Het Studiegenootschap Canada organiseert, in het kader van de lesprogramma's aan verschillende Vlaamse universiteiten, de Canadian Studies Lectures. Deze lezingen worden gegeven door Canadese academici. De toegang tot de lezingen is kosteloos tenzij anders vermeld..

Lezingen in het verleden

Lorna Roth is Associate Professor en voormalig hoofd van het Department of Communication Studies, Concordia University. Haar onderwijs en onderzoek hebben betrekking op o.m. media en minderheden, neokoloniale theorie en ontwikkeling, ras en vertegenwoordiging, internationale communicatie en geschiedenis van de media.

Op woensdag 3 november 2005 (14.45 - 16 uur) geeft zij een gastlezing aan de K.U.Leuven (Begijnhof - huis Bethlehem, Wolfspoortauditorium, Schapenstraat 34):

"Looking at Shirley: The Ultimate Norm in the Photographic Process"

Aansluitend volgt de Europese voorstelling van haar boek Something New in the Air. The Story of First Peoples Television Broadcasting in Canada

Voor meer informatie: folder - contacteer Prof. Dr. Leen d'Haenens 

De Afrikaans-Canadese auteur George Elliott Clarke werd geboren in Windsor, Nova Scotia. Hij doceert Engels aan de Universiteit van Toronto. Hij is auteur van poëzie en opera. Enkele van zijn poëziebundels zijn: ‘Provençal Songs’ (1997), ‘Gold Indigoes’ (2000), ‘Execution Poems’ (2001) en ‘Blue’ (2001). Zijn opera ‘Beatrice Chancy’ (met muziek van James Rolfe) gaat over de slavenhandel in Nova Scotia in het begin van de 19de eeuw. Hij schreef tevens het scenario voor de film ‘One Heart Broken Into Song’ (o.l.v. Clement Virgo, 1999).

Op woensdag 17 november 2005 (19.30 - 22 uur) lezen hij en drie andere auteurs (Louis-Philippe Dalembert, Caryl Phillips en Chika Unigwe) voor uit eigen werk in het Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst te Antwerpen (MuHKA, Leuvenstraat 32, Antwerpen) in het kader van:

"Afrikaanse aanwezigheid in Europa"

van het Universitair Centrum Sint-Ignatius Antwerpen (UCSIA) en de Werkgroep Postkoloniale Literaturen van de Universiteit Antwerpen (UA).

Voor meer informatie: folder - contacteer Christel Van Wonterghem (UCSIA) 

Professor Cornelius Jaenen is Emeritus Professor aan de University of Ottawa, Faculty of Arts History). Hij is voormalig voorzitter van de Canadian Ethnic Studies Association en de Canadian Historical Association.  Hij heeft verschillende publicaties op zijn naam rond multiculturalisme en ethniciteit in Canada. Bovendien heeft hij uitvoerig onderzoek verricht naar en gepubliceerd over Belgische immigranten in Canada (o.m. The Belgians in Canada, 1992; "The Belgian Presence in Canada" in L. d'Haenens (ed.) Images of Canadianness. Visions on Canada's Politics, Culture, Economics, 1998).

Op maandagavond 26 april 2004 geeft hij een gastlezing voor het Antwerps Centrum voor Migrantenstudies aan de Universiteit Antwerpen (20 uur, lokaal R.225, stadscampus UA, Rodestraat 14):

Belgians in a bilingual and multicultural Canada

Voor meer informatie: contacteer: Prof. Dr. Dirk Vanheule

Biographical note: Prof. Cornelius Jaenen, M.A. (Manitoba), B.Ed. (Manitoba), Ph.D. (Ottawa), LL.D. h.c. (Winnipeg) is Emeritus Professor of the Department of History, Faculty of Arts, University of Ottawa.

Prof. Charlotte Townsend-Gault is associate professor aan het Department of Art History, Visual Art and Theory van de University of British Columbia. Op dit ogenblik is zij visiting fellow in Clare Hall, Cambridge. Op dinsdag 14 mei 2002 geeft zij om 19 uur een gastcollege aan het Departement Sociale en Culturele Antropologie van de K.U.Leuven.

Aboriginality and Salvation: First Nations Art in British Columbia Today

Abstract: Although  an 'indigenous knowledge base' is frequently imbricated into the pressing issues of identity, community and authenticity in the cultural politics of contemporary British Columbia, it has not received the same critical attention. The struggle for justice has equally been a struggle for aboriginality. Where once it seemed that contemporary native art grew out of the productive and mutually defining relationship between modernism and aboriginality, it now appears that the latter term is in the ascendant, put there by increasingly confident artists. Taking very different forms, indigenous knowledge is evident in the work of four First Nations artists - Robert Davidson, Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun, Marianne Nicolson and Brian Jungen. It is suggested that their work shares an approach to histories, to the technologies of its making, and to audiences that supports the claim that indigenous knowledge, perhaps the very notion of aboriginality, is being deployed for redemptive purposes.

