The European Studies Program is requesting expressions of interest to teach in the 2024-2025 academic year. Submissions should include a cover letter and a copy of your curriculum vitae.
Announcements
UVic’s new School of Languages, Linguistics and Cultures will launch in September 2024 and will integrate the Departments of French and Francophone Studies, Germanic and Slavic Studies, Hispanic and Italian Studies, and Linguistics. The new School of Languages, Linguistics and Cultures (SLLC) will provide a home for interdisciplinary cooperation and collaboration while protecting the integrity and identity of the distinct disciplines of the original units.
Researching music festivals and raves through the lenses of queer settler colonialism and Indigenous decolonization, Eric Willis resists the expectation that queer settlers will uphold the state and its power systems—heteropatriarchy, white supremacy, capitalism.
UVic’s new School of Languages, Linguistics and Cultures will launch in September 2024 and will integrate the Departments of French and Francophone Studies, Germanic and Slavic Studies, Hispanic and Italian Studies, and Linguistics.
Honours English student Braedon Lowey is working with Royal Society of Canada Fellow and English professor Alison Chapman on her SSHRC-funded project, Digital Victorian Periodical Poetry, to improve the discoverability of queer poetry and poets.
We are proud to announce that professor Zhongping Chen (陳忠平) (History) has been named Faculty Fellow for the 2024-2025 academic year.
Phoenix Charlie is a 39-year-old Indigenous student who grew up on Vancouver Island and came to UVic to study social justice in 2018. Last year, after learning about the Indigenous Studies program at UVic, they were inspired to pursue a Bachelor of Arts in Indigenous Studies with a minor in Social Justice Studies.
A second-year student is using her research skills and UVic's digital humanities tools to edit an open-access modern edition of Mucedorus, one of the early modern period's most popular plays.
The Humanities staff and faculty awards recognize those who make outstanding contributions to the Faculty’s mission and community.
Have room in your schedule for one more course? Looking to try something new? Here’s a list of every no- or low-barrier course offered in the Faculty of Humanities this year, organized by theme.
At a small TEDx-style conference hosted at UVic earlier this summer, a dozen or so undergraduate students took to the podium to share with the audience the capstone research projects they had created in an upper-year Humanities course, HUMA 495: Sharing Humanities Research. Unbeknownst to the audience, this was the first-ever cohort to complete the Humanities Scholars program — a rather singular academic program launched in September 2020 that promises exceptional students unique learning opportunities, hands-on experiences and direct mentorship from award-winning faculty.
Ahead of the International Transgender Day of Visibility (March 31), we the undersigned unequivocally support and stand for the protection and promotion of the human rights and freedoms of transgender, nonbinary, intersex and Two-Spirit people locally and across the globe.
As the climate crisis deepens, so too do ideas about what this emergency means, who it impacts most, and how best to address it. Today, for International Women’s Day, we invited Simi Kang—a mixed Sikh American community advocate, artist, and assistant professor in the Department of Gender Studies—to reflect on the meaning of the day and its theme, ‘embrace equity,’ for women living in regions that are negatively affected by climate change.
It was an unexpected exchange. Temoseng Elliott, a Coast Salish artist and member of the W?S?NE? and l?k?????n Nations, had accepted a commission to carve five new award plaques for the Faculty of Humanities, and I received a last-minute invitation to drop off some paperwork with a few other colleagues at his family carving shed in WJO?E?P (Tsartlip) territory.
Five new award plaques carved by Coast Salish artist and WJO?E?P (Tsartlip) Nation member Temoseng Elliott continue many traditions passed on by his father, master carver Temosen-THUT Charles Elliott – including the tradition of carving award plaques for the Faculty of Humanities.
We are proud to announce that assistant professor Tri Phuong has been named Faculty Fellow for the 2023-24 academic year.
The Humanities staff and faculty awards recognize those who make outstanding contributions to the Faculty’s mission and community. Recipients of these awards have distinguished themselves by advancing the Faculty’s mission to enrich human dignity, provoke critical inquiry, engage myriad voices and inspire innovative expression.
The Humanities welcomes three new members to the Faculty this January: Jennifer Sauter will be the new Assistant to the Chair to support Germanic and Slavic Studies and Erynne M. Gilpin and Mick Scow will be splitting an Assistant Teaching Professor position within the Indigenous Studies department.
