Greg Hollingshead talks about discovering the unusual in everyday events
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On Nov. 3, York’s Canadian Writers in Person course presented Greg Hollingshead reading from his latest collection of short stories, Act Normal. York teaching assistant Dana Patrascu-Kingsley sent the following report to YFile.
Greg Hollingshead
When Greg Hollingshead visited York University to read from his latest collection of short stories, Act Normal (2015), he selected the short story “Sense of an Ending” for his presentation. It is a story about a young woman’s uneasiness with what she feels is the “weird” comfort and acceptance in her husband’s family. What she thinks of as strange interactions are just brushed off by her husband. A grandmother goes down on all fours to tear away a steak from the dog that stole it, and that is all ‘normal’ to the family. Meanwhile, the young woman, Micheline, is always expecting something terrible to happen because in her world, something has to be wrong. This uncovering of the unusual in everyday life is part of all of Hollingshead’s stories in this volume in which people act anything but “normal.”
Hollingshead has written six other short story collections and novels. In 1995, his third story collection, The Roaring Girl, won the Governor General’s Award for Fiction. In 1998, his novel The Healer won the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize and was shortlisted for the Giller Prize. His 2004 novel Bedlam was long listed for the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. In 2012, he was awarded the Order of Canada.
Act Normal came out to excellent reviews. “Every sentence in Act Normal is a surprise. In fact, the stories are the sentences, each one veering into the next shock, until you’re far from the expected territory. Greg Hollingshead gives us what all great short story writers do: the pleasure of breaking with pattern for the wild and strange,” said author Tamas Dobozy. “I found myself rereading every paragraph, amazed, not wanting to leave behind a single word.”
Hollingshead said he writes down on six by four inch cue cards the stories he hears from friends and acquaintances, and he has boxes of these cards. Every once in a while, he goes through them, and “some of the stories are still alive” and then Hollingshead says that he knows he’ll have to transform those into short stories. He explained that he “thinks of fiction as framing true things in a way that makes them credible.”
For Hollingshead, the beauty of writing short stories is that you don’t need to work thematically. “You start with a feeling. From that you get a voice, an image, a scene, and then you go from there,” he said, noting that he writes for the pleasure of telling a story and getting it right.
On Nov. 17, Sean Michaels will read from and talk about his novel Us Conductors. Readings are free and open to any member of the public. For more information, contact Professor Leslie Sanders at leslie@yorku.ca or Professor Gail Vanstone at gailv@yorku.ca. All readings are held Tuesdays from 7 to 9pm in 206 Accolade West Building, Keele campus.
Researchers study programs to help older workers
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Two York University researchers are embarking on a study to examine innovative programs and services that assist older workers to transition into new employment.
The research project, which includes a large survey and focus groups in locations across Ontario, will help to fill a gap in understanding the needs of older people with regard to employment skills.
Suzanne Cook
Suzanne Cook, adjunct professor at York University in the Department of Sociology, who is affiliated with York’s Centre for Aging Research and Education (YU-CARE), and Thomas Klassen, a professor in the Department of Political Science and the School of Public Policy and Administration, will identify programs that focus on the unique needs of older workers, such as confidence building, and managing work-related concerns about age. Their project will also review services for older workers with labour market obstacles such as disabilities, language barriers, and limited experience in paid employment.
“Once unemployed, older workers (those 50 and above) are among those who experience the most obstacles in finding new employment,” said Cook. “In the next decade, the number of older workers will increase significantly, and many will require labour market adjustment assistance to remain in the labour force.”
Thomas Klassen
“Assisting older individuals to stay employed and helping them to remain competitive in the labour force is a critical task for governments,” said Klassen.
The findings of the research are expected to be of value to both policy makers charged with program design and evaluation, but also service providers and researchers.
“The shift to an aging workforce and the extension of working life make innovative policy and programs for older workers imperative in today’s labour market,” said Cook.