Voor meer informatie: contacteer Prof. Dr. Barbara Saunders

Biographical note: Prof. Charlotte Townsend-Gault, B.A. Hons. (Sussex), Dip. Soc. Anth. (UCL), Ph.D. (UCL), is associate Professor at the Department of Art History, Visual Art and Theory, University of British Columbia and presently Visiting Fellow, Clare Hall, Cambridge (Sept. 2001- July 2002)

In het kader van haar Canadian Studies Lecture Tour en de installatie van de Canadian Studies Chair, geeft Prof. Dr. Lorna Roth in februari 2002 twee gastcolleges aan de RUG (Vakgroep Communicatiewetenschap) en aan de KUL (Vakgroep Sociale en Culturele Antropologie).

1. (re)Colouring the Public Broadcasting System in Canada: A Case Study of the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network (vrijdag 22 februari, 14u.-16u., Universiteitstraat 4, 9000 Gent, collegezaal Auditorium C)

Abstract: In 1991, the Canadian federal government passed the current Broadcasting Act in which multiculturalism, multiracialism, and aboriginal broadcasting were enshrined as collective communication rights. This lecture will focus on the construction of cultural and racial diversity in public policy and in the apparatus of broadcasting using the new Aboriginal Peoples Television Network (APTN), a multi-nation national channel which began broadcasting on September 1, 1999 as an illustrative case. Has the regulatory agency in Canada, the Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), visually marked APTN as representing "diversity" within the overall system to create a functional balance, as they are mandated to do within the Act? Will conventional broadcasters exploit this as an opportunity to abdicate their social responsibility for fair portrayal practices and employment equity policies because APTN now has its own channel allocation? Consequently, might APTN become defined as a "media reservation," at the edges of mainstream television in Canada? Secondly, in looking at where "First Peoples" have been placed on the channel grid in Canada, can we distinguish a relationship between their disadvantaged place and their socio-economic position in society and in power relations? APTN's channel allocation across the country is at the very high end of the grid - for instance, in Montreal, it is located at Channel 52; in Ottawa, at Channel 75. What does this tell us about the perception and treatment of APTN by the cable operators, who initially protested the mandatory carriage of APTN but who are required by law to broadcast it across the country at the cost of $ .15 per subscriber? Thirdly, what sort of transnational programming arrangements and international institutional contacts have been established by APTN to date and what are their plans for extension of service to other countries? Given their possible current reception elsewhere by off-air satellite, such as in the US, will APTN become an international indigenous channel, carrying world-wide public programming on the scale of CNN or BBC International? If so, what kinds of modifications would be necessary to appeal to an international audience? What kinds of international negotiations would they have to enter into? This turn of events would necessitate longitudinal study and cross-cultural research. I would like to identify and reflect upon some of the critical issues likely to be expected should this turn of events occur. Finally, what is the significance of APTN to public broadcasting in Canada and elsewhere? What does the establishment of APTN tell us about reframing the State, problems and challenges of public broadcasting in the local, regional, national, and global contexts?

Voor meer informatie: contacteer Prof. Dr. Frieda Saeys

2. More Than Skin Deep: Multiculturalism Beyond Ethnic Marketing (dinsdag 26 februari, 14u.-16u., Tiensestraat 102, collegezaal PSI 02.60)

Abstract:Not until very recently have mainstream North American manufacturers of ordinary consumer items even attempted to replicate colours of skin for non-Caucasians (band-aids, mannequins) with the few that did reproducing them poorly (film stocks, crayon colour concepts). However, in conjunction with the burgeoning of "whiteness" and other skin colour studies in the last two decades, producers of colour-reflective commodities and practices have quietly begun to respond to global consumer demands for a more inclusive array of skin hues. My work which I call 'More Than Skin Deep' goes beyond existing scholarship which has mainly focussed on the deconstruction of 'whiteness' (Dyer, 1997, Winston, 1996) in that it critically examines the multicultural and multiracial skin colour adjustments that are currently taking place in corporate organizations which seek to control the production of public visual imagery, as well as those whose products have notions of skin embedded within them as central to their consumer appeal (model heads or wigs, dolls, make-up, crayons, paints, markers, tanning and bleaching creams, prostheses, hosiery). What kinds of public knowledge about skin colour in the form of racialized imagery are manufacturers constructing and defending? What have been the roles played by lobby groups in publicly pressuring corporations to shift their skin colour priorities? Beyond consumer goals of inclusiveness, what is the corporate stake in investing in or changing a colour aesthetic of whiteness? Finally, what are the socio-political and economic implications of all these practices for race and power relations? How does this work go beyond ethnic marketing and consumer inclusiveness? To assist in my reflections on these larger issues, I shall elaborate the historical case of the Crayola crayon, a popular tool of artistic representation for children all around the world. In particular, I shall focus on the colour "flesh" and trace its transformation over time into the more politically correct colour of peach and into its most recent presentation as part of Binny and Smith's multicultural crayon collections.

Voor meer informatie: contacteer Prof. Dr. Barbara Saunders

Biographical note: Prof. Dr. Lorna Roth is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication Studies at Concordia University (Montreal). She has been involved in broadcasting policy analysis, minority communication/cultural rights lobbying and consulting with First Peoples and multicultural/multiracial groups since the late 1970s. She is currently completing a forthcoming book called "Something New in the Air: Indigenous Television in Canada", an in-depth analysis of First Peoples television development and its international significance.