It’s with great pleasure that we welcome 7 faculty and 5 staff to the Humanities community and share with you a quick glance into their work and interests. Below you’ll also find a list of retirees, whom we thank for their service and bid a fond farewell as they begin the next chapter of their journey!
Throughout Rosa Castro’s 35 years at the 番茄社区—22 of which she worked in Facilities Management, with 14 of those in the Clearihue building—she has worked hard to maintain our built environment with professionalism and good humour.
Humanities philosopher Colin Macleod has been recognized for his contributions to the philosophy of education by North America’s oldest and largest professional organization for philosophers. This month, the American Philosophical Association (APA) announced that Macleod has won the Israel Scheffler Prize in Philosophy of Education.
As the Russian invasion of Ukraine continues with no end in sight, Ukrainian students are increasingly impacted by the war and all the uncertainty it brings. In response, the Faculty of Humanities has created an emergency fellowship for doctoral students currently studying at a Ukrainian university, offering financial support, peer and faculty mentors, and an office space at UVic to safely complete their degree.
This spring, the highly acclaimed Landscapes of Injustice project — which catapulted the dispossession and displacement of Japanese Canadians in the 1940s and 1950s into the national conversation — formally wrapped up after a seven-year run that resulted in the capstone "Broken Promises" exhibit, eponymous book (McGill-Queen's), online database and complementary website. Now, the tried-and-true concept behind this project is going global thanks to a $2.5 million grant from the Social Sciences and Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) that has been matched with an additional $3.3 million in contributions from project partners, which will fund a new research network entitled Past Wrongs, Future Choices (PWFC).
As we reflect upon the disturbing findings of The Antisemitism Worldwide Report 2021 and the Anti-Defamation League’s Audit of Antisemitic Incidents 2021, it has become clear to us that it is no longer possible to remain neutral in the face of an increasingly assertive and pervasive antisemitic and racist discourse.
As Lydia Toorenburgh sat on a bench outside the Clearihue building in May 2015, having just completed their first year of studies at UVic, they reflected on their experiences as an Otipemisiwak (Cree-Métis person) in the classroom and on campus, imagining the changes they would implement to improve the experiences of other Indigenous students if given the chance.
Today, on International Women’s Day we explicitly recognize the many remarkable women in our Faculty and at #UVic who work daily to #breakthebias against women across the globe and forge a path toward a more just, sustainable future. In honour of all the stories that aren’t being told, we share with you the work of five women from our faculty whose teaching and research inspires, provokes, engages and enriches those around them.
As the crisis in Ukraine rapidly escalated last week following the Russian invasion, an impromptu teach-in was organized by UVic faculty on March 2, 2022, to help answer questions about what is happening and why.
Through empathy, courage and a keen intellect, 4th year Philosophy student Madeleine Kenyon has turned her own vulnerabilities into a superpower that has propelled her to the forefront of student-led mental health initiatives at UVic and earned her a prestigious 3M National Student Fellowship.
Model student. Independent thinker. Industrious. Creative, caring, kind and generous. Quietly confident. Humble. Funny. Committed to making positive change in the world. These are just a few of the ways that Kai has been described by faculty members in support of their nomination for the 3M National Student Fellowship.
A special preview of the feature-length film Framing Agnes is being hosted by the 番茄社区 on March 17, 2022 for community members and select guests, ahead of its UK and Canadian premieres this spring. Directed by Gender Studies professor and multiple award-winning filmmaker Chase Joynt, Framing Agnes draws from never-before-seen case files of patients from an infamous UCLA study about sex disorders in the 1950s and rallies an all-star cast of transgender actors to resurrect the untold history of a group who redefined gender in the mid-twentieth century. The film world-premiered in January at the Sundance Film Festival, where it received the NEXT Innovator and Audience Award prizes and garnered wide critical acclaim. Two back-to-back screenings will be held at Cinecenta, each followed by a live Q&A with Joynt. This event is organized by the 番茄社区’s Faculty of Humanities and Office of the Vice President Research and Innovation, with support from Ceremonies & Events, External Relations, Department of Gender Studies and Cinecenta.
Last week we were honoured to host sociolinguist Kelly Elizabeth Wright (U. Michigan) for a Lansdowne Lecture on the topic of Institutionalized Anti-Black Linguistics Discrimination. Due to a high volume of requests for the recording, we are publishing it here.
Twelve years and three children after completing a second master’s degree, Lucie Kotesovska fulfilled her long-held dream of returning to the academy to begin a PhD in literary studies. Now a highly acclaimed researcher with a stellar record of success, one might not believe that she had ever doubted it was possible at all.
