Canada and the Call. J.E.H. Macdonald. 1914. Library and Archives Canada, R11274-606. Copyright expired.
The latest in blog posts, news, and podcasts from the world of Canadian history.
Tag: racism
Special thanks to Anne Dance, Tina Adcock, Stephanie Pettigrew, Lee Blanding, and especially Lynne Marks for their help with this piece.
Content Warning/Trigger Warning: antisemitism, racism, violence
In the wake of the mass shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh on Saturday, I wrote a Twitter essay sharing some thoughts and feelings. To my surprise, it gained a lot of attention, and I am overwhelmed by the resulting outpouring of love and support. However, since Twitter isn’t an ideal medium for a nuanced discussion of history, I was also debating putting together a blog post. A number of individuals expressed interest in more information about the racial identity of Jews and the history of antisemitism[1]. There seems to be overwhelming support for this idea, so here we go. While I’ll be repeating a lot of what I’ve said already, if you want to see the original Twitter thread, just go here.
I have to tell you, I had a really hard time figuring out what to write about this week. Between the current strike by college professors in Ontario, the attacks online against feminist and socially progressive scholars, and the latest insanity happening down south, there are so many current events emerging right now that it seemed impossible to figure out a place to start. But two not completely unrelated events stand out in my mind. The first is the passage of Bill 62 in my home province, and the other is the disciplinary action faced by Masuma Khan, a student at Dalhousie, for speaking out against Canada150 on Facebook. To my mind, these events have something important in common: they are both based around particular narratives of history and identity. So in today’s blog post, I’m going to talk about the events in question, imagined communities, the backfire effect, and why it is important that we teach history responsibly.
Welcome back to our monthly series, “Upcoming Publications in Canadian History,” where I’ve compiled information on all the upcoming releases for the following month in the field of Canadian history from every Canadian academic press, all in one place. This includes releases in both English and French. To see June’ releases, click here.
***Please note that the cover images and book blurbs are used with permission from the publishers.***
N.B. This list only includes new releases, not rereleases in different formats.
What is CHA Reads? Find out here!
Joanna Pearce defending Sean Mills’ A Place In The Sun: Haiti, Haitians, and the Remaking of Quebec.
Or: Why you should move Sean Mills’ latest to the top of your TBR pile of great Canadian history books, even if you don’t see how it connects to your own research
If there’s one thing #CHAReads2017 is teaching me, it’s that we have an abundance of great books to choose from for this year’s Sir John A MacDonald Prize. If you’re anything like me, you go into the CHA every year with the best of intentions to read the short list, or at least the winner. If you’re also anything like me, your Canadian history reading is mostly limited to books related to your own research, whatever you’re teaching this year, and books by your friends and colleagues (and supervisors) because trying to pull together your own work is taking up all of your mental energy. #gradstudentproblems
I’m really excited to announce that NOTCHES: (re)marks on the history of sexuality has just published a new blog post written by yours truly! The post is based on my own research, so if you’ve been curious about what kind of work I do when I’m not writing here, check it out! Here’s a short preview:
In 1965, a Jewish couple living in Venezuela contacted the Jewish Child Welfare Bureau (JCWB) of Montreal and asked about the possibility of adopting a Jewish child. The JCWB declined their request and told them that due to the small number of Jewish children eligible for adoption, they only placed children with permanent residents of the city. They tried to entice the Venezuelan couple to adopt children that were harder to place: mixed-race children born to white Jewish mothers and Black Canadian fathers.
Montreal’s Jewish Child Welfare Bureau reflected the widely held view in Jewish communities that reproductive intra-faith sex was vital to shoring up racial-religious boundaries and to reproducing Jewish religion and ethnicity. Indeed, Jewish institutions such as the JCWB regulated reproduction and reproductive outcomes, including adoption, in order to construct and preserve Jewish identity in interracial and interethnic contexts.
Check out the rest here!
Makeshift bath in Prairies, Audrey James washing up, Portage-la-Prairie, Manitoba (August 5, 1954). Rosemary Gilliat. Rosemary Gilliat Eaton Fonds. Library and Archives Canada, e010975221 CC BY 2.0
The latest in blog posts, news, and podcasts from the world of Canadian history.
Guests sunbathe on the pier at Wigwassan Lodge, Lake Rosseau, Muskoka, Ontario, July 1951 / Chris Lund. Canada. National Film Board of Canada. Photothèque. Library and Archives Canada, e010955792 / C.C. by 2.0
The latest in blog posts, news, and podcasts from the world of Canadian history.