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Canadian Studies Announcements
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In This Issue:
Program News
• Happy Year of the Snake!
Event Tomorrow
• The “Illusion” of Childcare Reform: Childcare, Taxation, and Social Policy in Post-WWII Canada
Academic Opportunities
• Final call for papers: 2025 ACSUS Conference / Emerging Scholars Colloquium
Upcoming Events
• From the Shadows: Reflections on Sanctuary in Montreal Over the Long 20th Century
Other Events
• Rediscovering Édouard Roditi: The 20th Century of a Dazzling Mind
• Irving Tragen Lecture in Comparative Law featuring former Canadian Supreme Court Justice Rosalie Abella
• Distant Early Warning: The Arctic Under Siege | Photographs by Louie Palu
• USMCA, Nearshoring, and the Future of the North American Market
• The Loft Hour: Cecily Nicholson + Ana María Ochoa Gautier |
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Happy Year of the Snake!
We wish a very happy Lunar New Year to our friends across the United States and Canada! This week, members of North America’s East Asian diaspora are ringing in the new year with celebrations from San Francisco to Toronto (which held its first-ever New Year fireworks show this year!) Learn more about the symbolism and traditions of the Year of the Snake here. On behalf of the Canadian Studies community, we wish you a joyful and prosperous new year!
Snake image designed by Freepik. |
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The “Illusion” of Childcare Reform: Childcare, Taxation, and Social Policy in Post-WWII Canada
Tues., Jan. 28 | 12:30 pm | 223 Philosophy Hall | RSVP
The recent introduction of the Canada-Wide Early Learning and Child Care program, known as C-WELCC, has brought renewed attention to the history of childcare policy and politics in Canada. Recognized as the culmination of decades of advocacy for universal, accessible, high-quality, and inclusive childcare, C-WELCC has been transformative for many Canadian families. The initial years of its implementation have also been tumultuous. Many ask how a “universal” program can be achieved or sustained when perplexing issues remain: what about the role of private operators? How can we ensure an adequate and qualified workforce when wages are not adequately addressed in the plan? How will capacity be created to deliver services to all who need it?
History reminds us that Canadian governments have often dealt with perplexing social policy issues by using the tax system. Indeed, critics of C-WELCC often insist that its challenges are insurmountable, and that it would be more effective to give parents more tax credits than to publicly fund a childcare system. But is it? This presentation, inspired by a need for informed debate about the future of childcare policy in Canada, looks backward to consider the relationship between the tax system and childcare policy in post-WWII Canada. It does so by focusing on the Child Care Expense Deduction (CCED), introduced in 1971. The CCED, while it is often relegated to footnotes in histories of Canadian childcare, had a significant impact on the childcare policy landscape in the decades after its introduction, and has a lot to tell us about the kind of childcare services that develop when policymakers lean on the tax system to deliver social policy objectives.
About the Speaker
Dr. Lisa Pasolli is an associate professor in the Department of History at Queen’s University, Ontario. Her research explores the history of childcare, women and gender, and social policy in 20th-century Canada. Her published works include the monograph Working Mothers and the Child Care Dilemma: A History of British Columbia’s Social Policy, published by UBC Press in 2015. She is currently one of the investigators on the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada-funded Partnership Grant “Reimagining Care/Work Policies”, a multi-year and multi-disciplinary program examining childcare policies as well as parental leave and employment policies.
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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Final Call for Papers: 2025 ACSUS Conference / Emerging Scholars Colloquium
Deadline: February 1
The Association for Canadian Studies in the United States (ACSUS) will host its 27th biennial conference, November 13-16, 2025, in Seattle, WA. The conference is open to all proposals with a significant Canadian focus. ACSUS welcomes papers and panel proposals from students, professors, independent scholars, and practitioners on any Canada-related topic, especially related to the theme “Canada: Spaces of Change.”
Established scholars presenting papers at the conference must be ACSUS members in good standing.
Graduate and undergraduate students may submit papers to the ACSUS Emerging Scholars Colloquium. Colloquium participants will benefit from the opportunity to network with other students, as well as liaison and receive mentorship by faculty and senior scholars while attending portions of the ACSUS conference.
Emerging scholars accepted to the colloquium will receive guaranteed funding up to a maximum of $1,000 USD to help alleviate conference registration and travel costs.