We are proud to announce that associate professor Sonya Bird (Linguistics) has been named Faculty Fellow for the 2022-23 academic year. Bird will use the fellowship to work on her SSHRC Partnership Development project Hul’q’umi’num’ phonetic structures: Exploring paths towards fluent pronunciation.
Our Faculty’s mission is to enrich human dignity, provoke critical inquiry, engage myriad voices and inspire innovative expression — objectives that have been achieved at the university and abroad by each of this year’s award recipients, each in their own way. It is with great pleasure that we honour and celebrate waaseyaa'sin Christine Sy (Gender Studies), Charlotte Schallié (Germanic and Slavic Studies), Ruth Parrish (Indigenous Studies), Sikata Banerjee (Gender Studies), Janelle Jenstad (English), Dailyn Ramirez (English) and Michael Reed (English) for their outstanding contributions to the Faculty of the Humanities’ mission and community.
It is our pleasure to welcome 6 faculty members and 7 staff to the Humanities community, and to bid a fond farewell to 1 retiree. We are delighted to celebrate the next step in each of these individuals’ journey by sharing with you these brief summaries of their work and interests.
Four out of nine of this year’s REACH awards have been granted to members of the Humanities community, the university has just announced – a tremendous showing in the university-wide competition.
Last month we shared the great news that English PhD graduate Denae Dyck had won this year’s Governor General gold medal for best doctoral thesis at the 番茄社区. Today we turn our lens more carefully onto the research behind her dissertation — asking what interests motivated her work, how she arrived at her topic and why Victorian literature still matters.
Last month we shared the great news that English PhD graduate Denae Dyck had won this year’s Governor General gold medal for best doctoral thesis at the 番茄社区. Today we turn our lens more carefully onto the research behind her dissertation — asking what interests motivated her work, how she arrived at her topic and why Victorian literature still matters.
“I didn’t realize how much I missed seeing people and engaging with them until I came back to campus,” says 4th year French major Anabel Sargent. “And then I thought ‘This is why I love going to university and taking classes.’”
Recent English graduate Denae Dyck has been awarded the Governor General’s Gold Medal for “best doctoral thesis”—the university’s top award for graduating PhD students.
Dr. Annalee Lepp, a highly accomplished researcher, teacher and administrator who is known for her commitment to social justice and consensus-based community building, has been appointed Dean of the Faculty of Humanities for a term beginning July 1, 2021 and ending June 30, 2026. She is the first woman to serve as Dean in the Faculty’s history.
Our heartfelt thoughts go to the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation, all Indigenous communities, and Indigenous faculty, staff, and students at the University, and their families, who are grieving the 215 children whose remains were found in an unmarked grave on the grounds of the former Kamloops Residential School as well as all of the victims of Canada’s colonial and genocidal residential school system. These include the Indigenous children forced into residential schools who did not return to their families and communities, those Indigenous children who are still unaccounted for, and those Indigenous residential school survivors whose lives were and continue to be deeply impacted by the many forms of violence they had to endure.
This is an important week for you and for us – your graduation is an incredible accomplishment that takes years of hard work and perseverance. We at the Faculty of Humanities are #HumsProud of you and all that you have achieved during your time at the university!
We note with sadness and respect the passing of Germanic and Slavic Studies Professor Emeritus Zelimir (Bob) Juricic, who was born on April 1, 1935 and passed away on February 18, 2021. In honour of his life and work as a member of the Humanities community, we share a statement provided by his family.
Congratulations to the class of 2020! Check out our celebration message from Acting Dean Annalee Lepp, as well as stories featuring fellow grads and videos from the departments of History and Linguistics. Your graduation is a major accomplishment and we are proud of everything that you have accomplished during your time in the faculty and at UVic.
For more than twenty years, Associate Professor of English Janelle Jenstad has quietly and dedicatedly laid the foundations for a revolution in digital scholarship and collaborative practices that promises to shape Humanities research for decades to come. This month her contributions were recognized by the Canadian Society of Digital Humanities / Société Canadienne des Humanités Numériques (CSDH-SCHN), which granted her the Outstanding Achievement Award for Computing in the Arts and the Humanities — the esteemed group’s equivalent of a lifetime achievement award.
It is with privilege and gratitude that we announce the creation of the Victoria Nikkei Cultural Society Award for undergraduate students. Open to all undergraduate students at the 番茄社区, this endowed award will support innovative and creative research in Japanese Canadian history, art, culture and language.
