The Department of Languages and World Literatures is pleased to welcome Visiting Authors Marie-Andrée Gill and Samuel Archibald to UBC Okanagan for a series of public talks from January 22 to 24, 2020. These talks are presented as part of the FCCS Visiting Author series in partnership with the Inspired Word  Café. All events are free and open to the public.

Public Talks

When: Wednesday January 22 2020, 2-3pm
Where: UNC212, UBC Okanagan Campus

A Reading a Conversation with Samuel Archibald and Marie-Andrée Gill. This talk is part of Dr. Francis Langevin’s course Techniques of Oral Expression (FREN345).

When: Thursday January 23 2020, 7-9pm
Where: 702 Bernard Avenue

This event is presented as a collaboration between the IWC Public Reading Series and UBC Okanagan’s Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies. The bilingual event features three writers from out east: Ian Ferrier, Samuel Archibald and Marie-Andrée Gill.

When: Friday January 24 2020, 7-9pm
Where: 702 Bernard Avenue

Hitoires au coin du feu: a storytelling night.

About the authors

Samuel Archibald is a writer and screenwriter original from Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean (QC). He is a professor of creative writing and genre literature (sci-fi, horror, pop culture) at Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM). His first fiction book, the best-seller Arvida (25 000 copies sold in Quebec only), translated by Donald Winkler, was shortlisted for the Giller Prize (2015). The webseries Terreur 404 (2017-2018) he co-wrote with William S. Messier won 2 Gemini Awards and many juried prizes in international Webfests (Germany, South Korea, Russia, Canada).

Marie-Andrée Gill is an Ilnu poet born in Mashteuiatsh (QC). She is the author of three celebrated poetry collections with La Peuplade: Béante (2012), Frayer (2015), and Chauffer le dehors (2019). Her first collection of poetry (Béante) was nominated for a Governor General Award. Her work appears in French and in English in anthologies and magazines such as Estuaire, Le Sabord, Poème Sale, Sirale, Guernica Magazine, and Tupelo Quarterly.

Ian Ferrier is one of the core writer/performers in the North American performance literature scene. His work is well-known across Canada, New York and Europe. Rooted in poetry, his live performances are a haunting blend of acoustic guitar, choir; whispered voice, and the trancelike music of a band called Pharmakon. His signature is the quiet, compelling voice at the centre of every piece.

These events are sponsored by the City of Kelowna, Secrétariat du Québec aux relations canadiennes (Bureau du Québec à Toronto, l’Union des écrivaines et des écrivains du Québec (UNEQ), le Centre culturel francophone de l’Okanagan, The League of Canadian Poets, Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and UBC Okanagan’s Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies.

Francis Langevin, photo credit: Emilie Hautier

Francis Langevin is an educator, cultural activist and event organizer, and film buff. He has been a faculty member at UBC Okanagan since 2015 teaching French language and literature in the Educational Leadership Stream in the Department of Languages and World Literatures.

Francis shared some insights on his teaching and research practices here at UBC Okanagan.

Give us some insight on your teaching and research.

My best friend Nadia, who has always been a role-model for my teaching, calls me Docteur Lecteur. She implies that I teach people how to read (a lecteur is a reader, in French). It’s true that I do that when I teach Literature and Film, and Culture: that’s also what my graduate degrees and research publications are about.

Those research baby steps are not meant to “improve quality of life” as ostensibly as, say, pasteurization or vaccines do, but they leave traces and they make visible and legible the work of humans who we are talking about, recording, reading, translating what it means to live in our times (or in their times). Those reading skills come in handy to understand the world we live in, and it can orient the decisions and the actions we make as citizens. Reading other people’s stories is a great way to develop empathy, which I think we all need more of.

What most excites and challenges you about your field of work?

I get to teach students who are learning a language almost from scratch and I sometimes see them only a few year later majoring in French, speaking to me in the language I grew up hearing. That’s exciting! But also, I get to hang out with multilingual individuals: other profs in my department (Languages & World Literature), and of course students who come from everywhere. In a group of 35 students, I can usually count as many as twelve other languages spoken! I’ve lived in a linguistic minority for ten years now, not always being able to express myself in French as often as I would like. It’s a challenge that I share with a lot of students. So I am thrilled to be given so many hours a week to speak it! Teaching languages and literature allows me to read texts and watch movies as a group, which really feels like a treat.

