Canadian Studies Announcements

In This Issue:

Program News

• Three new Hildebrand Fellows take on summer research projects:
• AJ Kurdi studies ethnic minority LGBTQI community organizing in Quebec
• Lydia Mathews investigates links between public health reform, race, and citizenship in 20th-century Canada
• Matt Kovac places Canada’s Irish republican activists within a global anti-colonial movement

News from Canada

• Former Cal swimmer to represent Canada at Paris Olympics
• Nobel Laureate Alice Munro, “Master of the Short Story”, dies at 94

External Events

• DML Canada Day Picnic
• Friends of Canada at SF Pride

PROGRAM NEWS

The Canadian Studies Program is pleased to announce three more recipients of our Edward E. Hildebrand Graduate Research Fellowship for Summer 2024.

AJ Kurdi is a PhD student in the Department of Ethnic Studies, with a designated emphasis in Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies. His dissertation research is a comparative study on different forms of ethnic minority queer organizing in Budapest, Montreal, and Paris, and how they shape the priorities and political orientations of mainstream LGBTQI movements, laws and public policies in Europe and North America. Historically, this movement has largely represented the interests of white, middle-class and up gay men, but most are now more explicitly taking an “intersectional” approach.

AJ’s Hildebrand Fellowship will support his travel to Montreal this month to attend the Fierté Montréal pride festival. There, he will conduct interviews to probe the relationship between certain queer Arab activist organizations and the broader LGBTQI movement in Quebec. While Canada presents as a progressive country, significant divisions nevertheless remain between large, national organizations and minority groups.

AJ holds degrees from the Central European University, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, and Corvinus University of Budapest. His previous work focuses broadly on queer social movement debates and transnational networks in West Asia, and the various forms of discrimination faced by queer Romani people in Central and Eastern Europe. He has published in the Journal of Israeli History, Critical Romani Studies, and International Journal of Discrimination and the Law.

Lydia Mathews is a PhD candidate in the Department of History. Her research focuses on the intersections of gender, public health, and immigration at the turn of the 20th century. She is particularly interested in the work of settlement houses and milk committees in urban spaces, and how immigrant women engaged with reform projects and could lay claim to social citizenship through their mothering and hygienic practices.

Lydia’s research on Canada will explore connections between clean milk initiatives and constructions of whiteness within the transnational history of the settlement movement. Her research will center on Montreal’s Iverley Settlement, the city’s Council of Social Agencies, and the Milk Commission of the Montreal Medico-Chirurgical Society. The Hildebrand Fellowship will support her travel to Montreal to conduct archival research at McGill University and the Université du Québec.

Lydia holds a bachelor’s degree in English and History from Vassar College and master’s degrees in Women’s and Gender Studies and History from Brandeis University.

Matthew Kovac is a PhD candidate in the Department of History. His research focuses on anticolonial struggles and transnational solidarity movements in the 20th century. His dissertation examines the role of solidarity committees in building alliances between Irish republicans and the Palestinian and South African national liberation movements during the 1960s-1980s.

Matt’s Hildebrand Fellowship will support archival research in Vancouver and Montreal, where he will investigate the activities of local Irish solidarity committees. Matthew’s fellowship will allow him to explore the understudied role that Canadian actors played in this global revolutionary network, including their relationships with First Nations activists and Québécois nationalists.

Matt holds a BS in Journalism and History from Northwestern University and an MSt in Modern British and European History from the University of Oxford. He previously worked as communications manager for the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights in San Francisco.

NEWS FROM CANADA

Former Cal Swimmer to Represent Canada at Paris Olympics

Team Canada will have a Berkeley alumnus on its Olympic team at this year’s summer Olympics. Cal Athletics recently announced that former All-American swimmer Jeremy Bagshaw (Class of 2015) will represent Canada in Paris in just a few months, one of six Berkeley alumni who have so far qualified for the games.

Bagshaw was born in Singapore, but grew up in Victoria, BC. While attending Berkeley, he helped the Golden Bears win the 2014 NCAA championship. Bagshaw is currently attending medical school at the University of Limerick in Ireland.

Bagshaw earned his spot on Canada’s 4×200 relay team with a fourth-place finish at Canada’s Olympic trials. Bagshaw is a three-time bronze medal winner at the Pan-American Games and won bronze at the 2022 Commonwealth Games.

Nobel Laureate Alice Munro, “Master of the Short Story”, Dies at 94

The world of Canadian letters lost one of its leading lights last month with the passing of renowned author Alice Munro, who was the first Canadian to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature. Lauded as the “master of the contemporary short story” by the Nobel Committee, Munro remained one of Canada’s most influential living authors for over fifty years.

Munro was born in Wingham, Ontario, to a farming family with deep roots in the region. Her intimate familiarity with the region shows in her work, almost all of which is set in rural Ontario. She began writing as a teenager, and had her first piece published in 1950 while she was studying English at university. However, she achieved only minor recognition until her first short story collection, Dance of the Happy Shades, was published in 1968. Munro’s family committments influenced her choice to work in short stories, as she found it difficult to find the time or energy for longer projects while raising her children. Nevertheless, the stories she produced received international acclaim, and were published in magazines such as The Atlantic, Harper’s Magazine, The New Yorker, and The Paris Review.

Munro achieved particular recognition for her deft handling of human complexity, particularly female characters across various stages of life. She crafted psychologically penetrating sketches of ordinary people, which have often been favorably compared to those of the great Russian author Anton Chekhov.

Munro was a three-time winner of the Governor General’s Award of Fiction, a two-time Giller Prize recipient, and recipient of the 2009 Man Booker Prize. She received the Nobel Prize in 2013. The Committee praised her ability for writing stories that included the “entire epic complexity of the novel in just a few short pages”. She retired from writing after her Nobel win and lived quietly at her Port Hope, ON home until her death.

Learn more surprising facts about Alice Munro’s life here, via the CBC.

EXTERNAL EVENTS

DML Canada Day Picnic

Sat., June 29 | 11:00 am | San Mateo, CA | RSVP

Celebrate Canada’s 157th birthday at the DML’s annual Canada Day Picnic. Enjoy a family-friendly afternoon of games and activities for all ages and a delicious BBQ. Meet new #sfbaycanadians and reconnect with old friends as we embrace our heritage and celebrate with patriotic pride. Remember to wear your red & white Canada gear, Alum colors or support your favorite Canadian sports team. Bring a lawn chair and enjoy open space and Bay views.

Friends of Canada at SF Pride

Sun., June 30 | 11:00 am | San Francisco, CA | RSVP

The Consulate General of Canada in San Francisco cordially invites Canadians and friends of Canada in the San Francisco Bay Area to march with them in the 54th annual San Francisco Pride Parade. All are welcome to join with friends and family to celebrate diversity and to support the 2SLGBTQI+ members of our communities in California, at home in Canada, and abroad.

The assembly location and time will be announced approximately one week prior to the parade. Please register via Eventbrite to receive updates We hope to see you there!

Canadian Studies Program

213 Philosophy Hall #2308

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