English-speaking Canadians looking to boost their bilingualism with a post-secondary education in French as a second language (FSL), rejoice — the department of French at the 番茄社区 has just announced a total of $90,000 in new bursaries for the 2021/22 academic year.
Two Humanities instructors are being widely praised for a dynamic new mentoring program that led the Faculty through the difficult transition to online learning necessitated by the pandemic earlier this spring. With over a decade of online teaching experience between them, Assistant Professors Janni Aragon, who teaches in Gender Studies, Political Science and Technology & Society, and Sara Humphreys, who teaches in the Academic and Technical Writing Program, have worked tirelessly to support faculty who are less comfortable or experienced teaching in an online environment.
An endlessly active and engaged researcher and author who has been with the department of Philosophy since 1993, Thomas Heyd is also a polyglot who is fluent in English, German, Spanish and French, and semi-fluent in Portuguese and Italian. His article “COVID-19 and climate change in the times of the Anthropocene”, very quickly published in the highly respected journal The Anthropocene Review (in its ‘Online first’ feature) in the fall, because of its relevance at the present moment, is also appearing in the print version soon (in January 2021). We sat down with him last week to learn more about this vital and timely work.
Today, on the 146th anniversary of Winston Churchill’s birthday, the Faculty of Humanities is pleased to announce the creation of the Churchill Foundation Vancouver Island Barry Gough Scholarship in English. This scholarship will support academically outstanding undergraduate English students in their upper years of study who have demonstrated leadership, innovation and determination in their academic work and through community engagement.
When recent Gender Studies graduate Sage Lacerte speaks, she chooses her words with great care. “There's an ailment in our country, which is violence and oppression. And the healing medicine of that is talking about it with each other, being in relationships with each other and showing each other love,” she says. As the National Youth Ambassador for the Moose Hide Campaign, a grassroots movement started by her father and sister in 2011 to engage men and boys across Canada to stand up against violence towards women and children, Lacerte has carried this message across the country and back again, addressing audiences large and small.
Enrich, engage, provoke, inspire. These four values are not only the pillars of our mission to open minds and transform the world. They also describe several ways in which this year’s Faculty award winners have uplifted the UVic community over the last year.
If you recognize this friendly face, it’s probably because you’ve spent a bit of time in the Clearihue building, where for the last 8 years, Stacee Greig has worked in Custodial Services. Following in the footsteps of her father, who worked at UVic for 35 years, and her brother, who worked here for 30, Stacee has done her family name proud through her formidable work ethic and unwavering attention to detail. In her own 22 years of service at the 番茄社区, she has gained a reputation as a dedicated employee with a warm presence and cordial nature. We sat down with Stacee for a long-overdue conversation to learn a bit about her and her work at the University.
In the 2020 US Open tennis tournament, Naomi Osaka, the world’s number three-ranked player on the WTA tour, wore a different face mask to each of the seven rounds she played in. Each mask bore the name of a Black American who had faced police violence: Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Trayvon Martin, George Floyd, Elijah McClain, Philando Castile and Tamir Rice. On the last day of the tournament, a journalist from ESPN asked her what message she had wanted to send by wearing masks with these names. Her response came in the form of a question: “What was the message you got?” In the wake of anti-racist movements across North America, including the direct action on September 9th and 10th associated with the US-led #ScholarStrike and its Canadian counterpart #ScholarStrikeCanada, we might also ask: “What was the message you got?”
As the Tier II Canada Research Chair in global and comparative history here at the 番茄社区, Neilesh Bose is always on the move.
When it was announced in May that the vast majority of fall courses and programs would be offered online, many students, staff and faculty speculated about how exactly that might look. The simple fact is that this move online is virtually unprecedented. Courses have been taught online before, but not all of these courses and certainly not all at once. So much of university life has traditionally taken place on campus, in classrooms or at the BiblioCafé; in the McPherson library or around the Petch fountain outside its main entrance; on the field or upon a bench – that is, in person. With those opportunities suddenly limited, many wondered: how will we stay connected with one another?
As the calendar turned to July, three of our grad advisors ended their terms: Catherine Leger (French), Elena Pnevmonidou (Germanic and Slavic Studies) and Sara Beam (History) . Between them, they have amassed over 12 years of experience supporting graduate students and graduate programming in Humanities. This wealth of experience presents an ideal opportunity for us to gain insight into and advice on this central Faculty role, and so I asked them to share the lessons learned, the insights gained and the challenges faced.