What kind of learning experiences do you lead outside of the classroom?

I’m really interested in facilitating connections between communities. I do that in my personal life a lot, as a citizen, a volunteer or an activist I guess. I make it a point to bring that to the university, and I invite students to do so too! This can mean organizing events, such as film screenings (Petit French Film Festival) or cabarets (Pony, with Michael V. Smith), or meetings with artists. But more generally, it means breaking the walls of the classroom to make the learning experience as meaningful for students as for their communities. They take something to my classroom; they take something back to where they continue on their journey.

I program or help organize cultural events. Mostly films and literary events. I work with the Kelowna Film Society and the Centre culturel francophone de l’Okanagan, and together I’d say we program about 45 films per year. When I moved here from Toronto, people were worried that I would miss the cultural offer of the metropolis. That is sometimes true, but that just means you have to make the effort of creating those opportunities.

As a teacher, I try to integrate what is happening in town and within FCCS, such as the Living Things Festival, the reading series, and visiting speakers, to classroom as much as possible. I think that making room for those events to my students in assignments or lectures really helps to break the walls of the classroom, and in return, it makes those events open to new people. It all comes down to community building, really.

How did you know you wanted to be a professor?

I had the chance to teach two lectures on Quebec Culture for students of University in the Community, a “humanities-based program for low-income residents in the city of Toronto” hosted at Innis College, University of Toronto. After one hour during the first lecture, we took a break and I was overwhelmed by the joy of teaching without a curriculum. I went outside and wept for the whole break. It has transformed my approach to teaching completely: I was awarded the privilege to teach personally; it had not occurred to me before that I could decide what mattered for a course, and adapt it for different audiences or purposes. That’s a great gift. That is a responsibility, of course, but also that is a wonderful freedom to share your passion, your knowledge – and also to witness students figure out what is making them vibrate with enthusiasm.

What do you enjoy about living in the Okanagan?

People. Apricots in my yard. Peaches. Openness. Lake down the street. My friends. Powder snow. Four seasons. Kindness. Okanagan nations. “Let’s make it happen” attitude. My husband. Clothes that dry in a day inside. Views. Opportunity. Artists and crafters. Cherries. Newcomers and expats.

Denise Kenney working on a film project

Denise Kenney is an educator, filmmaker, eco-artist, and performer. She has been a faculty member at UBC Okanagan since 2007 teaching Interdisciplinary Performance in the BFA and Bachelor of Arts programs, and is currently the Department head for Creative Studies.

Denise shared some insights on her teaching and research practices here at UBC Okanagan.

How did you know you wanted to be a professor?

I have always taught people in tandem with my career as an artist. I love teaching. When the opportunity came up to take on a full position within the Department of Creative Studies, I knew I had found a home for my interdisciplinary practice and teaching.

What most excites and challenges you about your field of work?

My work excites me because I believe it is vital. I always ask my students, “If art and artists are the after-the-serious-stuff “fluff”, then why do so many oppressive regimes target artists? The way we converse with our communities is through our art. We matter. Our students matter.

I work in a challenging field because my research focuses on live performance and community engagement that asks people to connect beyond the printed page or digital screen. In the face of social media and digital communication, the live body and getting people together in the same place and the same time is inconvenient and challenging. I am always fighting for opportunities for intimate, embodied and creative exchanges in my teaching and in my research.

Explain what your research is about.

My work is based on the understanding that climate change and sustainability are cultural issues and that scientific narratives alone will not enact the kind of change we need to mitigate climate change and to make ourselves resilient in the face of what is to come.

We are no longer simply trying to avert a crisis, which suggests that the crisis will pass, but rather trying to build resiliency in our communities and our institutions. Scientists have done their job. Now the story tellers, artists, critics, creative thinkers, provocateurs and visionaries in the humanities and fine arts are uniquely well-situated to participate in shaping our response to this overwhelming data.

