In the fall of 2018, Bryce Traister, Dean of the Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies, was invited to give a series of lectures in Moscow and St Petersburg, on the occasion of the launch of the Russian translation of David Foster Wallace’s 1996 novel, Infinite Jest.

The trip was organized by the Moscow Embassy, Cultural Affairs Division, of the US Department of State. Whose mandate is to bring American artists and academics to Russia to engage Russian citizens with American culture. During his nine day visit, Traister presented a total of twelve lectures on Infinite Jest, on his own work on American Puritanism, and on the American dramatist, Arthur Miller, a favorite in Russia.

We met up with Dean Traister to talk about his research, the trip to Russia and how the trip impacted him.

Tell us about your research.

My research is primarily in the area of colonial American literature and culture, specifically religion. I am interested in how the legacies of Puritanism shaped and continue to shape politics and society in the United States today. I believe you can’t really understand America without understanding its past, and understanding the United States today is an important activity for everyone.

How did this trip change you, or change your perspective?

Wow. So I was a kid in the 70s, growing up in the chilliest phases of the Cold War, thinking that, any minute, the missiles would fly and we would all die in a nuclear fire or of radiation exposure. Russia, or the Soviet Union, was the “evil” agent in that extended national fantasy, and even after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the “opening” again of Russia to the West, I took those memories with me to Russia.

The monuments to Lenin and Stalin are still there; the “wall of Heroes” is still displayed on the mighty Kremlin wall facing Red Square. But this is also the new Russia; their country, while not exactly “open” in the way we think of an open-access country, is curious about the West. Suspicious of it also, in various ways.

I loved interacting with Russians, in person, at cafes, on the subways. There is a kind of grim determination set in the faces of the Moscow subway riders, descending 100s of feet on the longest escalators I’ve ever seen, but there is also a ready wit and humor that came out at different times.

What was the most exciting or fascinating thing that you did while you were in Russia?

Hard to pick only one. I was invited to attend a lecture at Spaso House, the historical residence of the US Ambassador to Russia (whom I met), and I watched a debate erupt between the visiting speaker, a US political scientist talking about the (poor) state of US-Russian relations, and a famous Russian TV news anchor, who got into it over the Russian annexation of Crimea. Geo-Diplomacy right in front of me, while the US Ambassador fed his dogs treats in one of the most famous diplomatic buildings in the country.

The frosty political relationship between the US and Russia (and Canada) affected me directly, as I was told, on leaving Moscow, that I had become a “person of interest” to Russian state security because I entered the US Embassy several times, and visited Spaso House, all of which was tracked by Russian security. I hope that file is closed!

Oh, and the art! The art! The art!

Why was this trip important for your research?

In certain respects, it wasn’t—I am not a specialist in the American postmodern novel. But in another important sense, it confirmed my belief in the importance of bringing our work in the humanities and arts to the world, even if it involves a little risk (and a lot of time).

The Russians were fascinated by my talks about American Puritanism, how it explains so much, not just about the US, but about the resurgent millennial nationalism that the Russian Federation’s current president is advancing very specifically through the Orthodox Church.

As academics, we have much to offer, even when we think we don’t.

Statue of Stalin, Moscow (photo by Bryce Traister)

Kremlin Wall, Moscow (photo by Bryce Traister)

What: Disability, Access, and Art at UBC Okanagan: A Roundtable discussion

When: Tuesday, April 17 from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m.

Where: The AMP Lab, FIP 251, Fipke Centre, 3247 University Way, UBC Okanagan campus

UBC Okanagan’s Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies is hosting a roundtable  discussion for students, faculty, and staff who identify as disabled or are identified as disabled, and how they navigate this in a university setting.

This event is planned alongside the launch of creative writing professor Matt Rader’s new book, Visual Inspections. Part memoir, part essay, part poetic investigation, this book reflects on disability, access, vision, pain, community and resilience.

Moderated by Rader, this event invites all members of the UBC Okanagan community to listen, tell stories, and consider what art-making can teach about negotiating access as individuals and as a community. This roundtable discussion offers an opportunity to share personal experiences in a public setting

Rader notes that professors and students alike struggle at times understanding the principles that inform policy around accommodation.

“Many students, faculty and staff at UBC Okanagan find ourselves disabled by our bodies, bureaucracies and built environments,” says Rader. “I wanted to create a space to have a conversation about the issues that we face, the ways we can deal with them and to make everything as transparent as possible.”

In working with these students at this institution, Rader says his only real strategy is to make everything as transparent as possible, and to negotiate the issues some people face through conversation.

