Law.Arts.Culture seminar explores marketized global justice with Christine Schwobel-Patel
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Osgoode Hall Law School will present its Law.Arts.Culture seminar on Feb. 27 with featured guest Christine Schwöbel-Patel.
The event, titled “‘Occupying’ Global Justice: Counter-Aesthetic Responses to the Marketisation of Global Justice,” runs from 12:30 to 2 p.m. and highlights the research of Schwöbel-Patel, an associate professor at Warwick Law School.
Christine Schwöbel-Patel
From describing the rule of law as a “personal brand” to dubbing victims of international crimes as “stakeholders,” market thinking has colonized global justice projects. This colonization, enabled through individual and institutional commitments to neoliberalism, has arguably become the common-sense approach to global justice.
The discipline of international criminal law has embraced marketized global justice like no other. It is in the stereotyped images of victims of justice as infantilized, feminized and racialized – often mobilized by international criminal justice actors – where the dominant aesthetic of marketized global justice is most acute.
The purpose of this talk is to think through some possible responses to the contemporary dominant aesthetic of marketized global justice. For notions of “occupying” global justice, Schwöbel-Patel will draw on a variety of sources, including experiences of social movements such as Occupy Wall Street, artwork in the posters of the Organization of Solidarity of the People of Asia, Africa, and Latin America (OSPAAL), and depictions of the “national mothers” of socialism. What these have in common is the idea of the troubling of structural inequality as struggle.
Schwöbel-Patel’s research focuses on issues of conflict and humanitarianism, mass atrocities and institutions of law, and decoloniality and pedagogy. These themes are brought together through a political economy and aesthetics critique. She is the author of Global Constitutionalism in International Legal Perspective (Brill/Martinus Nijhoff 2011) and the editor of Critical Approaches to International Criminal Law: An Introduction (Routledge 2014). She is currently completing a manuscript titled Marketing Global Justice, which will be published in 2019.
To RSVP to the event, or for more information, visit the event page.
Student research to be celebrated at Undergraduate Research Fair
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Undergraduate students will showcase their research at a unique experiential learning opportunity at York University designed to engage them in academic literacy.
During the Undergraduate Research Fair on Feb. 27, student researchers will have the opportunity share their research and win a monetary award or an invitation to revise their presentation as an article for publication in Revue YOUR Review, a refereed e-journal published by York University Libraries.
Participants at the 2017 Undergraduate Research Fair
This pan-university event, in its seventh year, is co-sponsored by the Libraries and the Office of the Vice-Preside Research & Innovation (VPRI). It aims to focus on multidisciplinary undergraduate research.
Students selected to participate will share their work by designing a poster and presenting the results of their research to the York community in a friendly, cross-curricular environment.
As in previous years, the Scott Library Art Walk exhibit leading to the fair will display student art and design work, and a reception will follow the fair.
Undergrad students who have created a piece of artwork for a 2016 York credit course may apply to have their work displayed along the Art Walk during the fair. One artwork submission will be chosen to grace the cover of the e-journal associated with the fair, Revue YOUR Review (York Online Undergraduate Research).
Applications are now closed for undergraduate student research submissions; however, students interested in submitting a piece of art for the Art Walk have until Feb. 21 to do so. More information can be found online.
The York University community is welcome to attend this showcase of undergraduate research and art being held at the Scott Library Collaboratory from noon to 2:30 p.m. Students will show their research in the form of poster sessions presented in a friendly, marketplace-like environment.
York researchers invited to apply for new Large Grant ‘Preliminary Study’ Funding Competition
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Research York University
A new grant opportunity for researchers at York University will support multi-Faculty research teams.
The Large Grant “Preliminary Study” Funding Competition will provide funding to multidisciplinary research teams that have evidence of prior collaboration and are ready to launch a specific preliminary research project.
The project should lend strong support to a large-scale Tri-Council grant opportunity in the fall of 2019 or spring of 2020 by demonstrating feasibility, capability, importance of the endeavour and proof of concept.
“Building on the momentum of PIER and our new Strategic Research Plan 2018-23, this grant is an exciting opportunity to collaborate with Faculties to support strong interdisciplinary research teams working towards large-scale grant opportunities at SSHRC (Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council), CIHR (Canadian Institute of Health Research) and NSERC (Natural Sciences & Engineering Research Council of Canada),” said Rob Haché, vice-president research and innovation.
The grant application is due April 1; however, research teams interested in submitting an application need to contact their Faculty’s associate dean of research by March 1.