We can help our students and our communities shift our cultural coordinates and re-imagine ways of belonging and surviving as we navigate our uncertain future. This is why we are relevant. The good news is that we already know how to do this and our students are taking up the torch.

What kind of learning experiences do you lead outside of the classroom?

I do a lot of work out in the community in my teaching and in my research. My students have performed or facilitated projects in Europe, the U.S., and Canada and have likewise presented at conferences in all of these places.

My goal as an educator is to involve my students as much as I can in my own research projects, to support them in theirs, and to provide for them opportunities for real-world experience. Over the years, my students and I have worked with the City of Kelowna, Westbank First Nations, the Living Positive Resource Centre, Inspired Word Cafe, the Kelowna Art Gallery, the Okanagan Regional District, School District 23, the Woodhaven Nature Conservancy, and a number of artists and scholars locally, nationally and internationally.

What do you enjoy about living here and working at UBC Okanagan?

Because UBCO has a small campus but is still a highly regarded university in terms of research and teaching, it has the best of both worlds. This is what I love about working here. I am always being challenged in my research and teaching, but I also have close contact with my students and faculty, not only in my department, but across the whole campus.

The Okanagan valley is a landscape of lakes, sagebrush, saskatoon berries, and suburbias crowding out ponderosa pines. Even though much of my education and professional work was done in larger urban centers like Paris or Vancouver, I have come to love the smaller community for its intimacy, proximity to nature, and enthusiasm. Kelowna city council has viewed films made by my students; the parks have welcomed our art projects; the international airport is ten minutes away, and my bike ride to work is gorgeous. Kelowna is growing, and I hope that our students will graduate from UBCO and help it grow for the better.

Denise Kenney & Nancy Holmes at Cyprus Sites Embodied, 2017

Denise Kenney & Nancy Holmes in Cyprus, 2017

Denise Kenney working with a Cypriot dancer in Androlikou

Lindsay Kirker (centre), wtih Kim Spencer-Nairm trustee from the Audain Art Museum (left) and FCCS Dean, Bryce Traister (right)

Lindsay Kirker, a second year Masters of Fine Arts student, was recently awarded the Audain Foundation Travel Award. The Audain Foundation supports the visual arts in British Columbia, offering awards to arts organizations, galleries and to individual artists.

The travel award was established this past year for BFA or MFA students at five major institutions in the province, University of British Columbia Okanagan, University of British Columbia Vancouver, Emily Carr University or Art and Design, Simon Franser University, and the University of Victoria.

The award is for $7500 to one student per university to allow them to travel to destinations of their choice to view artworks and projects that will foster their practice and research.

Lindsay was nominated by faculty members in the Visual Arts program at UBC Okanagan, noting that she is both an outstanding artist and scholar.

Lindsay intends to travel to Fort St. John, BC to meet with stakeholders connected with the Site C dam project in order to learn about the social, economic and ecological management of the project in order to develop a greater understanding of the complexity of our relationship with the land.

Find out more about Lindsay

Dr. Jodey Castricano (centre) with faculty members and graduate students at the University of Exeter

Between Sept. 23 and Oct. 4, Jodey Castricano, professor in the Department of English and Cultural Studies at UBC Okanagan, visited the University of Exeter under the auspices of the University’s Visiting International Fellowship Scheme.

The visit, hosted by Paul Young, Associate Professor of Victorian Literature and Culture, focused on developing research and teaching priorities and synergies in the fields of Critical Animal Studies and Eco-Cultures. These two related fields draw together Castricano and Young’s expertise, and also engage a great deal of ongoing and emerging ecological and sustainability research and teaching activity in the respective colleges and institutions involved.

The visit to Exeter has allowed for further international collaboration and dissemination of research in the area of Environmental Humanities, especially where this field is inclusive of the interconnectedness of climate change, factory farming and human health, explains Dr. Castricano.

“The visit also enabled me to forge relationships with faculty who are working in these areas inclusive of literary studies and to discuss potential for research partnerships and publications, such as a jointly-authored monograph and/or collection of essays on the research areas we work in.” She says.