“This book would not exist without community, so the launch of the book is an occasion to bring some awareness to accessibility issues.”

The launch of Rader’s new book will take place on April 17, at Kettle Rover Brewery and will include two Masters of Fine Arts students, Richard Amante and Victoria Alvarez, reading from their final thesis.

Matt Rader is the author of four books of poems: Desecrations (McClelland & Stewart, 2016), A Doctor Pedalled Her Bicycle Over the River Arno (House of Anansi, 2011), Living Things (Nightwood Editions, 2008), and Miraculous Hours (Nightwood Editions, 2005), as well as the story collection What I Want to Tell Goes Like This (Nightwood Editions, 2014). His poems, stories and non-fiction have appeared in numerous publications across North America, Australia and Europe including The Walrus, Geist, 32 Poems and The Wales Arts Review, as well as several editions of Best Canadian Poetry in English.

Students from an Advanced Drawing class in the BFA program, have been working all year on a mural design to transform University Way into an experimental public art piece. These students, lead by visual arts professor Aleksandra Dulic and teaching assistant Emerald Holt, came up with the idea to convert the road into a locally situated, yet imaginative river.

“The mural responds to the ideas of human and environmental wellbeing in the Okanagan,” explains Aleks Dulic, “the class engaged in a set of readings on the topic of local sustainability to create experimental mural design that celebrate solutions that empower community resilience and diversity within the Okanagan.”

The larger goal for this project is to create an invitation for other classes and interests to participate over this year, with the overall purpose of enlivening and celebrating the campus public space with a positive and inspiring sustainability narrative.

The Campus Planning and Development and Campus Operations were closely involved into realization of this project. Led by David Waldron’s vision to initiate this temporary mural on the road along the University Way, this project celebrates the decision to convert the road into a pedestrian zone.

The initial mural, created in the fall of 2018, acted as an aspiration is to create an invitation for other classes that continued to develop this design this spring, with the overall purpose of enlivening this public space on campus.

As outlined in the UBC strategic plan “places play a profound role in shaping the experience of the people who work and live in them; people, in turn, are powerful influences on their places.” Building on this reciprocal relationship between people and places, the aim is to engage the students in thoughtful and conscious dialogue with Okanagan’s rich heritage across Indigenous peoples and settlers, local sustainability, and socio-environmental wellbeing.

“This artwork is be shaped and reshaped, as students get deeper into the researching and exploring the multifaceted colors of our beautiful Okanagan.” Says Dulic.

These students have worked transform the University Way road into a space for poetic expressions that enables our communities to experience, celebrate and extend their understanding of the Okanagan.

Students involved in the project are: Sara Spencer, Sidney Steven, Brock Gratz, DJ Haywood, Cassie McKenzie, Barb Dawson, Clare Addison, Gary Alexander, Reggie Harrold, Chelsea Robinson, and Mirjana Borovickic.

Peter Navratil at an open mic stand-up comedy night

A program that allows you to take creative writing, visual arts of multiple disciplines, learn unique performance techniques, and earn a Bachelor of Fine Arts was exactly what Nav was looking for to pursue his degree.

Now in his final year of the BFA program, where he is concentrating on interdisciplinary Performance, Nav notes that he has learned a lot about himself and has found direction for his future. He is a multidisciplinary artist working in found art sculpture, screen-printing, writing and all kinds of performance.

“I have a better idea of what I want, I have direction, I learned how to fail, and now I better understand what I can and cannot do,” says Nav “I reaped the benefits of an education and my mind is better for it.”

Nav gives some of this credit to the talented and supportive faculty and staff that he has worked with throughout the program. He notes that there are a number of incredibly talented and caring individuals working in the fine arts program.

“I regularly leave a meeting or class feeling uplifted in my pursuits, or troubled with the right questions to get my work done. The collective accomplishments of the people that work in the CCS building are substantial and they are more than willing to impart what they have learned.”

For the past two years, Nav has been heavily involved in the volunteer collective for the Living Things Festival, gaining experience in the real world of creating theatre and performance in the community.

The festival, organized by FCCS professor Neil Cadger, features a month long program containing performances from world-renowned theatre performers, community events, and opportunities for local artists. Throughout this festival there are numerous opportunities for students to interact with professional artists and gain exposure to some fantastic performance work the Okanagan would never see otherwise.

“Watching these shows and talking with the selected artists has helped me set achievable goals for a career in the arts, maintain motivation to continue my work, and create more interesting pieces through a broadened perspective.”