Historian Wendy Wickwire’s book, At the Bridge: James Teit and an Anthropology of Belonging, has received numerous accolades since it was published last year. The book most recently won this year’s Canada Prize in the Humanities and Social Sciences, from the Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, and the Canadian Historical Association’s Clio BC award. Wickwire, an emerita professor in the Department of History, spent three decades researching James Teit, a prolific ethnographer and advocate for Indigenous Peoples’ rights. She talks to Stephanie Harrington about bringing the story of this little-known historical figure to the fore.
Have a burning question about Zoom or Gradebook? If you call UVic’s Technology Integrated Learning, you might hear English major Kailin Gillis’s voice on the other line. Gillis is completing her second co-op placement as an educational technology assistant, a job in which she helps UVic students, staff and faculty navigate and troubleshoot the technological tools available for learning and teaching.
The global upheaval caused by COVID-19 has highlighted a need for academics to find ways to share their research quickly, freely and with large audiences. But open scholarship continues to pose significant hurdles for Canadian researchers. A new, interdisciplinary seven-year project seeks to overcome those challenges.
A Q&A with Historian David Zimmerman
Over the last week, our news and social media feeds have documented the very legitimate expressions of rage, frustration, and grief in response to ongoing structural racism and systemic police/state violence against members of Black communities in the United States and Canada. These latest iterations of racism and violence are not new – they are integral of the logics of centuries-long anti-Black racism in both contexts.
In Memorium: Charlotte Girard (History)
We note with respect and solemnity the passing of French historian and Professor Emeritus Charlotte Girard.
Despite the upheaval and uncertainty that we’ve all faced in recent weeks, the Faculty of Humanities is committed to moving as many summer courses online as possible, ensuring that our students can progress through their degree safely from home.
Last winter, undergraduate Linguistics and Greek and Roman Studies student Maggie Easton left the comfort of Ring Road to gain hands-on experience in Greece, earning academic credit while taking courses and visiting important cultural and historical sites across the country. Now back home and able to reflect on her experiences, it’s apparent that what started as an intellectual journey has become, for her, one of personal growth and exploration as well.
Philosopher Mike Raven has won this year’s Humanities Faculty Fellowship, which recognizes strong scholars who are on the cusp of finishing a major project. Raven, an associate professor in the Department of Philosophy and metaphysics specialist, will explore the question, “Is there a viable notion of social essence?” Here, Raven explains why social essence is a controversial, but worthwhile field of study.
An international project led by Germanic and Slavic Studies Chair Charlotte Schallié received extensive media coverage, including the front of the "Arts" section in the national edition of the Globe and Mail.
Robert “Lucky” Budd could claim any number of titles to describe his eclectic career—musician, audio preservationist, digital archivist, oral historian, producer, author and storyteller. Regardless of the project he’s working on, a desire to tell stories has been central to his work. The philosophy, Greek and Roman Studies and history alumnus will receive this year’s Distinguished Alumni Award for the Faculty of Humanities on Feb. 4 during UVic Alumni Week.
Historian Mariel Grant was featured in a national story by Canadian Press on the British royal family.
Rachel Cleves joins CBC's "North by Northwest" to discuss archival research and UVic's upcoming Humanities Literacy Week.
In a feature story in the Globe and Mail, Audrey Yap discusses the humanities course she created that brings together UVic students and incarcerated students from Wilkinson Road jail. Students Kathleen Fox and Hanum Yoon-Henderson comment on their experience as part of the class.
Six new faculty members have joined the Humanities.
How did Ukraine land in the middle of an American political drama? History and Germanic and Slavic Studies Professor Serhy Yekelchyk was interviewed by the New York Times about the unfolding drama in Ukraine.
Nearly five decades ago, sti’tum’at Ruby Peter of the Quamichan First Nation made a daily trip from Duncan, driving north to Nanaimo to collect a passenger, and then onto the 番茄社区. She was among six Hul’q’umi’num’ educators who made the journey together for several months to attend classes at UVic, the first collaboration of its kind in North America. Their mission: to develop Indigenous language teaching training and help pass on their language to younger generations. Peter received UVic’s highest accolade—an honorary Doctor of Laws (LLD)—at the Faculty of Humanities’ spring convocation on June 10, recognizing her dedication to documenting, teaching and revitalizing the Hul'q'umi'num' language.