Rebecca Pillai Riddell
York University Associate Vice-President Research Rebecca Pillai Riddell said many recent grant opportunities are focused on multidisciplinary projects.
“A lot of the new Tri-Council funding opportunities, like the Collaborative Health Research Projects and the New Frontiers in Research Fund, are targeting projects that require cross-council collaboration,” she said. “York researchers should not hesitate to contact myself or others in the Division of the Vice-President Research (VPRI) to ask about this important new York internal grant.”
Regina Lee
Lassonde Associate Dean Research and Graduate Studies Regina Lee, who brought up the need to VPRI, said, “This new York grant fills in a critical gap for established multidisciplinary teams that require more expansive pilot or preliminary study to be competitive for larger Tri-Council grant applications.”
Applications (form, principal investigator CV, Faculty letters of support, pertinent external partners’ letters of support) are due electronically to roseman@yorku.ca by April 1.
For the full timeline, more information and application details, visit the yu link site: bit.ly/2WQhGRx.
Empowering Women Entrepreneurs Symposium at Osgoode Hall Law School, Feb. 11
This unique symposium will feature IP experts and accomplished entrepreneurs who will provide attendees with an opportunity to learn more about IP law, best practices for starting a business, and how an IP strategy can contribute to business success. The day will be capped by an afternoon of mentorship breakout sessions and networking opportunities with women entrepreneurs, experts and mentors.
Pina D’Agostino
Co-chaired by Osgoode Professor Pina D’Agostino, founder and director of IP Osgoode and the Innovation Clinic, and Darlene Carreau, director-general, Business Services Branch, CIPO, the symposium will bring together an impressive group of successful women entrepreneurs, business leaders and IP practitioners who will reflect on their own experiences and mentor the attendees on how to recognize, protect and commercialize their IP.
The symposium features a keynote presentation from Jessica Rawlley, the co-founder of MaaS Pros and TIEIT Inc. Rawlley has been recognized for her outstanding entrepreneurship and contributions to the country’s innovation ecosystem. She is the Newmarket Chamber of Commerce’s 2018 Entrepreneur of the Year and TIEIT also received the Innovation of the Year award at the same event.
The morning panel, titled “IP & Commercialization – Protecting and Leveraging Your Most Valuable Assets: You and Your Ideas,” will focus on the importance of having an IP strategy and best practices for leveraging some of the main areas of IP. The panel will also focus on key issues to identify and act on as well as the realities of starting a business. Chaired by D’Agostino, the panel features Carreau (CIPO), along with Karima Bawa, former chief legal officer and general counsel at Research in Motion (Blackberry) and senior Fellow, Centre for International Governance Innovation, and Jacqueline (Jackie) Cooper, chief revenue office, Muse.
Following a networking lunch, attendees will break into smaller groups and circulate through four IP-themed mentorship sessions. These sessions offer an interactive networking opportunity for the participants to ask questions, connect with leading experts and entrepreneurs, and receive mentorship directed at their professional and business goals. The four mentorship session themes are structured around pivotal aspects of the commercialization cycle: 1) IP identification and protection, 2) IP commercialization and strategies, 3) IP and financing, and 4) growing and scaling.
Carreau will be joined by Reshika Dhir, associate, Bereskin & Parr LLP, and Rita Gao, lawyer and patent agent, Norton Rose Fulbright LLP, to discuss how entrepreneurs should recognize the value in their ideas and inventions and protect them via various forms of IP law.
During the IP commercialization and strategies sessions, Karima Bawa will be joined by Allison Hayman, partner, Cassels Brock, to discuss how IP can be effectively leveraged and commercialized in many ways.
The IP and financing mentorship sessions will give attendees insight into the importance of having and leveraging IP to secure external funding. Michelle Lochan, regional innovation officer, Innovation Canada (Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada) and Teresa Moore, CPA, CA, Baker Tilly Vaughan LLP, will draw from their experiences in areas such as entrepreneurship and manufacturing to guide attendees forward.
Recognizing the important role that scale-ups play in Canada’s economy, Jackie Cooper and Vanessa Grant, Partner, Norton Rose Fulbright Canada LLP, will speak to the unique challenges that entrepreneurs and start-ups face as they move towards the scale-up level.
The Empowering Women Entrepreneurs: Effective Strategies for IP Commercialization and Success symposium continues the efforts of IP Osgoode and CIPO to encourage and empower entrepreneurs across Canada. IP Osgoode and CIPO staff will be on hand to connect with attendees looking to access services and tools such as IP Osgoode’s Innovation Clinic and the CIPO’s new IP Hub.