When asked what advice he would give to fellow and incoming students, in addition to diversifying your interests and trying a variety of electives, Nav reminds everyone to make educational choices based on personal development and interest. “Regardless of grades, regardless of career opportunities, pursue something that excites you. Eventually every meal gets cold, you have to stay hungry anyway!”

L-R: Professor James Clark (Exeter), Dr. Charlotte Tupman (Exeter), Dr. Emily Murphy (UBCO), Dr. Lizzie Williamson (Exeter), Gary Stringer (Exeter), and Dr. Karis Shearer (UBCO).

What do mid-century sound recordings and medieval manuscripts have in common? Thanks to a new Digital Humanities (DH) collaboration between the University of Exeter and the University of British Columbia Okanagan (UBCO), students now have new resources to learn to digitize both.

Digital pedagogy research has shown that one of the biggest challenges students face in DH is the lack of formal training in the tools and technologies required of them. We also know that resources are one of the biggest challenges to providing this training. Teams from both universities meet in Exeter for 10 days last week to share best practices for student training and research and to develop two online training modules, one for audio digitization, and another for text encoding.

“While online training alone isn’t the solution, delivering these skills through a hybrid model combining self-paced online modules with in-person training that brings participants into the lab communities is more closely aligned with the collaborative ethos that undergirds DH and is, I think, very promising,” says Dr. Karis Shearer, Associate Professor of English and Director of the AMP Lab.

UBCO team members from the AMP Lab and the Centre for Culture and Technology in the Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies (FCCS) visited the Exeter Digital Humanities Lab in the College of Humanities. The labs at the two universities apply the methods, tools, and critical approaches of the Digital Humanities in teaching and research. The new modules they have created will be implemented in classrooms, as independent self-paced learning, and as research training.

The collaboration builds on the foundations laid this spring, when Professor Bryce Traister, Dean of FCCS, made a visit to the University of Exeter. This June provided an opportunity to deepen the partnership at the Digital Editions, Digital Archives symposium organised by Karis Shearer and Dr Francisco Pena, Associate Professor of Spanish. From Exeter, Professor James Clark, Associate Dean for Research and Impact for Exeter’s College of Humanities, and Dr Charlotte Tupman, Research Fellow in Digital Humanities, attended to discuss their research and opportunities for collaboration.

The two visits established that the complementary expertise of our institutions will enable knowledge exchange in several key areas of digital expertise, including text encoding, audio digitisation, 3D printing, and 2D digital photography.

Digital Humanities research and training is key in both universities, notes Traister: “Exeter University has one of the top humanities faculties in the UK, in no small part because it has united the best of traditional humanities scholarship with visionary investment in cutting-edge and newer forms of humanities research. Exeter is a natural partner for the Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies at UBC’s Okanagan campus.”

Student training in digital humanities is at the heart of this initiative, with student interns actively involved in the production of the modules themselves. At UBCO, student intern Stephen French (BA English candidate and SpokenWeb RA), brings strong technical skills, as well as interests in literary audio and podcast production. With Shearer and Dr. Miles Thorogood, he will contribute to the reel-to-reel and compact-cassette digitisation content creation. At Exeter, student intern Connor Spence (in the second year of his undergraduate studies in English) will contribute his encoding skills and his experience as a DH Lab intern to this initiative. With Tupman, he will assist in the creation and testing of the collaborative training module for encoding languages to digitize text.

These modules will be implemented immediately in student training. Dr. Emily Murphy, Assistant Professor of Digital Humanities, will use the text encoding module in her courses next year, and audio digitization module will support the research training for the AMP Lab and SpokenWeb SSHRC Partnership.

“UBC’s Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies is thrilled to be collaborating with the University of Exeter on digital humanities training,” says Greg Garrard, Associate Dean of Research in FCCS. “It will help support our new Digital Arts and Humanities graduate degree, and at the same time also provide exciting research opportunities for students.”

To continue the collaboration, the teams at the two universities are looking for new ways to support student training and professional development.

“We anticipate that this collaborative pilot project will lead to the development of a wider programme of online, self-paced training provision in digital skills for Exeter and UBCO students, and a longer-term collaboration between Exeter and UBCO in Digital Humanities.” Says Tupman

“This is an exciting development for digital humanities at Exeter, just a year after our new Lab facilities were opened,” says Professor James Clark. “As might be expected from connective technology, digitally-enabled Humanities is a truly international research community, characterised by creative exchanges right across global Higher Education. Our project with UBC Okanagan is an excellent opportunity to enhance and extend our own practice in partnership with a centre of excellence at one of the world’s leading universities.”

