In This Issue:

Upcoming Events

• Hildebrand Graduate Research Showcase
• “Reshaping City Politics? Asian Voters’ Demands for Change in San Francisco and Vancouver”

Program News

• New Hildebrand Fellow, Claire Chun, studies diasporic representations of Asian-Canadian identity

Research Opportunities

• Deadline approaching to apply for Canadian Studies research funding!

External Events

• Memorial University of Newfoundland Alumni Meetup
• Canadian authors at the Bay Area Book Festival

UPCOMING EVENTS

Wednesday, April 26 | 12:30 pm PT | 223 Philosophy | RSVP

Learn about the research Canadian Studies funds through our Edward E. Hildebrand Graduate Research Fellowships, as recipients present overviews of their projects.

“Affordability for Whom? The Impacts of Foreign Buyer Taxes on British Columbia and Ontario Rental Housing Markets”

Taesoo Song, Ph.D. student, City and Regional Planning

During the mid-2010s, British Columbia and Ontario provincial governments implemented foreign buyer taxes (FBTs) to discourage foreign investment to promote affordability in the housing market. Although limited empirical evidence suggests that the taxes were effective in curbing house prices, there has been no significant discussion of their potential impacts on the rental market. Understanding this relationship would be crucial in meeting the housing needs of lower-income and immigrant households. Using empirical data from the Canadian Housing Mortgage Corporation and the Canadian Census, Taesoo examines how FBTs have impacted the regional rental markets and their implications for housing policy and planning.

“Climate Change and the Causes of the Late Ordovician Mass Extinction”

Joshua Zimmt, Ph.D. candidate, Integrative Biology

Joshua’s work attempts to understand the interactions between life and the Earth system, primarily through the study of extinction events. He dissertation research focuses on the exceptional fossil and rock records on Anticosti Island, Quebec, to understand how climate change may have caused the Late Ordovician mass extinction, one of the largest known extinction events. By producing a better understanding of this critical interval in the history of life, Joshua’s research will serve as a case study of global change that can be used to better understand our rapidly changing modern world.

COSPONSORED EVENT

Reshaping City Politics? Asian Voters’ Demands for Change in San Francisco and Vancouver

Monday, April 24 | 1:00 pm PT | Online | RSVP

The Canadian Studies Program is proud to partner with the Citrin Center for Public Opinion on a panel discussing the growing political importance of Asian-American and Asian-Canadian voters in two West Coast cities. Participants will discuss the outcomes of recent elections in San Francisco and Vancouver, and what they could indicate about each region’s future.

Panelists will include Lorraine Lowe, executive director of Vancouver’s Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden; Kareem Allam, former campaign director for Vancouver mayor Ken Sim and partner, Fairview Strategy; Ann Hsu, former San Francisco School Board commissioner and founder and head of school for Bert Hsu Academy; and Neil Malhotra, Edith M. Cornell Professor of Political Economy, Stanford Graduate School of Business. The panel will be moderated by David Broockman, associate professor, Travers Department of Political Science, UC Berkeley.

This event is also cosponsored by the Berkeley Interdisciplinary Migration Initiative.

Image: “Stop Asian Hate” protester in Vancouver. Photo by GoToVan on Wikimedia Commons.

PROGRAM NEWS

New Hildebrand Fellow, Claire Chun, Studies Diasporic Representations of Asian-Canadian Identity

Canadian Studies is pleased to introduce Claire Chun as the third recipient of an Edward Hildebrand Graduate Research Fellowship for Summer 2023.

Claire is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Ethnic Studies with a designated emphasis in gender, women and sexuality studies. She holds a B.A. in politics and social and cultural analysis from New York University. Her dissertation research examines the ways that Asian North American diasporic art and media critically engage issues of settler colonial and militarized imperial violence through aesthetic practices of more-than-human kinship and entanglements.

Claire’s fellowship will support field research in Vancouver and Toronto, where she will explore how Asian diasporic artists based in Canada complicate notions of Asianness by grappling with what it means to occupy and work on ancestral, unceded Indigenous lands. She is particularly interested in how Asian Canadian visual cultures are shaped by and respond to transpacific histories of war, racialized surveillance, and environmental contamination in North America, Asia, and the Pacific Islands.

RESEARCH OPPORTUNITIES

Deadline: May 5, 2023

The Canadian Studies Program is currently accepting applications for several funding opportunities for graduate and undergraduate students. Please forward this information to any friends, students, or colleagues who may be interested!

The Edward E. Hildebrand Graduate Research Fellowship

Accepting applications for Fall 2023

Amount: Up to $5,000 per semester

This fellowship funds research that contributes to knowledge about Canada and/or the Canadian-U.S. relationship. Applications are open to UC Berkeley graduate students in any discipline and of any citizenship. This fellowship is meant to cover direct travel and research costs.

The Rita Ross Undergraduate Prize in Canadian Studies

Amount: $250

This prize recognizes undergraduates who have written a superior research paper or other project on a Canadian topic. The competition is open to any UC Berkeley undergraduate student in good academic standing, in any college or discipline. Submissions must be an original paper or project produced in a UC Berkeley class or independent study during the 2022-2023 academic year.

Undergraduate Research Funding

Accepting applications for Summer and Fall 2023

Amount: Variable

Funding is available for undergraduate students interested in conducting organized research for a UC Berkeley class or as part of an independent study project. Awards are made at the director’s discretion.

EXTERNAL EVENTS

Memorial University of Newfoundland Alumni Meetup

Tuesday, May 2 | 6:30 pm | Palo Alto, CA | RSVP

Memorial alumni and friends in the Greater San Francisco Bay area are invited to join an evening of networking and socializing in Palo Alto. Attendees will enjoy light appetizers, raffle prizes and the opportunity to reminisce about all things Memorial University and Newfoundland and Labrador. The event is free, but advance registration is required.

Canadian Authors at the Bay Area Book Festival

May 6-7 | Berkeley, CA | More information

The Bay Area Book Festival is one of the world’s premier celebrations of writers, readers, and the written word, bringing together some of the best contemporary authors from across the globe. This year, the festival line-up includes two exciting debut literary voices from Canada, thanks to the generous support of the Consulate General of Canada in San Francisco.

Dazzling Debuts

May 6 | 12:30 pm | More information

Award-winning Tibetan-Canadian author Tsering Yangzom Lama joins a panel of debut authors from around the world to discuss their works and paths to publication, as well as give advice to aspiring authors.

Indigenous Perspectives in Genre Fiction

May 6 | 3:30 pm | More information

Cree author Jessica Johns joins a panel of Native American and First Nations authors with new works in the genres of mysteries, thrillers, and horror. How do these writers incorporate historical and modern traumas into their work, deal with literary stereotypes, and help shape perceptions of contemporary Indigenous communities?

We Measure the Earth with Our Bodies: In Exile from Tibet

May 7 | 11:30 am | More information

Tsering Yangzom Lama will discuss her debut novel, We Measure the Earth With Our Bodies, a finalist for the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize. The multi-generational epic draws on Lama’s own family history as it traces sixty years of a Tibetan refugee family and their journey to Canada.

Horror: History That Goes Bump in the Night

May 7 | 2:30 pm | More information

History comes back to haunt the living in this panel on contemporary horror, and Jessica Johns joins to discuss her debut novel, Bad Cree. In the novel, a young woman’s nightmarish dreams begin to manifest, and it soon becomes clear that the forces of industrial intrusion on Native land are not only relevant – they’re malevolent.