Founded in 2010, the Innovation Clinic is the largest pro bono IP legal clinic and the first of its kind in Canada. In collaboration with Norton Rose Fulbright Canada LLP and Bereskin & Parr LLP, the Innovation Clinic provides experiential learning experiences for Osgoode students in the areas of IP and technology law while at the same time providing pro bono one-to-one IP law information and support to inventors, entrepreneurs, and start-up companies in Toronto, York Region, Waterloo Region and beyond.
CIPO’s IP Awareness and Education Program serves as a one-stop shop that helps connect Canadians with the IP tools, resources and experts they need at every stage of their IP commercialization journey.
The symposium is free of charge and open to all members of the York University community and anyone interested in learning more about IP law and the role of IP in commercial success.
Osgoode Professor Janet Walker to deliver 2019 Jean-Gabriel Castel lecture
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York University faculty member Janet Walker will deliver the 2019 Jean-Gabriel Castel lecture on international law and international organizations on Feb. 26 at the BMO Conference Centre at Glendon Hall from 5:30 to 7 p.m.
Janet Walker
Walker is a professor of law (past associate dean) at Osgoode Hall Law School, a CIArb Chartered Arbitrator, and a member of the Ontario Bar, and licensed legal consultant, New York State Bar.
She will deliver a talk on “International Commercial Arbitration in an Era of Transparency.” The lecture will be presented in English, and is free to attend.
Walker has served in ad hoc and administered arbitrations in a variety of seats. She is a member of numerous associations and panels, and has a good working knowledge of Spanish and French. She is founding member of ICC Canada (the Canadian Chamber of Commerce), Toronto Commercial Arbitration Society, CIArb (Chartered Institute of Arbitrators) Toronto Chapter (founding chair), Young Canadian Arbitration Practitioners and ArbitralWomen.
For 20 years, Walker has consulted on, and provided expert evidence in, cross-border and complex litigation, and has served on law reform working groups for the American Law Institute, American Bar Association (ABA), International Bar Association (IBA) and the Uniform Law Conference of Canada, including its international arbitration legislation project advisory board.
Walker authors Canada’s main text on private international law, Canadian Conflict of Laws, and Halsbury’s Laws of Canada, Conflict of Laws. She is the general editor of The Civil Litigation Process, Class Actions in Canada, and a co-editor of Common Law, Civil Law and the Future of Categories and Private International Law in Common Law Canada, and is the author of many journal articles.
Walker was advisor (common law) to Canada’s Federal Courts rules committee (2006-15), and CIArb academic advisor (2014-15). She is the International Law Association Canadian branch’s past president, International Association of Procedural Law’s secretary general, and she coached the Osgoode Vis Team (2001-14). Walker was Leverhulme professor at University College, Oxford, Hauser global law professor at NYU and NYU/NUS in Singapore, and visiting professor in Tunisia (2001-14).
For more on this event, or to register, visit the event page online.
About the annual Jean-Gabriel Castel Lecture
The annual Jean-Gabriel Castel Lecture was created in 2004 to honour Professor Jean-Gabriel Castel, an internationally acknowledged jurist and now emeritus Distinguished Research Professor in international law at Osgoode Hall Law School of York University, Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, and Officer of the Order of Canada.
For a decade, Castel taught international law to Glendon’s undergraduate students in the International Studies Program. This public lecture series was launched in order to honour his contribution to this department, and to give the students in the Department of International Studies, as well as other social sciences disciplines, the opportunity to hear an eminent jurist and/or a well-known personality in public life discuss issues in law that demand public debate.
The first speaker in the series was Jean-Gabriel Castel himself, who spoke in February 2005 on the topic “The Legality and Legitimacy of Unilateral Armed Intervention in an Age of Terror, Neo-Imperialism and Massive Violations of Human Rights. Is International Law Evolving in the Right Direction?”.
Interactive video game highlights the impact of vaccine decision-making
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To the public, diseases like Ebola seem to emerge from the shadows and then disappear just as mysteriously. Viruses, vaccines and even epidemiologists (who study the spread of disease) are all invisible actors. Often only health officials take the spotlight at the height of an epidemic.
One truly innovative and interdisciplinary project, funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), seeks to bring public health into the public eye. Shadowpox: The Antibody Politic is a video game (and an art installation) that imagines a deadly new pathogen made of shadows. The game uses live-animated digital effects to projection map viral “shadowpox” onto the players’ bodies.