To learn more about the ACSUS Conference and Emerging Scholars Colloquium, please click here. Prospective participants must submit an abstract of not more than 300 words (including a working title), along with a brief CV (2 pages maximum), no later than February 1, 2025. |
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From the Shadows: Reflections on Sanctuary in Montreal Over the Long 20th Century
Tues., Feb. 18 | 12:30 pm | 223 Philosophy Hall | RSVP
In the first decades of the twentieth century, the notion of sanctuary was repurposed in an effort to protect migrants and refugees from deportation and create broad-based social justice movements aimed at reforming existing immigration regimes in the United States and Canada. The New Sanctuary Movement, or what has been called the Sanctuary City Movement or Solidarity City Movement, galvanized supporters while also drawing the ire of critics. These movements also called into question the very notion of sanctuary, its purpose, and how social change might be effected.
The city of Montreal, known as Tiohtià:ke in Kanien’kéha and Mooniyang in Anishinaabemowin, declared itself a sanctuary city in 2017. However, in the face of large-scale immigration in the wake of the first Trump administration’s so-called “Muslim Ban” and other restrictions on refuge, it quickly walked back this decision, opting instead to describe itself as a “responsible city”. The ease with which both the declaration and the change in course were effected offers an opening to interrogate the meaning and substance of sanctuary in our contemporary moment as well as the many ways it has manifest historically.
This presentation explores the history of sanctuary in Montreal, a city long characterized by mobility and contested settlement, to interrogate the ways in which the seeking and forging of refuge has evolved. Using a series of case studies, this presentation underscores the shift from secrecy to public sanctuary in particular and raises questions about the extent to which contemporary sanctuary practices can address the fundamental injustices at the core of experiences of refuge and displacement.
About the Speaker
Dr. Laura Madokoro is an associate professor in the Department of History at Carleton University, unceded Algonquin territory in Ottawa, Canada. Her research explores the transnational history of migration, refuge, settler colonialism and humanitarianism in the long 20th century. Her current research focuses on the history of imperial displacements. Dr. Madokoro’s published works include Elusive Refuge: Chinese Migrants in the Cold War (Harvard, 2016) and Sanctuary in Pieces: Two Centuries of Flight, Fugitivity, and Resistance in a North American City (MQUP, 2024). She is also an active member of several research collectives including the Montreal History Group, Critical Refugee and Migration Studies Canada, and the editorial collectives for activehistory.ca and refugeehistory.org.
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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Rediscovering Édouard Roditi: The 20th Century of a Dazzling Mind
Tues., February 4 | 5:00 pm | 4229 Dwinelle Hall
Dr. Robert Schwartzwald (Université de Montréal) and Dr. Sherry Simon (Concordia University) will discuss their recent publication, Worldwise: Édouard Roditi’s Twentieth Century. The book explores the life of critic, poet, translator, and essayist Édouard Roditi. Born in Paris, Roditi was a perceptive social analyst whose outspoken views irritated American, Soviet, and French authorities by turns. From his Jewish roots, his work as a translator for the Nuremberg Trials, French decolonization, contributions to LGBTQ culture, and essays on contemporary writers, Roditi’s writings are a unique account of a life lived at the flashpoints of history and at the margins of society, providing acute and unsparing observations of literature and political events.
This event is hosted by the Department of French and is cosponsored by the Canadian Studies Program, the Jewish Studies Program, and the departments of English and History of Art. |
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Irving Tragen Lecture in Comparative Law Featuring Justice Rosalie Abella
Wed., Feb. 5 | 1:00 pm | 295 Simon Hall | RSVP
Berkeley Law invites you to a conversation with Canadian jurist, author, and former Supreme Court Justice Rosalie Silberman Abella has a career lined with endless accomplishments.
Born in a Displaced Person’s Camp in Germany, Justice Abella’s studies led her to the University of Toronto, where she graduated with her BA in 1967 and received her LLB in 1970. She practiced civil and criminal litigation before becoming Canada’s youngest and first pregnant judge in 1976 at the age of 29. She later served as Chair of the Ontario Labour Relations Board and on the Ontario Law Reform Commission until her appointment to the Ontario Court of Appeal in 1992. She became the first Jewish woman and refugee appointed as a Canadian Supreme Court judge in 2004.
