was expropriated for the airport and the federal government. The expropriation process gave both protestors and bureaucrats the opportunity to plead their cases through public forums on why the Pickering Airport was necessary or not. By the 1970s citizens became more distrustful of experts and believed they deserved a full seat at the policy table while bureaucrats were frustrated by challenges to their authority and the slow policy process. The debate over the Pickering Airport raises important questions about the effectiveness of public forums like hearings or public inquires in determining policy. Citizen groups may have a seat at the policy table but the policy process has remained bitter and divisive.
Aaron Miedema
York University
Variations on a Severed Finger
On June 21st 1561, after lunch, two knights entered the secluded square behind the Monastery of Santa Maria della Pace in Rome. One of these knights, Quintio Marcellino, would lie wounded fifteen minutes later. These two knights encountered the Marquis of Montebello who also accompanied by a knight. The Marquis owed Quintio money, and this debt was the cause for ensuing brawl. Two other knights were also present and attempted to prevent the violence. The congregation of so many Roman elites in a small out-of-the-way square suggests that this was a duel or an arranged mediation. Quintio and the Marquis each arriving with their seconds and the two other knights to mediate or preside. However, the notaries sent to investigate the brawl were met with silence. The wounded Quintio refused to tell the notaries anything, and the other brawlers fled the city. The two knights who attempted to stop the brawl claimed they were just bystanders. The notaries were only able to discover what happened in the square that day, they could not discover how it came to pass; providing an event with an ambiguous cause. Was it a chance meeting, was is an arranged mediation, or was it a duel being covered up; the answer will never be known. However, interpreting the events from the perspective of each possible cause offers a view into the relationship between violence, dispute, mediation, and the duel in early modern Rome.
Trevor R. J. Parsons
Nipissing University
Reinterpreting the Rebellion of 1837 in Upper Canada: A Transnational Maritime Perspective
As Upper Canada grew and matured from its beginnings in the 1780s, until its union with Lower Canada in 1840, it faced a singular crisis that delved into the fundamental precept of why the province was founded, an existential crisis centered on perceptions of loyalty which waxed and waned with the times. As Upper Canada entered the 1830s, this crisis culminated in what is known as the Rebellion of 1837-38. Loyalty was not merely tried as Upper Canadians battled each other on the streets of Toronto, or in the frontier districts, it was ultimately tested through the Caroline affair and the border skirmishes which followed the rebellion.Despite the repeated maritime invasions of the province, historians have largely viewed these incidents in a purely political or diplomatic fashion. Little attention has been paid by naval historians to the border incursions despite this “conflict” being primarily maritime in nature. The Caroline Affair, the incident on Navy Island, the Battle of the Windmill and many of the border skirmishes should be viewed as episodes in naval and maritime history within a larger history of the Atlantic world. This paper analyses the Caroline affair and the international incident surrounding the occurrences on Navy Island and other border skirmishes to illustrate how they affected the politics of Upper Canada and the relationship between the province, Great Britain, and the United States. These occurrences are a valuable component in the history of the Great Lakes as a transnational region and how diplomacy, the economics of timber, and loyalty intersect as a unique event in the history of nineteenth-century North America.
Daniel Xie
York University
**No Title
Despite the large body of research conducted around the growth of Canada’s National Security State during the Cold War, much of the research conducted focuses on the development of Canada’s national security either in the wake of the Gouzenko affair, or in the context of the Red Scare launched in response to labour unrest such as the Winnipeg General Strike. This analysis neglects important national security development during the Great Depression; some of these developments being fingerprinting programs developed by the RCMP in response to labour unrest. This paper focuses on the growth of RCMP fingerprinting programs in response to Communist and Fascist agitation in Canada during the Great Depression through drawing on the RCMP’s security bulletins published from 1933-1939, as well as earlier secondary literature analyzing RCMP fingerprinting such as Hannant’s The Infernal Machine. An analysis of these sources reveal that the RCMP perceived Communism during the 1930s as a greater evil than Fascism. Agitation from Fascist organizations were downplayed, while Communist popular front activism was seen as tantamount to revolution; this being despite weaknesses within the Communists’ own popular front activism that inhibited their growth. Consequently, fingerprinting programs were created to monitor suspected Communist activities in Canadian society. These accounts add a greater understanding as to the development of Canada’s national security program during the Great Depression, and raises further topics to explore regarding the implications of said programs on social movements on the left and the right.
New Frontiers 