In this interactive scenario, participants choose to “Get the Vaccine” or “Risk the Virus,” then watch the results of their decision: how many people around them they protect or infect as they fight the disease. At its core, Shadowpox is about making visible the invisible consequences of our choices, and revealing the constructive role that art can play in global political discourse around life-saving vaccines.
“The game is one incarnation of a participatory storyworld with a larger purpose: to expand our civic imagination,” says Shadowpox creator Alison Humphrey, a Cinema and Media Arts PhD student and Vanier Canada Graduate Scholar. “It uses ‘co-immunity’ as a metaphor for the power we each have to make choices that will have a destructive or constructive effect on the people and the world around us,” she adds.
To build this bridge between science and fiction, Humphrey collaborated with Professor Caitlin Fisher in the School of the Arts, Media, Performance & Design, whose new Immersive Storytelling Lab won a major Canada Foundation for Innovation award; Professor Steven J. Hoffman of the Faculty of Health and Osgoode Hall Law School, director of the Global Strategy Lab, and scientific director of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research’s Institute of Population & Public Health; and technical director LaLaine Ulit-Destajo, a recent Digital Media alumna.
Shadowpox players at the opening, UNAIDS, May 2017. First image: Monica Geingos, First Lady of Namibia.
Game emphasizes voluntary participation for the collective good
Shadowpox illustrates what health researchers call “community immunity,” the level of vaccination at which a disease can no longer find enough unprotected hosts to spread through a population ̶ for polio, this level is 80 to 85 per cent; for measles, it is as high as 95 per cent. Community immunity helps to protect people who cannot get vaccinated, including babies and those with compromised immune systems. Since participation is voluntary, and people are vulnerable to fear and misinformation, vaccination is one of the most complex political dilemmas facing public health.
Hoffman emphasizes that Shadowpox gives participants the chance to play out the invisible consequences of choices made daily by millions of people around the world. “The game balances qualitative fun with a quantitative statistical model, developed with the Global Strategy Lab’s Susan Rogers Van Katwyk, based on real-world statistics for vaccination, health spending, education, and wealth in 193 countries,” he explains.
The player’s final score transforms into an “Infection Collection” or “Protection Collection” of virtual trading cards written by Fisher (see shadowpox.org/ZZZ), bringing to life the 99 neighbours who can be touched by a single vaccine decision.
Exhibition premiered in Switzerland, reviewed well in The Lancet
LaLaine Ulit-Destajo infects the lab with Shadowpox sprites. Sprite is a computer graphics term for a two-dimensional bitmap that is integrated into a larger scene.
Humphrey and Ulit-Destajo play-tested the Shadowpox story and digital effects in 2016 at a workshop at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, and The Art and Science of Immunization symposium at the University of Toronto. Shadowpox: The Antibody Politic then premiered in the 2017 exhibition <Immune Nations> in Trondheim, Norway, which moved to Geneva, Switzerland, for the 70th World Health Assembly. (Additional funds were provided by the Research Council of Norway.)
<Immune Nations> is an ambitious, multi-year collaboration between artists, scientists and policy-makers, described by curator Natalie Loveless as the first of its kind to “specifically address the issue of vaccines from a collaborative, interdisciplinary perspective, attentive to the arts and its many roles for advocacy and political intervention.”
<Immune Nations>, and Shadowpox in particular, received an enthusiastic review in the highly regarded medical journal The Lancet, which called the latter “undoubtedly one of the most powerful and playful ways to illustrate both the individual and population-level implications of community immunity.”
Shadowpox will continue to evolve and transform over 2019
Shadowpox: The Antibody Politic had its Canadian premiere at the Robert McLaughlin Gallery in Oshawa from September 2018 to January 2019, where the show Public Notice explored how contagious disease throughout history, from the Black Plague to Ebola, has fuelled fear and xenophobia. The show marks the centenary of the 1918-1919 “Spanish” Flu pandemic, whose sweep across the globe killed more people than the First World War.
From left: Steven J. Hoffman, Alison Humphrey and Caitlin Fisher in front of the tent for Shadowpox in Geneva
The next incarnation of Humphrey’s doctoral research, Shadowpox: A Spark in the Firewall, is a participatory storyworld co-created with young people in Africa, Europe, Asia and North America in 2019. In this science-fiction scenario, young, healthy volunteers test a breakthrough vaccine at the height of a global pandemic. But their commitment to joining the network of co-immunity is itself tested by a battery of modern anxieties and ancient fears, sparking emergent drama from the tensions between feeling and thinking, individual and community, participation and resistance, vigilance and trust.
