History Club Updates: Week of February 22

History Club Updates:

Our next History Club Meeting will be Thursday, March 4th at 11:30am in room R306. Everyone is welcome to attend. Please find the minutes from our last meeting attached.

Don't forget about our Potluck & Board Games Night on Monday, March 1st, 2010 at 5:30pm in the Owl's Nest Lounge (H102). Bring some food to share and any fun board games you may have. Bring a friend!

Other Events:

The Canadian International Council (CIC), along with Nipissing University, will be welcoming Globe and Mail Columnist Jeffery Simpson to North Bay for a special talk entitled "Sink or Swim: Keeping Canada Afloat in the New Global Economy." The talk begins at 7:00pm in the Nipissing University Theater. The cost is $5, $2 for students and free for Members of the CIC (please pay at the door).

Jeffrey Simpson on Canada and the Global Economy - March 2nd

Dr. Robin Gendron writes:

On Tuesday, March 2nd, the Nipissing Branch of the Canadian International Council and Nipissing University will be hosting a talk by Jeffrey Simpson entitled “Sink or Swim? Keeping Canada Afloat in the New Global Economy.” The talk will discuss the political and economic challenges that Canada faces in prospering within the dynamic global environment of the 21st century.

Jeffrey Simpson is the national affairs columnist for The Globe and Mail and has won all three of Canada's leading literary prizes -- the Governor-General's award for non-fiction book writing, the National Magazine Award for political writing, and the National Newspaper Award for column writing (twice). He has also won the Hyman Solomon Award for excellence in public policy journalism. In January, 2000, he became an Officer of the Order of Canada. He has published eight books, including most recently The Friendly Dictatorship: Reflections on Canadian Democracy (2001) and Hot Air: Meeting Canada’s Climate Change Challenge (2007) with Mark Jaccard and Nic Rivers.

The talk will be held from 7 – 8:30 pm in the Theatre at Nipissing University (room F213). Tickets are $5 at the door, $2 for students, and free for members of the Canadian International Council.

The Canadian International Council is a non-partisan, non-profit organisation dedicated to fostering the engagement of Canadians in Canadian foreign policy and in international issues generally.

For more information about this event or the CIC, please contact Robin Gendron at 474-3450 ext 4395 or robing@nipissingu.ca.

Nipissing University MA students-- past and present -- excell

On Thursday through Saturday past, current and former students in our MA program in history took part in the New Frontiers in Graduate History Conference at York University. The program (previous link) is very impressive, but what is more impressive is that three of our people did themselves proud in such company, as knowledgeable eye-witnesses affirm. You are cordially invited to look here and see what Jennifer Evans, Michael Del Vecchio, Morgann Rymall and Lindsay Robinson were up to.

Bruce Meyer on Great Books, Today!

Bob Pipe writes:

Nipissing University is pleased to welcome author and poet Bruce Meyer to campus for a special lecture titled What’s so Great About the Great Books on February 11, at 4 p.m. in room H105. Meyer will also give a poetry reading on February 12, at 11 a.m. in room H108.

Meyer is the author of 30 books, the most recent of which are the poetry collections Mesopotamia, Dog Days, and Bread. The Golden Thread: A Reader’s Journey Through the Great Books was a national bestseller in 2000. His broadcasts on the Great Books are the CBC’s bestselling audio cd series. He is a professor of English at Georgian College where he teaches in the Laurentian University BA Program. Meyer has recently been named as a top ten finalist in TV Ontario’s Best Lecturer Series.

The lecture is part of Nipissing’s English department Speaker Series. It is free of charge and all are welcome.

From the History Club

History Club Updates:

Our next club meeting will be Thursday, February 11th, 2010 at 11:30 in R306. Please find minutes from our last meeting attached.

Don't forget about our Potluck Dinner and Board Games Night on Monday, March 1st at 5:30pm in the Owl's Nest Lounge (H102). Bring some food to share, your favourite board game (I know I'll be bringing RISK) and your friends!

Mark your calendars! Our 3rd Annual Platonic Symposium is tentatively scheduled for Monday, March 29th. Tickets will once again be $5 each, for a great night of discussion, drinks and food. This event is joint with the Nipissing University Student Political Involvement Network.

Upcoming book from Dean Bavington

Dean Bavington is an assistant professor and Canada Research Chair in Environmental History at Nipissing University. His first book, from University of British Columbia Press in May, will have a big impact on resource debates.

Here's the publisher's blurb:

Managed Annihilation: An Unnatural History of the Newfoundland Cod Collapse
Dean L.Y. Bavington

The Newfoundland and Labrador cod fishery was once the most successful commercial ground fishery in the world. When it collapsed in 1992, fishermen, scholars, and scientists pointed to failures in management such as uncontrolled harvesting as likely culprits. Managed Annihilation makes the case that the idea of natural resource management itself was the problem. The collapse occurred when the fisheries were state managed and still, nearly two decades later, there is no recovery in sight. Although the collapse raised doubts among policy-makers about their ability to understand, predict, and control nature, their ultimate goal of control through management has not wavered – it has simply been transferred from wild fish to fishermen and farmed cod.

Unlike other efforts to make sense of the tragedy of the commons of the northern cod fishery and its halting recovery, Bavington calls into question the very premise of management and managerial ecology and offers a critical explanation that seeks to uncover alternatives obscured by this dominant way of relating to nature.
– Bonnie McCay, Department of Human Ecology, Rutgers University

Next History Seminar: Dreaming of Nipissing: Friday, Feb 5, 2:30 pm, A226

From Dr. James Murton:

Following from the nearly soldout panel discussion of this past Friday, the History Department Seminar Series is proud to announce our second panel discussion of the year, "Dreaming of Nipissing."

The discussion which will feature Sal Renshaw, Charlotte Innerd, and Jeff Dech on the subject of "where we go from here" -- their own takes on the future of Nipissing.

Sal Renshaw is a member of the Departments of Religions & Cultures and Gender Equality and Social Justice, and is well known to anyone involved with Nipissing for her tireless work as Chair of GESJ, with the Women's Centre and International Women's Week, and on a bewildering number of committees. Charlotte Innerd is Manager Reference and Information Services at the Education Centre Library and brings the perspective of the library to our discussion. Jeff Dech is Forest Bioproducts Research Chair in the Department of Biology and a former Nipissing undergraduate. Please come and join in on discussing the future of our university!

Friday, Feb 5, 2:30 pm, A226.

Refreshments will be served.

For more information go www.nipissingu.ca/history and click on Upcoming Events.

See you there!