During her visit, professor Castricano was engaged in a number of activities related to her research, and was offered opportunities to connect with others in the field at the University of Exeter. She attended a workshop that addressed human and non-human animal health and welfare, as well as environmental sustainability; she participated in an Animal Studies reading group that brings together lecturers, postdoctoral researchers and postgraduate research students from across the colleges of Humanities and Social Sciences; and she held a public lecture to welcome Exeter’s new and returning postgraduate research students, ‘Welcome to the Anthropocene: Now What?’.

Paul Young will be visiting the UBC Okanagan campus in the spring of 2020 during the ‘Critical Animal Studies in an Age of Mass Extinction,’ the inaugural conference of the North American Association for Critical Animal Studies of which Castricano is a co-organizer, to be held at the UBC Okanagan campus.

About the Exeter UBC Partnership

The University of British Columbia, Okanagan, entered into a Statement of Cooperation with the Exeter College of Humanities in the spring of 2018, with the aim to strengthen the relationship between the universities, and nurture a collaborative approach to education, research and academic exchanges.

Faculty members and students from both institutions have had opportunities to travel back and forth over the last year and a half. UBCO team members from the AMP Lab and the Centre for Culture and Technology from FCCS visited the Exeter Digital Humanities Lab in the College of Humanities last winter, with members from Exeter coming to UBC Okanagan last spring.

Mercedes Fernandez-Duran is pictured here with her daughter, son-in-law and grandchildren.

The UBC Okanagan community is saddened by the passing of Dr. Mercedes Fernandez-Duran on October 16, 2019, in Mississauga, Ontario. Mercedes was an assistant professor of languages and world literatures in the Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies.

Our condolences to Mercedes’ family, friends and colleagues.

In a message to the university community, her family noted:

We would like to express our deepest and most sincere gratitude to Mercedes’ colleagues and friends at the Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies at the University of British Columbia for their unwavering support and kindness during her battle with cancer.

She felt so proud to be a part of such a remarkable team, and she was profoundly grateful to be able to do what she loved the most at UBC for so many years of her life and up until the very end of her journey. Our sincerest gratitude.

— The Salsberg/Cogan Family 

Mercedes was born in Madrid on April 27, 1950. She had three younger siblings — Luis, Chuni and Regina. She lived in Madrid until her early 20s, when she moved to Geneve, Switzerland, for some time. Soon after, she began to travel the world as a foreign correspondent for a Madrid newspaper.

During her work as a journalist, she travelled through South East Asia reporting on the Vietnam War, lived in Santiago and reported on the 1973 Chilean coup d’état, and in Tokyo where she reported on the Tanaka–Lockheed bribery scandals of 1976.

That year, she was married to George Cogan in Madrid, after which they returned to Tokyo and had their first child Leon in 1977. In 1978 they moved to Vancouver and their second child, Elisa, was born in 1979.

A few years later she became president of the founding council of Collingwood School and she helped build Collingwood from the ground up. After Collingwood, she was appointed director of the Spanish Pavilion at Expo 86 in Vancouver.

She then returned to post-secondary studies and did not put her books down until she received her post-doctoral degree magna cum laude from Stanford University.

Mercedes spent the rest of her life doing what she loved: working as a university professor at the University of Berkeley, the University of California Santa Barbara, the University of the Pacific, Simon Fraser University and the University of British Columbia. She published a number of academic books during this period of her career.

She was an avid reader, writer and painter, and had a love of learning languages. Throughout her life, Mercedes learned to speak Spanish, Latin, English, French, Japanese and Portuguese.

She had a brilliant sense of humour, which carried her through the best and worst times alike. But perhaps, her most remarkable qualities were her kindness and generosity towards everyone she met.

Although she spent the last few years of her life battling lung cancer, she found the most joy with her grandchildren at her new home in Toronto.

A memorial service was held on October 22. The family has asked that donations in memory of Dr. Mercedes Fernandez-Duran be made to:

• UBC Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies
• Mount Sinai Hospital Temmy Latner Centre for Palliative Care 
• Holy Blossom Temple – Toronto, Ontario
• Vancouver Adaptive Snow Sports (VASS) in Memory of Mercedes Fernandez-Duran and Leon Cogan 

We are pleased to host an exhibition of new works by recent BFA alumna Mirjana Borovickic, 2019. Mirjana completed a residency at the Caetani House this summer for the month of July, and will be showing the work she created during that time.