By Megan Mueller, senior manager, research communications, Office of the Vice-President Research & Innovation, York University, muellerm@yorku.ca
Osgoode students interact with simulated clients in innovative pilot project
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Using one of the latest innovations in legal education, York University’s Osgoode Hall Law School is training people from a variety of backgrounds to be simulated clients and help law students develop their client-facing skills.
Shelley KiersteadPaul Maharg
“Outside of law school clinics, it’s as close to the reality of working with clients as most of our students will get,” said Paul Maharg, a leading scholar in legal education who joined Osgoode in 2017 as distinguished professor of practice.
“Like student-doctors meeting real patients in surgeries and hospitals, student-lawyers learn to shift their thinking from the technical details of appellate cases and legislation they learn in most courses in law school to a holistic appreciation of a client’s situation, wishes, expectations and the possible extra-legal solutions that might be available to the client,” he said.
Maharg and Professor Shelley Kierstead are using 11 simulated clients in a pilot program this winter involving juris doctor (JD) students in Kierstead’s first-year Legal Process course.
“We’re using the simulated clients with students to help develop students’ interviewing skills, their awareness of clients, the role of affect, perspective and perception of law in clients, and much else,” Kierstead said.
The simulated clients participate in an intense four-day training course before meeting the students. The simulated clients must be able to: memorize a scenario and represent it conversationally; improvise on the scenario where appropriate; assess students’ client-facing skills; and self-monitor their own performances as simulated clients.
Meanwhile, Maharg and Kierstead prepare the students to meet the simulated clients with a brief presentation on the simulated client initiative and a tutorial on interviewing skills. This is followed by a student’s mandatory meeting with a simulated client and a second, voluntary meeting with a simulated client.
Until now, students or actors have been mostly used to play the roles of clients. There have been problems with that approach including concerns about the authenticity and fairness of the client experience.
“The simulated clients are, paradoxically, more authentic because they are trained to enact being themselves with each student,” said Maharg. “We also train them to react conversationally with the lawyer; not to give the full problem as a highly detailed, linear, logical narrative but to present as if the client were relating to the lawyer for the first time, with narrative gaps, redundancies and other markers of conversational register.”
When actors are used with students, they are almost never used to assess students, Maharg said.
“In our initiative, we use the simulated clients to assess students’ client-facing behaviours and attitudes. We make client experience the focus of the assessment and ensure the validity and robustness of the assessment.”
Since 2005, about a dozen simulated client projects have been established internationally among a loose consortium of law schools, legal educators and legal education regulators, Maharg said.
“In addition to the benefits to this approach, it also challenges many aspects of conventional legal educational practices and cultures,” he said. “In future years, we hope to expand the use of simulated clients in the law school.”
Osgoode team wins Americas round of Price International Media Law Moot
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Pictured, left to right: Matthew McLean, Alana Robert, Professor Jamie Cameron (coach), James Shields and John Justin. (Absent: Bailey Fox)
A team of students from York University’s Osgoode Hall Law School travelled to New York City with their coach (and professor) during the last week of January for the Americas round of the Price International Media Law Moot.
The team brought home the first-place trophy, as well as honours for Best Memorial (runner-up) and Best Oralist – Matt McLean (runner-up).
Members of the team include students Matthew McLean, Alana Robert, James Shields, John Justin and Bailey Fox, and professors (coaches) Jamie Cameron and Bruce Ryder.
In April, the team will travel to Oxford University with Ryder for the international round.
The Price Media Law Moot Court Programme, established in 2008, aims to “foster and cultivate interest in freedom of expression issues and the role of the media and information technologies in societies around the world.” It was established by the University of Oxford’s Programme in Comparative Media Law & Policy.
The competition is designed to challenge law students to participate in comparative research that meets legal standards at all levels (regional, national and international). Students learn to develop their arguments, both written and oral, on issues in media and information and communications technology law.
Currently there are six regional rounds (South Asia, Asia-Pacific, southeast Europe, northeast Europe, Middle East, Africa and Americas). The international rounds, held in Oxford, bring participants from countries as diverse as Australia, Belgium, Brazil, China, Egypt, Ethiopia, Greece, India, Lebanon, the Philippines, Serbia, Trinidad and Tobago, Ukraine, the U.K. and the U.S.