Photo credit: Stephen French
Emily Murphy (AMP Lab Assistant Director and Professor of Digital Humanities) and Leif Isaksen (Professor of Digital Humanities).

Photo credit: Karis Shearer The UBCO team get a tour of the city of Exeter.

Photo credit: Stephen French (UBCO undergraduate intern). DH Lab Manager Emma Sherriff facilitates a session on Wikipedia editing.

What: Artist Panel
Who: Wanda Lock, Melany Nugent, Tania Willard, Victoria Moore
When: Monday, April 1, 2 to 3:30 p.m.
Where: UNC 106 Theatre, UBC Okanagan Campus

The Visual Arts Course  Union is hosting a panel discussion of professionals working in Kelowna’s visual arts and cultural community.

The panel will include Wanda Lock, curator at the Lake Country Art Gallery and practicing artist, Melany Nugent, assistant director of the Alternator Centre and practicing artist, Tania Willard, curator, MFA graduate and visual arts instructor in FCCS, and finally Victoria Moore, emerging artist and professional working at the Kelowna Art Gallery and Alternator Centre, a recent graduate from the BFA program. The panel will be moderated by Winnipeg based curator Jaimie Isaac.

The purpose of this panel is to shed light on possible careers in the arts, the panelists will discuss their experiences, education, residencies, etc. and their current positions in their field, to help educate our students on the possibilities upon completing their Fine Arts degree.

What: Student Okanagan Film Festival
Who: Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies (FCSS)
When: Monday, April 29 at 7 p.m.
Where: Mary Irwin Theatre, Rotary Centre for the Arts, 421 Cawston Ave

We are excited to announce the 4th annual Student Okanagan Film Festival! SOFF continues a tradition of celebrating emerging student filmmakers of the Okanagan Valley.

The screening will take place at the Mary Irwin Theatre and will showcase short films from a wide range of genres including mini-documentary, experimental, music videos, animation, short narrative & more!

This event is open to the public. Admission is by donation.

Submission deadline: April 15th.

Visit soff.ok.ubc.ca to apply.

Undergraduate student Megan Butchart has been working in archival research on campus and in the community

Megan Butchart had the opportunity to work at the Kelowna Museums as a summer student two years in a row, working with physical artifacts and the archives. She found out about this opportunity from one of her History Professors, Dr. James Hull, and this has fueled her passion about the possibility of a career working in the archives.

In the first semester of her studies, Megan was excited about the intersections between History and English that she discovered in her classes, prompting her to pursue her Bachelor of Arts degree with an English and History double major. Finding many parallels between the two subjects and discovering how historical contexts complement and enhance the works studied in English literature, Megan sees this as the perfect lead in to further her studies and career in literary archives.

The tight knit community on this campus has been an important part of Megan’s time during her degree.

“Because of the small class sizes you really get to know others in your disciplines and create lasting friendships. I have also had the opportunity to work closely with some of my professors who have been wonderful mentors and who have helped me find out about amazing opportunities offered at UBCO.”

Now in the fourth year of her degree, Megan has been working closely with Dr. Karis Shearer in The AMP Lab at UBCO on the SSRHC-funded project, SpokenWeb. This project is working towards digitizing and making accessible a collection of literary audio recordings on magnetic tape and cassette which are deteriorating in their analogue formats and would otherwise not be available for us to learn from.

“In some cases we have the only known copies of specific readings, lectures, and interviews, and it is therefore important to preserve that history for people to listen to and learn from, so we do not lose what came before,” says Megan. “It is exciting to work with this collection of literary audio recordings from the 1960s to the 1980s as they really reflect the poetry community of UBC Vancouver at that time.”

She is working on assessing the collection, developing metadata, and cataloguing, as well as transcribing and researching specific tapes within the collection.

Megan credits Dr. Karis Shearer with fostering her interest in poetry and as being a great influence on her being able to work with the team in the lab, work that is directly related to working towards her future aspirations. With Megan’s interest in conservation and preservation, this project is perfect to set her up for a career in the heritage sector.

“It is exciting to work on something big, to work towards a larger goal within my studies. I’m fortunate to have had these opportunities to get involved in different aspects of academia on campus and in the community.’

Megan is planning on working towards a master’s degree in archival studies after completing her BA at UBC Okanagan. She notes that she has had some amazing experiences here during her degree that will lead her further working in an archival field.