Monday, February 28, 2011

English Studies Symposium --- Monday, March 7, 2011--11:30-1:00

From Dr. Ann-Barbara Graff:
You are invited to attend the annual English Studies Symposium on Monday, March 7th, at 11:30 (until about 1:00) in room H 106, and please feel free to extend this invitation to other students and faculty.

I am so pleased to be able to announce the line up.  We have five speakers this year, all presenting work from their honours seminars last term.  The symposium should be especially appealing to students who will be taking/considering honours studies.

ES Symposium Speakers
Kerry Counahan
"Refiguring Male Apotheosis in Early Modern and Restoration Female Elegies"

Patricia Oprea
"Barthian Bliss at the Interstice of Order and Disorder in Johnson’s The Unfortunates"

Jami McFarland
"Containment and Contamination in Blomkamp’s District 9"

Katrina Schurter
"W. H. Auden’s 'In Memory of W. B. Yeats': A Twentieth-Century Gendered Revisioning of the Elegy"

Kelsey Behnke
"Examining the Unbounded Nature of The Unfortunates: The Disordered Act of Reading"

Queries can be addressed to Dr. Marc Plamondon <marcp@nipissingu.ca> who deserves special thanks for organizing this year's event.

Israel's Security: Then and Now -- Tuesday March 1

From Dr. Robin Gendron:

This is just a reminder that on Tuesday, March 1st  the Nipissing Branch of the Canadian International Council will be holding a discussion of “Israel’s Security: Then and Now.”  Our guest, Dr. David Tal, will compare the threats to its security that Israel faced at its founding 60 years ago with the security situation that it faces in the contemporary Middle East where, unlike in the 1950s, more and more states in the region accept Israel's existence and maintain either peaceful or actual relations with it.  Militarily, the nature of the challenges facing Israel has changed too: conventional wars involving tanks and mass armies are less likely to occur than one involving missiles, air strikes, and attacks on civil population and centers.  Israel will have to find ways to deter and retaliate against non-state threats without using the kind of force it has used in the past.

The event takes place on Tuesday March 1, starting at 7:00 pm in room F210 (the Fedeli Business Centre).  

This event is free and open to the public, and everyone is welcome! Please tell your students in particular.

For more information about this event, please contact Robin Gendron at gendronrs@nipissingu.ca or 705-474-3450 ext 4395.

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

The Model NATO team offers a debate: NATO and Egypt

This coming Monday the Political Science Department and Model NATO Team will be hosting a debate. The title is "Destabilization & Failing States: A NATO Perspective,  Case Study: Egypt 2011".

Main themes to be discussed is NATO's personal interests in stability in the region in contrast to the international communities support for democratization and liberty.

Perspectives from the US, Canada, Turkey, France, and Germany will be provided.

After the debate there will be a Q & A session for students to voice their concerns or comments.

The event will be from 1-2pm in F213 (the theater) Monday February 14th. 

Thursday, February 3, 2011

History Seminar Series: Andrew Taylor, University of Ottawa, speaks on oral tradition and written record

From Dr. Derek Neal:
Our next History Department seminar will feature University of Ottawa medievalist Andrew Taylor, who will speak on:
Written Record to Memory: Delgamuukw vs. British Columbia and the Modern Historian

Friday, February 4, 2011
2:30-4:00 pm
Room A 226

Andrew will be using the landmark Delgamuukw land claims case as a starting point to illustrate what we can learn by thinking simultaneously about medieval European history and the history of Canada's relationship with First Nations. In both of these histories, there is a contested relationship between memory, or oral tradition, on the one hand, and the authority of the written word on the other, that greatly affected power dynamics between different groups of people.