Canadian Writers lecture series features Sean Michaels, Nov. 17
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Sean Michaels (image: John Londono)
The next instalment of the Canadian Writers in Person Lecture Series takes place on Nov. 17, from 7 to 10 pm, and features award-winning novelist, music critic and blogger Sean Michaels.
The lecture will be held at 206 Accolade West Building, and will include a reading and discussion with the Quebec-based writer.
Michaels’ debut novel, Us Conductors, is the winner of the 2014 Scotiabank Giller Prize. The book is a national bestseller, exploring the true life and loves of Russian scientist and inventor Lev Termen.
The story is based on a letter written by Terman while imprisoned on a ship travelling from Manhattan back to Leningrad; a letter addressed to his one true love, Clara Rockmore, that outlines his life story.
The novel was a finalist for the 2014 Paragraphe Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction, as well as the 2014 Concordia University Book Prize.
Michaels is the founder of one of the earliest music blogs, “Said the Gramaphone.” His written contributions are many, and include publication in the Guardian, McSweeney’s, The Believer, Pitchfork, Maisonneuve, the Observer, The Wire and the National Post. He also appears in a weekly music column, “Heartbeats,” in the Globe and Mail.
He was born in Scotland in 1982, raised in Ottawa and settled later in Montreal.
The Canadian Writers in Person Lecture Series, presented by the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies (LA&PS), is bringing 11 Canadian writers to campus this year for an up-close and personal event.
More events in the series include:
Dec. 1 – Lee Maracle, Celia’s Song
Jan. 12 – Heather O’Neill, The Girl Who Was Saturday Night
Jan. 26 – Gregory Scofield, Louis: The Heretic Poems
York professor garners international attention for two forthcoming books
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Patricia Keeney
Two forthcoming books by Patricia Keeney, professor of creative writing and English at York University, have garnered international attention.
The first book is Keeney’s new take on classical material called Orpheus in our Time, which is based on some of the oldest Greek poetry in existence, pre-dating even the Greek pantheon that informs so much of western culture. The Orphic Hymns – the ancient work that inspired this manuscript – were sung by star-gazers and priests who composed lyrics to the evolution of life in cosmological, philosophical and psychological terms. The hymns take us through the earliest expressions of creation, time and power. As ancient manifestations of natural forces, human psychology and universal ideas, they still connect intimately with us today.
Keeney, the first English language poet to attempt a recreation of these ancient works, has produced modern lyric renderings of them along with contemporary, often humorous response in dialogue from an anonymous “He” and “She” commenting on the core ideas as familiar as love, war, work and health.
Keeney was invited to Athens in June, for preliminary discussions with National Theatre director Gina Kapetanaki, classical actor Rasmy Tsopelas and composer Dimitris Maragopolos regarding a theatrical version of the manuscript. These initiatives have already led to interest from other Greek, Swedish and Canadian theatre professionals.
The second book is a novel, One Man Dancing.
In July, Keeney – also a theatre critic – was invited to the African Theatre Association conference held at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles to read from the manuscript for her upcoming novel One Man Dancing, built around the life of an actor who worked closely with Robert Serumaga and his legendary Abafumi Theatre Company in Uganda in the 1970s.
During two years of intensive conversation, Charles Tumwisigye shared with Keeney his early experiences in colonial Uganda (including the beginnings of a lifelong passion for drumming and dance), his first meetings with the charismatic Serumaga, the high-profile international tours and the narrow escape from assassination by Amin. After all this, the actor emigrated to Canada, where he was almost destroyed by a monster tornado.
One Man Dancing is a unique story of theatre, political intrigue, heroics the size of myth and ultimate human endurance.
Both books are due for publication next year.
School of Human Resource Management magazine on the cutting edge of HR
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The School of Human Resource Management has launched the latest issue of its industry magazine, HR Edge. With content produced by experts from York and elsewhere, this alumni-edited magazine brings the latest research and news on the evolving world of HR to professionals across Canada.
HR Edge was first launched in 2008 and is published annually. The Fall 2015 issue is the first to be edited by alumni. With the support of former editor Professor Len Karakowsky, this year’s co-editors are graduates of the Master of Human Resources Management program, Althea Gordon and Tanya Magloire.