Justice Abella is incredibly influential, her reach extending far beyond the courtroom. In 1984, she introduced the concept of “employment equity” through her work as the sole commissioner and author of the 1984 Royal Commission of Equality in Employment. The definition of equality she developed in the Report was adopted by the Supreme Court of Canada in its first equality decision under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Additionally, Justice Abella is a fellow of the Royal Society in Canada, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, served as a judge of the Giller Literary Prize, is a graduate of the Royal Conservatory of Music and was a chair of the Rhodes Scholar selection committee. Justice Abella has 42 honorary degrees, has written over 90 articles, and authored or co-authored four books. |
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Distant Early Warning: The Arctic Under Siege | Photographs by Louie Palu
Thurs., Feb. 6 | 6:00 pm | 121 North Gate Hall | RSVP
The Reva and David Logan Gallery of Documentary Photography proudly presents the opening reception and presentation of “Distant Early Warning: The Arctic Under Siege” by Canadian documentary photographer and filmmaker Louie Palu.
Palu has made over 40 trips to the Arctic since the early 1990’s, resulting in over 200,000 photographs, documenting the transformations taking place in this vast and isolated region. As polar ice melts, countries are scrambling to stake claims on untapped resources and new trade routes. With support from a Guggenheim Fellowship and National Geographic magazine, Palu examines the growing geopolitical tensions in the polar region and the changing life for Indigenous Inuit people amidst the warming of the planet. Read more about Palu’s challenges photographing the Arctic in GUP Magazine.
This event is hosted by the Berkeley School of Journalism and cosponsored by Canadian Studies. An RSVP is required, and a suggested donation of $10 is requested from attendees. |
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USMCA, Nearshoring, and the Future of the North American Market
Wed., Feb. 12 | 3:30 pm | San Francisco, CA | RSVP
The Bay Area Council and Bay Area Council Economic Institute invite you to a conversation with Canada’s Consul General Rana Sarkar and Mexico’s Consul General Ana Luisa Vallejo Barba on the US Mexico Canada Agreement (USMCA), nearshoring, and the future of the North American market. This is the latest in a series of forums organized by the Council to introduce its members and partners to the diplomatic representatives of our leading global business partners and to issues that will shape our future relationships.
The USMCA is up for renewal in 2026, but with the recent change in administration in Washington its provisions are on the table starting now. President Trump has threatened tariffs against both Canada and Mexico linked to both trade and non-trade issues. And a nearshoring boom in Mexico as companies shift their supply chains away from China may be at risk if an integrated North American market – supported by USMCA – is weakened. Participants will discuss these and other issues, and strategies for governments and businesses to adapt to a rapidly changing policy environment. |
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The Loft Hour: Cecily Nicholson + Ana María Ochoa Gautier
Thurs., Feb. 13 | 12:00 pm | Hearst Field Annex D23
The Berkeley Arts Research Center invites you to an informal lunchtime conversation between Canadian poet Cecily Nicholson and musicologist Ana María Ochoa Gautier, moderated by Berkeley professor Tom McEnaney.
Cecily Nicholson is an assistant professor in the School of Creative Writing at University of British Columbia and the 2024/25 Holloway Lecturer in Poetry and Poetics at UC Berkeley. She is the author of four poetry books, and has won BC’s Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize (2015), the Governor General’s Literary Award for poetry (2018), and the inaugural Phyllis Webb Memorial Reading award from the Poetry in Canada Society (2023). Her poetry addresses issues of social and environmental justice, including the displacement of Black and Indigenous Canadians.
Ana María Ochoa Gautier is a professor and chair of the Department of Music at Columbia University, and a visiting professor at UC Berkeley in Spring 2025. She writes on music and cultural policy, forced silence and armed conflict, and genealogies of listening and sound in Latin America and the Caribbean. Her book Aurality, Listening and Knowledge in Nineteenth-Century Colombia (Duke University Press, 2014) was awarded the Alan Merriam Prize by the Society for Ethnomusicology.
Tom McEnaney is an associate professor in the department of Comparative Literature and Spanish & Portuguese, and director of the Berkeley Center for New Media. His research concerns the intersection of literature, sound technology, and politics. |
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Royal Canadian Legion, US Branch #25 