The international rounds take place in April. It is the 12th year for the competition.
Justice Michael Tulloch presents McLaughlin Lunch Talk
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Justice Michael Tulloch of the Ontario Court of Appeal will be the featured guest at York University during the Feb. 4 McLaughlin Lunch Talk series event.
Justice Michael Tulloch
The talk is titled “The Importance of the Consultation Process in Developing and Implementing Public Policy” and it will run from noon to 1:30 p.m. in the Senior Common Room, 140 McLaughlin College.
Tulloch has a long and distinguished career of service as a member of the Canadian judiciary, a Crown prosecutor and a lawyer in private practice, as well as a renowned writer, speaker and professor.
Tulloch was appointed to the Ontario Court of Appeal in 2012 after serving as a justice on the Ontario Superior Court of Justice since 2003. Prior to his judicial appointment in 2003, he served as an assistant Crown attorney in Peel and Toronto from 1991-95 before entering private practice where he specialized in criminal law until his appointment to the bench.
Tulloch holds degrees in economics and business from York University, and he graduated from York’s Osgoode Hall Law School with a law degree in 1989. He was called to the Ontario bar in 1991, and he later became the first Black judge appointed to the Ontario Court of Appeal.
Robarts Centre relaunches Odessa Prize for the Study of Canada
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After a four-year hiatus, the Robarts Centre for Canadian Studies is relaunching the Odessa Prize for the Study of Canada. This award recognizes the best essay written in either English or French in a fourth-year undergraduate course at York University on a topic relevant to the study of Canada, including but not limited to: Canadian history, environment, politics, public policy, society, arts and literature. The winner of the competition will be awarded $1,000.
Faculty members are invited to submit one essay on behalf of a student, with a short covering letter explaining the context in which the work was written. The deadline for fall term courses is Jan. 25. The deadline for winter and year-long courses is May 3. Submissions will be adjudicated by a committee formed by the Robarts Centre, and the winner will be announced by June. Faculty members are asked to submit an electronic copy of the essay and provide the nominee’s York student number and current email to robarts@yorku.ca.
The Odessa Prize is one way the Robarts Centre for Canadian Studies promotes a research culture at York University that advances the study of Canada. “This award helps us celebrate the research of our undergraduate students,” said Robarts Centre Acting Director Jean Michel Montsion. “It also creates opportunities for our young researchers and aspiring scholars to connect with the research networks on Canada that exist at York.”
Irvin Studin
Initially created in 2008, the Odessa Prize for the Study of Canada is made possible by the generous donation from York alumnus Irvin Studin (BBA ’99, PhD ’11), past Rhodes Scholar and Governor General’s Gold Medal winner, captain and two-time soccer All-Canadian with the York University men’s varsity soccer team. The Odessa Prize is dedicated to Studin’s parents, Yuri and Sima, both of whom hail from the famous port city of Odessa. The award was originally founded through the combined contributions of the many writers in Studin’s 2006 book, What is a Canadian? (McClelland & Stewart). Studin explains the rationale behind the creation of the award: “I hope the Odessa Prize plays some small role in spurring and rewarding the imagination of talented young Canadian thinkers and scholars as they examine the future of Canada and the grand potential of the Canadian project in the general human condition.”
In the past, this award not only recognized the exceptional work of York undergraduate students, it also encouraged them to pursue their academic aspirations. The most recent winner of the Odessa Prize, Jesse Thistle (BA ’15), is now a PhD candidate in the Department of History at York University. “Amongst undergrads whose work falls under the umbrella of topics related to Canada, the Odessa is the biggest award one can win,” said Thistle. “I remember when I first heard I’d won and the validation I felt and still feel today. To be appreciated and rewarded on such a high level did much to change the trajectory of my scholarly career.”
Besides the cash prize and the recognition associated with the honour of authoring the best undergraduate essay on a topic relevant to Canada within the York community, the winner of the Odessa Prize will be nominated by the Robarts Centre for the Best Canadian Studies Undergraduate Essay/Thesis Prize awarded by the Canadian Studies Network.
After a four-year hiatus, the Robarts Centre for Canadian Studies is relaunching the Odessa Prize for the Study of Canada. This award recognizes the best essay written in either English or French in a fourth-year undergraduate course at York University on a topic relevant to the study of Canada, including but not limited to: Canadian history, environment, politics, public policy, society, arts and literature. The winner of the competition will be awarded $1,000.