“This issue’s overarching theme is that the practice of HR is changing,” says Marie-Hélène Budworth, director of the School of Human Resource Management in the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies. “While the combination of articles is eclectic, [the magazine] is built around this theme of the changing world of work. There are a lot of forces that are impacting how we work today, such as our changing values around the role of work in life and family, technology and globalization. It’s much easier to work across national boundaries.”
Under its umbrella theme, the Fall 2015 issue focuses on high-quality mentoring in an article by human resource management Professor Jelena Zikic.
Marie-Hélène Budworth
“Supporting and encouraging the creation of valuable relationships between people within work settings is an important antecedent to success,” says Budworth.
Zikic’s article “considers the role of mentoring for newcomers to Canada,” she says. “It speaks to the importance of supportive relationships for job search in today’s global workforce and provides clear guidance on what can make these mentoring relationships work.”
Workplace change includes the trend of pet-friendly workplaces. In “Who let the dogs in?,” professors Christa Wilkin, Paul Fairlie and Souha Ezzedeen look into organizations that have pet ownership policies to improve work life for employees.
“People have a need to blend, to bring their life into the workplace,” says Budworth. “The article on pet friendly workplaces is an interesting look at how this is happening, how people are bridging their work life and their home life.”
This issue also announces the retirement of Professor Monica Belcourt, founding director of the School of Human Resource Management.
“Monica Belcourt has been a driving force for HR at York University and nationally. She has been a visionary and really was instrumental in setting us up to allow the creation of the school of HR at York,” says Budworth. “As a school, we have a great deal of gratitude towards what she’s created and the legacy that she’s left us.”
Anthropology lecture series continues with talk on masculinity in war and peace
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Mike McGovern
The Department of Anthropology Annual Lecture Series continues on Nov. 5 with “Masculinity in War and Peace: Violent Mastery and the Search for Distinction in the Republic of Guinea.”
The lecture will be presented by Mike McGovern of the Department of Anthropology, University of Michigan, and it will take place from 3 to 5pm at 519 Kaneff Tower.
McGovern has spent time teaching anthropology at Yale University, and was previously the West Africa project director on the International Crisis Group. In his current position, he supervises PhD students working on topics related to West and East Africa.
McGovern is a political anthropologist with a focus on postcolonial societies in West Africa. He has published Unmasking the State: Making Guinea Modern (2013, University of Chicago Press) and Making War in Côte d’Ivoire (2011, University of Chicago Press).
The event will include light refreshments and is open to all. It is co-sponsored by Founders College and the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies.
Six York graduate students awarded Vanier scholarships
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Graphic showing different research terms
York’s graduate and research community is celebrating the receipt of six Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarships for exceptional PhD students. The award is a signature achievement in part due to its immense research support — providing doctoral students $50,000 annually for up to three years to support their work – but also in that it signifies recipients as emerging leaders in their respective fields.
The results represent the University’s highest number of recipients, doubling the previous number from last year’s competition.
“This is an outstanding result for our graduate students,” said York’s President and Vice-Chancellor Mamdouh Shoukri. “These Vanier scholars exemplify the world-class scholarship that is underway at the University, and their achievement is a wonderful testament to the groundbreaking research and innovative approaches to teaching for which York is known.”
The recipients are: Samantha Fashler, Jolin Joseph, Kyo Maclear, Noa Nohmia, Christopher Vanden Berg and Dessi Zaharieva.
“It speaks to our strength as a research-intensive university and the diverse research and scholarship we have here at York,” says Barbara Crow, dean of the Faculty of Graduate Studies. “I am so incredibly proud of our Vanier scholars, as well as the many faculty and staff that contributed to this great success for our institution.”
Launched in 2009 to help retain world-class doctoral students, the scholarship helps position Canada as a global centre of excellence in research, and is available to both domestic and international PhD students.
