Dr. Henry Srebrnik (Political Science) presented “A Constellation of One’s Own: Canadian Jewish Communists and their Mass Organizations” at the conference “Di Linke: the Yiddish Immigrant Left from Popular Front to Cold War,” held virtually at Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, in December 2020. More than 500 people attended various sessions of the six-day event via Zoom.

Through the pandemic year, Dr. Shannon Murray (English) has been invited to participate in a number of webinars and panels: “The future of Undergraduate Education after COVID” for Universities Canada’s Presidents series; “Taking Stock of the state of research in higher education”; “Naming, Claiming, and Aiming our Teaching Discomforts” for the Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education;  “Naming Claiming and Aiming” with Drs. Lisa Dickson (UNBC) and Jessica Riddell (Bishop’s University) for the “Maple League” of universities;  “Developing Short-term International Study Abroad Opportunities for Your Course: Sharing Lessons Learned”  for Windsor University; “Pandemic Pedagogy and Active Learning,” an invited workshop for Bilkent University in Ankara, Turkey; and a workshop for the University of New Brunswick entitled “The Struggles and Compromises of Active Learning in Crisis Remote Teaching.” She will deliver a workshop on “Creating Rich and Comprehensive Teaching Dossiers” for the University of the West Indies in early June.

On March 27, 2021, the Department of History hosted the UPEI Undergraduate History Colloquium. The event provided students with an opportunity to present their research papers and to experience an academic conference, albeit in a virtual setting.  Students Rachel Bartlett, Erin Groman, Joseph Kani, Connor MacKay, Tiffany Wonnacott, Bailey Clark, and Michael Pasatieri presented on topics ranging from transnational aspects of abolitionism to an investigation into how the Prince Edward Island Railway influenced the town of Kensington, with the sessions bookended by opening remarks by Dr. Gregg French and closing comments from Dr. James Moran. The event organizers would like to thank both the students and faculty members who participated in the colloquium.

Despite our current pandemic, The UPEI Chamber Singers under the direction of Prof. Sung Ha Shin-Bouey (Music) took part in the Messiah/Complex, a National Video Production that was produced by Against The Grain Theatre. Messiah/Complex garnered wide viewership and was praised internationally. 

UPEI Honours History graduate from 2015, Emma Trivett, is just finishing up her Ph.D. focusing on childless queens in the Middle Ages at the University of Edinburgh. In a recent podcast interview on medieval Scottish History, she praises the training she received here at UPEI.

Rachel Hamilton (Honours History) recently learned that she was awarded a SSHRC MA Scholarship, to be taken up at Queen’s University this coming fall. The History Department at Queen’s also awarded Rachel the Carruthers Award, a generous fellowship reserved for their top MA applicants.

Former students of Latin American Studies, Eliza MacLauchlan and Fallon Mawhinney are pleased that their work with The Cooper Institute has resulted in a new bill to improve labour protections for migrant workers on PEI: https://www.saltwire.com/prince-edward-island/news/local/pei-bill-aims-to-strengthen-temporary-foreign-worker-protection-566822/

This may be a true example of serendipity: the plan to launch our new blog, Articulations, coincided with the announcement of Dr. Ann Braithwaite’s 3M award! So why not feature this announcement as the very first item in the new blog? Congratulations Ann!! Please see the complete announcement on UPEI’s home page: UPEI’s Dr. Ann Braithwaite named a 3M National Teaching Fellow.

The rest of our faculty has also been busy lately:

Dr. Jessica Strong is a recent recipient of a UPEI IRG for her project “Evaluating an acceptance and commitment psychotherapy group in assisted living facilities”.  

Dr. Benet Davetian (Sociology and Anthropology) has completed a new book which is making the rounds of literary agents. He has also completed two articles for the Encyclopedia of the Renaissance, and been asked to sit on the editorial board of a new journal, Humans.

Dr. Richard Lemm (English) recently learned that his memoir, Imagined Truths: Myths of a draft-dodging poet, has been accepted for publication this fall by Tidewater Press in Vancouver. From the publisher’s advance promo: “This amusing, poignant, wry and insightful memoir looks at growing up in a family and country (the USA) you didn’t choose and coming of age in the country (Canada) with the people you did. Myths, both familial and cultural, implode across the 49th parallel.” He and his partner, Prof. Lee Ellen Pottie (English), are waiting for France to re-open sufficiently for them to assume their month-long fellowships in the Chateau d’Orquevaux Artists Colony in Champagne, where they will work on new manuscripts.

Dr. Dale Sorensen, Assistant Professor of Brass in the Department of Music, has received a $6,000 Research and Creation grant from the Canada Council for the Arts to commission Ottawa-based composer Kelly-Marie Murphy to compose a 12-minute multi-movement work for trombone and piano. The new work is to be premiered this summer by Sorensen, along with Dr. Magdalena von Eccher, Assistant Professor of Piano.

Dr. John McIntyre’s (English Language and Literature) book Modernism and the Anthropocene, co-edited with Jon Hegglund of Washington State University, is going into production with this spring for publication in the fall. To be published by Lexington books, an imprint of Rowman and Littlefield, this collection comprises twelve essays from leading scholars who look at modernism’s intersection with the built environment.

Island Studies Press is pleased to announce the publication of Dr. Laurie Brinklow’s (Island Studies) new poetry collection My island’s the house I sleep in at night:

Being an islander means that you aren’t like everyone else,” writes Laurie Brinklow in her new book, My island’s the house I sleep in at night. Bounded by water, you can live your life with certainty knowing where your edges are. Drawn from interviews with artists, writers, and musicians from Newfoundland, Tasmania, and Prince Edward Island, these poems capture what it means to be an islander. To know every rock and tickle, “the sea your road/the hole in the sky/your light to travel by.