Unwritten Histories

The Unwritten Rules of History

Tag: reconciliation (Page 3 of 5)

Canadian History Roundup – Week of September 17, 2017

September 24, 2017 / / 0 Comments

 

A First Nations woman in a flower dress stands outside in a field near the ocean. She is standing at a wooden table, in the process of hand-canning salmon.

Woman canning salmon outdoors. 1947. National Film Board of Canada. Phototheque / Library and Archives Canada / e010948781. Copyright expired. This photograph was probably taken during the production of the National Film Board of Canada’s documentary “Peoples of the Skeena,” which was filmed in 1947 and released in 1949. The caption of this record has not yet been revised through Project Naming.

The latest in blog posts, news, and podcasts from the world of Canadian history.

 

Continue reading

Film Favourites: Recommended Films on Canadian History

September 12, 2017 / / 3 Comments

Film posters for The War of 1812, Been There Won that; Forbidden Love; Action.

Let’s face it, our favourite classes are the ones with movies. If you’re around my age, you remember being excited by the sound of squeaky wheels and rattling, since it usually meant you were watching a movie in class. The same is still true in university, whether you are a student, a TA, or a professor. However, it can be hard to find good films to show in classrooms that are engaging for students, but also historically accurate. A couple of months ago, there was a fascinating discussion on Eryk Martin’s Facebook timeline about recommended films for teaching pre-Confederation Canadian history. So, inspired by that discussion, and with his permission, I have put together a list of recommended films for teaching Canadian history.

This list is broken down into two parts: my personal recommendations, and recommendations from fellow history professors. I would especially like to thank Stephanie Pettigrew, Donica Belisle, Carmen Nielson, Matthew Hayday, Ian Mosby, Adele Perry, Jenny Ellison, Janis Thiessen, Kesia Kvill, Sarah Dowling, and Liz Huntingford for their fantastic suggestions. Also, I have roughly organized the films and videos chronologically. In my recommendations, I have further divided the films and videos from each other, and included some additional ones I would like to show in class, but haven’t yet.

A couple of important notes or warnings: please make sure that when you are showing a feature film in a classroom that you have the appropriate license to do so. In other words, make sure the copy of the film you are screening has been approved for classroom or public screenings. If you are using the film through your institution’s library, you should be fine, but it’s always good to check. Second, as a recent discussion on Twitter initiated by Tina Adcock has shown, content/trigger warnings are important. I have listed the ones that I think are relevant below, but always use caution when screening films to avoid doing harm to your students.

Also, my husband wanted to name this blog post “Class-y” films, but my better sense vetoed. 😉

 

Continue reading

Reflections on the Second Edition of A National Crime

September 5, 2017 / / 0 Comments

Cover of the 2017 edition of A National Crime

Thanks to Maddie Knickerbocker, Leah Wiener, Sean Carleton, Stephanie Pettrigew, and, especially, Melissa Shaw for their help with this post. And special thanks to Ariel Gordon at the University of Manitoba Press for giving me the opportunity to review this book!*

 

Several months ago, when the University of Manitoba Press asked me to review the most recent edition of John S. Milloy’s A National Crime: The Canadian Government and the Residential School System, 1879 to 1986, I was initially hesitant. Not only am I not a specialist in this field, but I kept wondering whether or not we needed another settler review of a book by a settler historian about Indigenous history in Canada. The jury is still out, but, after I finished reading the book, I do have some thoughts I’d like to share.

A quick caveat. This will not be a traditional book review. I may have literally written a guide to doing them, but since this book is nearly 20 years old and has already been reviewed numerous times, what follows is more of a meditation upon reading this book.

 

Continue reading

(Re)learning Indigenous History in Canada

June 27, 2017 / / 0 Comments

Indigenous Canada

At the beginning of 2017, I came across a note on Twitter from the University of Alberta’s Faculty of Native studies about a new course they were offering, called “Indigenous Canada.” Curious, I clicked over to their website, and discovered that the course was designed to teach a non-specialized audience about Canadian history from an Indigenous perspective. Even better, it was being offered fully online, and it was free to audit. I had been looking for opportunities to learn more about Indigenous history in Canada, and this seemed like the perfect opportunity. I quickly signed up. Since I was one of the history nerds who actually looked forward to school (I really never understood the irony behind the Staples campaign, “It’s the most wonderful time of the year,” since I literally looked forward to returning to school all summer long), I was super excited to have the chance to be a student again. The prospect of finding some good resources that I could use in my own teaching seemed too good of an opportunity to pass up. But, to my pleasant surprize, the experience was far more enriching and transformative that I could have possibly imagined.

With the new session for the course beginning on July 10th, I thought that this would be the perfect opportunity to tell you about my experiences, and why I believe that everyone should take “Indigenous Canada.”

 

Continue reading

« Older posts Newer posts »

© 2024 Unwritten Histories

Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