Blog
Nov
29
The Federation and DHSI partner on digital skills training
Alyssa Arbuckle, Assistant Director, Research Partnerships & Development, Electronic Textual Cultures Lab, University of Victoria
The Digital Humanities Summer Institute (DHSI) is an annual training opportunity hosted at the University of Victoria in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. DHSI is the largest regular digital humanities skills training institute in the world, and has approximately 3,500 alumni. It is directed by Dr. Ray Siemens and coordinated by the Electronic Textual Cultures Lab on the University of Victoria campus. In 2016, DHSI welcomed over 800 participants across 43 courses led by an instructional team...
Jun
3
Sharing the Land, Sharing a Future: Reconciliation
Zahura Ahmed, Congress student blogger
What kind of nation are we? What kind of nation do we want to be in the next 150 years? Cindy Blackstock, Executive Director of the First Nations Child & Family Caring Society of Canada, gave a compelling keynote at the “Sharing the Land, Sharing a Future” forum on Wednesday morning. Blackstock delivered a searing critique of government and academic inaction despite a history of studies, reports, Commissions, and recommendations. Approaching reconciliation through the lens of child welfare, she argued that in order to understand reconciliation, we must understand the Canadian state’s long history of placing itself between First Nations children and their families.
Blackstock stated that we too often perceive ourselves as benevolent, and in doing so we make excuses for our acts of omission as well as our minimal acts of justice. We are aware of the problems that Indigenous communities face, yet we...
Jun
3
Imagining Canada’s Future/Imaginer l’avenir du Canada
What effects will the quest for energy and natural resources have on our society and our position on the world stage?
Quels effets la quête de ressources naturelles et d’énergie aura-t-elle sur la société canadienne et la place qu’occupe le Canada à l’échelle mondiale?
National forum organized by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada in partnership with the Humanities and Social Sciences Federation of Canada.
Forum national organisé par le Conseil de recherches en sciences humaines du Canada en partenariat avec la Fédération des sciences humaines du Canada
“Concluding remarks /Quelques réflexions pour conclure”
Guy Laforest, MSRC
Président-élu, Fédération des sciences humaines du Canada
Professeur au département de science politique de l’Université Laval
[email protected]
The...
Jun
3
Thank you, volunteers!
Dear volunteers of the Congress for the Social Sciences and Humanities,
On behalf of myself and the entire Federation of the Social Sciences and Humanities I would like to extend a sincere thank you to each and every one of you. It is because of your hard work and dedication that the 85th edition of Canada’s largest interdisciplinary gathering of scholars and researchers was able to run with such ease.
During these past eight days, you have performed a number of essential duties that has supported the University of Calgary’s and the Federation for Social Sciences and Humanities production of Congress. Whether you were a volunteer in accommodation, audio-visual, hospitality, the mobile team, campus guide or a shuttle and event assistant, you played an essential role to the successful outcome of this year’s Congress and in providing a warm Western welcome to nearly 8,000 participants. The time and commitment you have dedicated to...
Jun
3
Big Thinking speaker calls for compromise in the debate over trade and food security
Caleb Snider, Congress 2016 student blogger
In the final installment of the Big Thinking lecture series at this year’s Congress, Professor Jennifer Clapp (University of Waterloo) called for an end to polarization and the beginning of compromise and collaboration in the debate over trade and food security. Clapp began her lecture by framing the issue of food security: that more than 800 million people worldwide are chronically undernourished, and that many of those people are poor agriculturalists living in countries dependent on food imports.
Those seeking solutions to this and related issues of food security generally fall into two diametrically opposed ideological camps: those who see trade as the solution, and those who see it as the problem.
The pro-trade point of view argues that comparative advantage should increase production and efficiency, improve food distribution, and that market distortions (like tariffs and...