The exhibition runs from September 24 to 28, culminating with a wine and cheese reception with the artist September 27, 3:30 to 5 p.m.

Please RSVP to attend the Sept. 27 reception.

Mirjana Borovickic is a visual artist living in Kelowna, BC. She was born in Bosnia and immigrated to Canada in 1995, at the age of 12, after living through a civil war. Throughout her life Mirjana has always been fascinated with textiles; her love for textiles was further developed during her teenage years when she opted to take sewing in high school. She graduated with a BFA in Visual Arts from the University of British Columbia, Okanagan in 2019. Currently she is working with textiles on a series titled Resilient Child in which she explores childhood memories and war trauma.

More information about Homecoming and other events can be found at: ok.ubc.ca/homecoming.

What: Performing the Archive Reading Series
Who: Daphne Marlatt with special guest Šari Dale
When: Thursday, September 19 from 7 to 9 p.m.
Where: Milkcrate Records, 527 Lawrence Ave.

English honours student, Megan Butchart, invited acclaimed Canadian poet and novelist, Daphne Marlatt to UBC Okanagan.

Marlatt is an internationally renowned, lesbian-feminist poet, essayist, and novelist based in Vancouver, B.C. She is a UBC alumna and was one of the second-wave of undergraduate writers and editors of the student poetry newsletter Tish.

We met up with Megan to find out more about her work in organizing this event, and what this visit will offer to our literary community.

Q. Why did you choose Daphne Marlatt to invite for this event?

Megan: Marlatt features prominently on the literary audio recordings within the SoundBox collection and after working with these recordings as a Research Assistant on the SSHRC-funded SpokenWeb Partnership in the AMP Lab, I wanted to curate an event that would mobilize the archive and involve those poets whose voices are captured on the recordings. As a Vancouver poet who has written about communities across British Columbia and as a UBC alumna, Marlatt has strong connections to the Okanagan which I think will resonate with UBCO students and the local community.

Q. Tell us what Marlatt will be doing while in Kelowna?

Megan: Marlatt will be visiting Kelowna to participate in multiple events over two days. On September 19th, a lunch/close-listening event will be held in the AMP Lab (FIP 251) for UBCO students and faculty from noon to 1 pm. Later that evening Marlatt will be giving a public poetry reading at Milkcrate Records as part of the new “Performing the Archive” reading series, co-organized with local arts organization the Inspired Word Café. That reading will feature Marlatt interacting with recently-digitized audio recordings of herself reading from leaf leaf/s in 1969. On September 20th Dr. Karis Shearer and I will conduct an oral-history interview of Marlatt which will subsequently be made available in a podcast. Excerpts from that interview will also form the basis for a student chapbook-making workshop in October.

Q. Please explain what you think this visit from such a prominent author will have for students, and to the writing community.

Megan: These events will be both an opportunity to introduce Marlatt’s work to a wider audience and allow those who are already familiar with her work to experience it in a performative context. This initiative invites the participation of a diverse and interdisciplinary audience including English, History, and Creative Writing students, queer students, UBC alumni, faculty members, and others within the Irving K. Barber School of Arts and Sciences and the Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies. By holding events both at UBCO and downtown Kelowna we hope to encourage dialogue between literary and creative communities both on campus and off.

Q. What kinds of support have you received to organize these events?

Megan: I received Tuum Est Funding to assist with the September 19^th and 20th events. SpokenWeb at UBCO has provided support both through access to its archival collections and as a secondary funder. The Inspired Word Café is co-organizer of the “Performing the Archive” reading at Milkcrate Records. This event will feature an open-mic, community reader Šari Dale (UBCO Creative Writing), guest reader Daphne Marlatt, and a Q&A period. Both the IWC and Dr. Karis Shearer have provided invaluable mentorship and support in this curation.

Q. How did you find out about the Tuum Est Funding and decide to apply for this event?

Megan: I learned of the Tuum Est Student Initiative Fund through UBCO Fine Arts alumnus Evan Berg, who had received Tuum Est funding to bring artist Timur Si-Qin to Kelowna for a lecture last March. I thought it would be wonderful to host a similar event for the literary community.