Samantha Fashler Clinical Psychology
Samantha Fashler
Evidence shows that individuals with chronic pain pay more attention to pain and pain-related cues in the environment than individuals that are pain-free. This attentional bias has been implicated as a risk factor in the development and maintenance of pain, although previous research has been limited by the use of outdated measurement methods. In her dissertation, Samantha Fashler will address the issue of attentional risk factors for chronic postsurgical pain with a prospective research design to evaluate attentional biases using eye-tracking technology in a sample of patients before and after posterolateral thoracic surgery for cancer.
By using a direct measure of visual attention by means of eye-tracking technology, Fashler will provide novel data on attentional risk factors in patients undergoing surgery. Since there is evidence that visual retraining tasks can be used therapeutically to reduce maladaptive attentional biases and pain, this is a promising intervention to help mitigate the development of chronic pain.
Jolin Joseph Gender, Feminist & Women’s Studies
Jolin Joseph
The migration of domestic workers has become big business, involving millions of women, billions of dollars, and a multiplicity of agencies and intermediaries. Although an increasingly important avenue towards employment for women, state policy, (im)migration regulations, and media discourses combine to situate migrant domestic workers in a gendered and racially segregated labour market. Jolin Joseph’s doctoral research will render visible this undocumented, precarious and invisible form of waged work and the implications of current policies related to mobility and labour that do not adequately take gender into account.
The situation of migrant domestic workers is a particularly compelling illustration of the need for transnational governance in an era of globalization. Joseph’s research aims to fill knowledge gaps regarding domestic work in Saudi Arabia, and provide the information necessary for stakeholders to develop interventions that promote and protect of migrant rights and mobility. Joseph anticipates that this study will contribute to critical understandings of migrant lives and institutional processes as embodied and embedded in global-local settings.
Kyo Maclear Education
Kyo Maclear
Kyo Maclear’s work examines cultural responses to climate change with a specific focus on children’s and youth literature and film. Maclear addresses the representational challenges climate change presents, and specifically the narrative difficulty of expressing a crisis that unfolds incrementally and often invisibly over time. She will look at how children are used as emotive symbols in environmental discussions, evoking concern for “future generations” and how the figure of the “child redeemer” is used to serve adult needs.
Central to Maclear’s research program is the pedagogical question of how a narrative imagination shapes young people as environmental citizens in the world. She believes in the power of stories to humanize climate science by offering scenarios that might register affectively. Her ultimate goal is to ask how we, as artists and educators, can build a praxis that cultivates a thoughtful and decolonial environmentalism instead of an emergency-oriented response, based on cycles of disaster and repair. There is a need for a curricular and cultural shift if we are to bridge the despair/hope binary that characterizes climate change discussions, says Maclear.
Noa Nahmias History
Noa Nahmias
Noa Nahmias’ research examines the relationship between knowledge production, science and nation building through the lens of material culture. Her research asks how notions of science and knowledge were negotiated and portrayed to the public in 19th- and 20th-century China. She focuses on museums, since these sites can provide answers to these questions through material objects and display techniques. Studying the objects selected for the display, as well as the display techniques from the language used to the arrangement and order, reveals much about processes of knowledge production in general, and how these were carried out in China in particular.
Nahmias’ research contributes and complicates our understanding of what knowledge production is and how it relates to national and transnational currents. French Jesuits, British naturalists and Chinese entrepreneurs participated in museum building in the late 19th and early 20th century. This period also saw intense transnational encounters, which changed how Chinese elites viewed knowledge. Her research uses this historical backdrop to explore the concept of knowledge migration and knowledge production.
Christopher Vanden Berg Political Science
Christopher Vanden Berg
Christopher Vanden Berg’s research focuses on the concept of “political apathy” in political theory and in Canadian politics. He begins from the assertion that the problem of political apathy has been causally framed in one direction: citizens are uninterested in formal politics, do not vote, therefore they are considered politically apathetic subjects. Moreover, this signification, limited to those individuals who abstain from participation in formal institutions, universalizes all who do vote as “politically active” subjects. These reductions represent a general trend in the literature: a coterminous association of “political apathy” with “a lack of interest in voting”.
