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Canadian Studies Announcements
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In This Issue:
News from Berkeley
• Cal coach Mo Saatara trains Canada’s Olympic champions
• Big Give is next week! (March 13)
Academic Opportunities
• Rita Ross Undergraduate Prize in Canadian Studies
• Nominations needed for ACSUS student awards
Upcoming Event
• Indigenous Confinement on the Canadian Plains
Other Events
• Canada, US, + Paths Forward: A NorCal Fulbright World Forum Salon
• Leanne Betasamosake Simpson | Theory of Water |
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Cal Coach Mo Saatara Trains Canada’s Olympic Champions
The Cal Alumni Association recently published a profile of Mo Saatara, the UC Berkeley coach who has brought global renown to the university’s hammer throw program and trained some of Canada’s top athletes along the way.
Since joining Cal Athletics in 2013, Saatara has made the university a powerhouse in hammer throw and built an international reputation as a coach. Athletes from around the world have come to Berkeley to train with him. Among these are two British Columbians who have gone on to burnish Canada’s Olympic roster. Alumna Camryn Rogers, the reigning World and Olympic women’s champion, chose to attend UC Berkeley specifically to be coached by Saatara. Rowan Hamilton, who competed on the men’s team at the Paris Olympics, likewise transferred to Berkeley his senior year to finish his collegiate career under Saatara’s guidance.
What is Saatara’s secret? His athletes credit his flexible, individualized coaching style. Unlike other coaches that use a standardized method, Saatara works hard to understand what works best for each individual athlete. Among Saatara’s first priorities was developing a culture of excellence, where each athlete has not only high expectations but the support and knowledge to meet them. Rogers praises his “willingness to learn and change along with his athletes” and his team spirit. She also recalls how Saatara stayed by her side despite a disappointing start to her career. Rogers credits Saatara’s unwavering faith with helping her develop into the world champion she is today.
Photograph: Mo Saatara with Rowan Hamilton. Courtesy Cal Athletics, Meg Kelly. |
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Big Give is Next Week! (March 13)
Next Thursday, join our community in helping Canadian Studies thrive at Berkeley by making a gift to the program during Big Give! As a donor-supported program, friends like you cover 90% of our activities. That’s public lectures, student research grants, and social events that bring together the Canadian community. We aim to inspire curiosity and share knowledge about Canada and its people. Your support is a powerful endorsement of that work. So mark your calendars, and get ready to give big! |
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| Rita Ross Undergraduate Prize in Canadian Studies
Deadline: May 9, 2025
The Canadian Studies Program is currently accepting applications and nominations for our Rita Ross Prize. The award recognizes an outstanding original research paper or other project on a Canadian topic, produced by an undergraduate for a UC Berkeley class or independent study program.
Awards are open to students in good academic standing, in any college or discipline, and includes a cash prize of $300. For more information, click here. |
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Nominations Needed for ACSUS Student Awards
The Association of Canadian Studies in the United States (ACSUS) is seeking nominees for the following student awards. For further details and submission guidelines, please click on the links below.
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Indigenous Confinement on the Canadian Plains
Tues., March 11 | 12:30 pm | 223 Philosophy Hall | RSVP
In 1867, Canada broke away from Britain and began to chart a new path across the continent. As immigrants pushed deeper onto the prairies, the Canadian government began to devote far more attention to designing and implementing policies that would allow them to control and confine Indigenous people. Hunger forced the Cree, Metis, and Siksikaitsitapi onto reserves. Once there, Northwest Mounted Police officers restricted their mobility, limiting the ways they could hunt, fish, or visit relatives. Canadian prisons confined those who resisted assimilation. Collectively these approaches transformed the prairies – recasting them from a geography controlled by Indigenous nations to one dominated by the emerging Canadian state.
About the Speaker
Dr. Benjamin Hoy is an associate professor of history at the University of Saskatchewan. He received his BA from the University of Guelph and his MA and PhD from Stanford University. His current research examines the creation, demarcation, and enforcement of the Canadian-United States border between 1775 and 1939, exploring the extension of federal power and its uneven impact on disparate groups and Indigenous communities. His first book, A Line of Blood and Dirt: Creating the Canada-United States Border Across Indigenous Lands, received the 2022 Governor General’s History Award for Scholarly Research, Canada’s most prestigious historical prize.
If you require an accommodation to fully participate in this event, please let us know at least 7 days in advance. |
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| Canada, US, + Paths Forward: A NorCal Fulbright World Forum Salon
Thurs., March 6 | 5:30 pm | San Francisco, CA | Buy tickets
The Consulate General of Canada in San Francisco and the Northern California Fulbright Association are partnering, alongside Saintsbury Wines (Napa), to host an evening of lively discussion about the future of US/Canada relations. The evening will feature a conversation between Marie Alnwick, Consul for Foreign Policy and Diplomacy, and Leslie Carol Roberts, author and journalist, whose work has appeared in The Believer, Fast Company, and many others. Audience questions will be featured as a key part of this World Forum Salon. |
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Leanne Betasamosake Simpson | Theory of Water
Thurs., March 13 | 5:00 pm | 315 Wheeler Hall
Theory of Water uses Michi Saagiig Nishnaabe consciousness to dismantle and think beyond the present moment. In the face of on-going genocides, extinct glaciers, police killings, children alone in cages at borders, the resurgence of fascist states, and a dying planet, Simpson asks what does it mean, as Rebecca Belmore asks us in Wave Sound, to listen to water? What does it mean, as Dionne Brand writes through her diaspora consciousness and by inventorying the quotidian disasters of our time, in her epic poem Nomenclature, “to believe in water”? Using Nishnaabe origin stories, poetry, and thinking alongside writers and artists, these essays turn to water as a generative space for worldmaking against empire, within the network of life that makes up this planet. Theory of Water immerses the reader into water as a liminal space resistant to regiment, and considers future formations for life beyond our current collective imaginings.
Leanne Betasamosake Simpson is a Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg scholar, writer, and musician. She is the author of eight previous books, including the novel Noopiming: A Cure for White Ladies, which was short listed for the Dublin Literary prize and the Governor General’s award for fiction. Leanne’s album, Theory of Ice, released by You’ve Changed Records was released in 2021 and short-listed for the Polaris Prize and she was the 2021 winner of the Prism Prize’s Willie Dunn Award. Her latest project Theory of Water will be published by Knopf Canada/Haymarket books in the spring of 2025. Leanne is a member of Alderville First Nation.
This event his hosted by the Department of Rhetoric and is cosponsored by the Canadian Studies Program. |
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A final reminder to join us for a formal presentation of the King Charles III Coronation Medal to Branch President, Michael Barbour. The event is scheduled for Monday, 10 March at 11am at the Canadian Consulate in San Francisco – located at 580 California Street in Suite 1400.
Royal Canadian Legion, US Branch #25 