In anticipation of Marlatt’s visit, SpokenWeb at UBCO is hosting an “Epic Reading” event on September 12th at the AMP Lab (FIP 251) from 10am to 1pm.. The “Epic Reading” is a free, drop-by event, in which participants will take turns reading aloud from Marlatt’s poetry collections in order of publication. This casual, community-building event also affords an opportunity for students, faculty, and guests to read and familiarize themselves with Marlatt’s work before her public reading on September 19th.

The September 19th poetry reading will be a free event in downtown Kelowna. The event is supported by UBC’s Tuum Est Student Initiative Fund.

More about Daphne Marlatt

Marlatt is the author of numerous poetry collections including Steveston (1974), Liquidities: Vancouver Poems Then and Now (2013) and Reading Sveva (2016). Marlatt has received many awards for her literary contributions including the Order of Canada in 2006, the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize for The Given in 2009, and the George Woodcock Lifetime Achievement Award in 2012.

The multi-day event, September 9th to 11th, is in partnership with the International Council for Middle East Studies (ICMES) an academic think tank in Washington, D.C. The ICMES board of directors consists primarily of Middle East scholars and has a goal to educate people about various aspects of Middle East culture and politics.

The conference is open to the public and people can participate in sessions that include presentations, discussion and debate by distinguished Canadian, American, European and Middle East experts in numerous fields. All sessions take place at the Four Points Sheraton, 5505 Airport Way.

Conference Schedule

Monday, September 9

• 9:30 -11:00 – Session I: History and Cultural Traditions 
  • Chair: Anderson Araujo (UBC)
  • Francisco Peña (UBC) – Medieval Jewish-Christian Cross-Pollination and Teaching Transculturality Today
  • Hussein Keshani (UBC) – The Islamic World’s History as a Transcultural Commons.
• 11:00-1:15 – Lunch
• 1:30-3:30 Session II: Faith and Community Narratives
  • Chair: Sean Lawrence (UBC)
  • IssamSaliba (ICMES) – The Islamic Legal Tradition between Renewal and Reform.
  • Norton Mezvinsky (ICMES) – Mordecai Kaplan and Reconstructionist Judaism.
  • Alaa Ebrahim (Journalist) -Islamic Law and Government in the 21st Century.

Tuesday, September 10

• 9:30 -11:00 – Session III: Religious identity and Modern States / Communities 1/2
  • Chair: Dom Wallace (ICMES)
  • Yaakov Shapiro – Jewish Thinking and Ethics: Does Judaism Provide a Path from the “Should” to the “Is?
  • Gloria Moran (University of Santiago) – Secularity, Religious Identity and Plural Modernities.
• 11:00-1:15 – Lunch
• 1:30-3:30 Session IV. Religious identity and Modern States / Communities 2/2 – Case studies.
  • Chair: Fernando Jimenes (ICMES)
  • Jessica Stites Mor (University of British Columbia) Liberation Theology in South African Anti-Apartheid Struggle as Transnational Solidarity
  • David Goa (University of Alberta), The Barren Roots and Soil of Contemporary Political Orthodoxy of the Orthodox Christian Churches of the Former Soviet Union.

Wednesday, September 11

• 9:30 -11:00 – Session V. Imagine no religion: theology of understanding
  • Chair: Maurice Williams (UBC)
  • R. Robert Daum (Simon Fraser) – Exegesis and the Calling of the World.
  • Emilio G. Ferrin (University of Seville) – The Anguish of Abraham: Religious burden and Universal Ethics.
• 11:00-1:15 – Lunch
• 1:30-3:30 Closing Session.
  • Don Wallace, the ICMES Chairman of the Board of Directors
  • Bryce Traister Dean of the Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies – UBC Okanagan

Registration

The conference is free and open to the public, but registration is required.

Register

The event is supported by the Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies and the Department of Languages and World Literatures, as well as The Office of the Provost and Vice-President Academic and UBC Okanagan.

Contact Francisco Peña at francisco.pena@ubc.ca or Ange-Aimee Quesnel at ange.quesnel@gmail.com for more information or the schedule details of this event.