Vanden Berg’s project contends that considering political apathy within the frameworks outlined by members of the so-called Frankfurt School of Critical Theory can provide new insights into the nature of apathy in Canada today, and expand the approaches presently taken to the current crisis of low voter turnout. This research will contribute to topics surrounding the understanding of politics, democratic citizenship, and the subject in contemporary political theory, as well as urgent discussions on democratic reform in Canada.
Dessi Zaharieva Kinesiology & Health Science
Dessi Zaharieva
Type 1 diabetes (T1D) is an autoimmune disease in which the pancreas can no longer produce insulin and is currently affecting over 300,000 Canadians. Insulin is an important hormone that allows sugar to be broken down by the body for energy. Maintaining blood sugar levels in a target range can be extremely difficult for individuals with T1D. These fluctuations and disturbances in blood sugar levels become even greater with exercise. Individuals with T1D wear an insulin pump or use multiple daily injections as a means of diabetes management.
The goal of Dessi Zaharieva’sresearch is to contribute to the improvement of diabetes management and control of blood sugar levels during exercise in individuals with type 1 diabetes. This project will not only benefit the lives of athletes with type 1 diabetes, but also increase the knowledge of exercise and diabetes management and reduce the barriers associated with exercise — particularly the fear of low blood glucose levels (hypoglycemia).
Lecture explores Canadians’ response to refugee crisis
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A Public Policy Lecture hosted by McLaughlin College will explore the refugee crisis and Canada’s role in it and response to it.
“Crossing the Ocean of Indifference: Canada’s Response to the Refugee Crisis” takes place on Nov. 18 at 5:30pm in the Junior Common Room, 014 McLaughlin College.
Mary Jo Leddy
All are welcome to attend this event, which features Mary Jo Leddy as the guest speaker.
Leddy, director of the Romero House Community for Refugees in Toronto and adjust professor at Regis College (University of Toronto), will discuss the reactions of Canadians to the photograph of the dead child on the beach and the revelation that Canadians are not as indifferent to refugees as their government is.
The lecture will explore how the suffering of refugees has challenged Canadians to rethink who they are as a nation, and whether they believe they can make a difference.
Leddy was founding editor of Catholic New Times, an independent national Catholic newspaper, and is active in human rights and peace groups such as the Ontario Sanctuary Coalition and PEN Canada.
Recognition for her contributions includes the Order of Canada, the Gunther Plaut Humanitarian Award, the Ida Nudel Human Rights Award, the Ontario Citizenship Award, the Canadian Council of Christians & Jews Humanitarian Relations Award, and six honorary doctorates, including one from York University.
The lecture is co-sponsored by the Office of the Master, McLaughlin College, the School of Public Policy & Administration (SPPA), and the Master of Public Policy & Law (MPPAL).
For more information, contact Vicky Carnevale at 416-736-2100 ext. 33824 or vcarneva@yorku.ca.
Geography book takes a ride through the cult of the bicycle
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Glen Norcliffe on a “boneshaker”
Glen Norcliffe on a “boneshaker bicycle”
Geography Professor Emeritus Glen Norcliffe’s anthology of essays takes a new look at an old technology. Critical Geographies of Cycling: History, Political Economy and Culture is a ride through the evolution of the bicycle, a mode of transportation born during the days of horse-drawn buggies and still ridden on today’s streets.
“The key word is ‘critical.’ It’s asking people to re-appraise and re-think the role of bicycles historically and in current society. They play an important role in economic life and an important role in social life, in the city and the countryside,” said Norcliffe, who is a senior scholar at York University and the president of the International Veteran Cycle Association.
Norcliffe’s essays, some of which are co-authored with other researchers, are now easily accessible with this compilation on cycling innovation. It is geared not only at geographers, but also to other social scientists in urban studies, cultural studies, technology and society, sociology, history and environmental planning.
Invented by Baron Karl von Drais, the bicycle rolled onto the traffic scene in 1817 Germany. The first bikes had no pedals, with riders propelling themselves with their feet to the ground. The centuries would see the bike evolve in practical and culturally significant ways, such as shock-minimizing technology, the globalization of manufacturing and the gendered use of bicycles, among others.
“In the 1880s, the era of the high bike known as the ‘ordinary,’ they were almost exclusively ridden by men. Women did not ride them, except in the circus,” said Norcliffe. “Over the next 10 years with the advent of the safety bicycle, a third of cyclists were women.”
Glen Norcliffe demonstrates a high wheel bicycle
This shift in gender ratio saw the use of bikes for racing and in cavalry-like riding clubs — with bicycles instead of horses — transform into bikes used for fun, for social outings. Streets were cleaned up. And in the midst of road rage between cyclists and other road-users, like wagon drivers, the Cyclists’ Rights Movement was born. This movement saw cyclists, then-wealthy young people, influence legislation to stake claim on cyclists’ rights to the road.
“There was a bicycle craze up until about 1900 when the first cars started appearing in North America, particularly in the United States,” said Norcliffe. “With Henry Ford producing a really cheap, reliable car – the Model T – the car rapidly took over and by the 1910s and ’20s, bicycles had become a children’s toy.”
Then the bike’s image was reborn starting in the 1970s with the BMX mountain bike, suspension and fancy gears, re-igniting its popularity.
“Soon after, biking becomes recognized as a healthy, recreational activity,” said Norcliffe. “But only recently, in the last 10 to 15 years does bicycling in North America become utilitarian, a way of getting to work, getting to school, going shopping, going to the library, etc.”
The bike, however, never went out of style in Europe.
“The Dutch have been riding right through. They have miles and miles of fantastic bicycle networks. Nobody wears a helmet because you’re on separate bike networks. European cities in general are investing in good, segregated bicycle networks or well-marked ones,” he says.
In East Asia and Africa, he says, riders are trying to ditch their bikes for cars and other motorized vehicles. This especially includes China, despite the country being a major bicycle manufacturer and its widespread use of tricycles for local deliveries and as micro-businesses.
“They are where we were 50 years ago. It’s a class thing. Getting status as a car owner and going out in the country to see Grandma in the car,” said Norcliffe. “One of the things that surprises me is the timeline between where they are and where we are in the West, where we’re rediscovering bicycles as a green way of getting around the city, as a good way of getting around the city.”
Two-day conference explores African nationalism
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A conference running Nov. 5 and 6 at York University will explore the topic of “African Nationalisms, History and Development.”
The event, which takes place at Founders College on the Keele campus, will feature guest speakers Gillian Hart (University of California Berkeley), Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja (University of North Carolina), Ama Biney (Pambazuka), Nakanyike Musisi (University of Toronto), John S. Saul (York University), Robert Shenton (Queen’s University) and David Moore (U of J), among others.
The two-day conference will look at Africa’s national development and its relationship to a political economy of integration and transformation.
Discussions will be focused on the inception of African independence and the paths of development taken since, including: the evocation of long historical processes of transformatory and rapid social change; intentional efforts aimed at improvement by various agencies, including governments, markets, and various kinds of organizations and social movements; and a description, vision and measure of a desirable society that has overcome poverty.
The conference will aim to understand both the general and specific historical roots entering into Africa’s heterogeneous nationalism, and the legacies that continue to shape or constrain developmental trajectories.
The event is sponsored by the Office of the Master, Founders College; the Office of the Dean, Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies; Department of History; Department of Social Science; Department of Political Science; Department of Sociology; Department of Anthropology; and the Tubman Institute.
Act Normal came out to excellent reviews. “Every sentence in Act Normal is a surprise. In fact, the stories are the sentences, each one veering into the next shock, until you’re far from the expected territory. Greg Hollingshead gives us what all great short story writers do: the pleasure of breaking with pattern for the wild and strange,” said author Tamas Dobozy. “I found myself rereading every paragraph, amazed, not wanting to leave behind a single word.”
