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Issue 27, September 2020 1
ATHENA
HRG NEWSLETTER, 2020-2021
DIRECTOR’S MESSAGE
Kim Nelson
Director of the Humanities Research Group
Over the summer I read historian Jason Moore on issues related to the climate crisis and the geological age that
we are living in, whether we call it the Anthropocene, Capitalocene, or other. He blames our current ecological
predicament on Cartesian dualism and the misunderstanding that humans are somehow separate from nature.
Indeed, such a distinction between human actions and environment, between our physicality and intellect, seems
very misguided in this current moment of molecular and racial reckoning. Many are now grasping how our bodies
shape our experience and how we are treated. Some are grappling, for the first time, our vulnerabilities to
sickness and also how our bodies involuntarily speak, framing boundaries for our opportunities and possibilities,
creating contexts for what we do and think.
My last notable pre-lockdown experience was having the pleasure of seeing a large HRG audience at a
memorable talk by the incomparable Sook-Yin Lee. It was a wonderful evening in a week accompanied by the
sense of walls closing in, as we all adjusted to the collective experience of being caught up in events that make
history. Our plans for the HRG in 2020-2021 were overturned as we embraced a new normal, one ripe for HRG
engagement.
This year our theme is Embodied Experience. We will present Dr. Lydia Miljan, who will explore “Primate
Politics” as a way to unpack some of the behaviour we see in contemporary politics, globally and in Canada.
Humanities Week will be in November again this year, featuring a roundtable on research for students, and
events showcasing Social Work’s Dr. Camisha Sibblis on anti-Black racism, and acclaimed author Dr. Emma
Donoghue, whose latest best-selling book, The Pull of the Stars, published in July 2020, is about the flu
pandemic of 1918.
Issue 27, September 2020 2 What will 2021 bring? Unclear, but we can say that for the HRG it will include talks by President’s Indigenous Scholar Dr. Ashley Glassburn on Indigenous Feminism and 2020-2021 HRG Fellow Dr. Adrian Guta on his HRG supported research. We will greet the new year in January with an evening featuring one of the world’s leading intellectuals, Canada’s own Naomi Klein. The HRG is excited to offer this opportunity to discuss the issues of the day with this award winning author of seven New York Times bestselling books. A vibrant and influential thinker who has always addressed issues of equity and justice, all of which intersect body and mind. She will speak to and answer questions from our HRG audience from inside our interconnected pods. Finally, we are excited to partner with the Outstanding Scholars program and Dr. Simon du Toit to offer events tailored for this cohort and open to all. Outstanding Scholars (OS) places high-achieving students into paid positions as research assistants. Available in every major, OS students complete research or creative projects in support of faculty research goals. For more information please go to www.uwindsor.ca/outstandingscholars/. An enthusiastic welcome to all of the Outstanding Scholars who will be joining us this year. It is quite a pivot to move the HRG experience onto screens. The HRG has always been dedicated to gathering to listen, question, talk and think, because congregating and being present in our bodies is so important to thinking through things and because we are social animals. But until such time as we can reassemble and safely expose ourselves to each other’s germs and ideas, we will assemble online. We will send links to these online talks by email through the listserv so it is more important than ever to be on the HRG email list. If you would like to join, please email a request to sign up to HRGmail@uwindsor.ca. In addition, we will post links to our website before the events at uwindsor.ca/hrg. In closing, I’d like to thank everyone who supports the HRG. Thank you to the HRG Advisory Board, including the HRG student Advisory Board, all of whom are essential to the HRG brain trust. Thanks to the Daily News for helping us to get the word out. As ever, huge props to Yvonne Zimmerman for all of her hard work and unflagging enthusiasm. The HRG would also like to thank Dean Marcello Guarini for his commitment and encouragement of the HRG’s mandate, alongside the entire Dean’s Office of FAHSS. Much gratitude to President Rob Gordon and the Office of the President, and Provost Douglas Kneale and the Provost’s Office for their fulsome support of our efforts to engage wide-ranging and relevant ideas from across the arts, humanities, and social sciences. Most of all, we would like to thank our wonderful, thoughtful, and engaged audience of students, faculty, staff, and community members, who give us purpose and inspiration. Wishing everyone good health, expansive ideas, and adequate bandwidth. I hope to see and hear you this year via my computer screen.
Issue 27, September 2020 3
WHO WE ARE
The Humanities Research Group is an interdisciplinary council comprised of University of Windsor
faculty, students, staff, and community members. We support humanities research and facilitate
events where thinkers and audience members grapple with issues relating to the human condition.
Our goal is to bring people together to challenge, inspire, and stimulate, in a space of open
dialogue, sharing, and exchange.
HRG ADVISORY BOARD
Kim Nelson, Director, HRG
Marcello Guarini, Dean, FAHSS
Kyle Asquith, Communication, Media and Film
Louis Cabri, Department of English
Ronjon Paul Datta, Department of Sociology,
Anthropology, and Criminology
Nick Hector, School of Creative Arts
Michelle MacArthur, School of Dramatic Art
Jaclyn Meloche, School of Creative Arts UWindsor and the
Department of Art and Art History WSU
Lydia Miljan, Department of Political Science
Dan Wells, Biblioasis, Community Member
Gemma Cunial, Student Representative
Alex-Andrei Ungurenasu, Student Representative
For the latest HRG updates, check
out our social media pages!
Issue 27, September 2020 4
HUMANITIES WEEK
This year, Humanities Week will be held the week of November 9th, 2020. Humanities Week is a series
of lectures and events designed to celebrate the humanities. The Human meets the screen as this will
be our first all-online Humanities Week.
NOVEMBER 2021
9 10 11 12 13
November 9th — Roundtable on Research Careers 4pm
The HRG is assembling scholars from multiple departments across FAHSS for an online roundtable to discuss
research careers, featuring Kyle Asquith, Adrian Guta, Ashley Glassburn, and Camisha Sibblis, moderated by
Kim Nelson and Simon du Toit. This is a special event co-ordinated with Outstanding Scholars.
November 10th — Emma Donoghue on Writing and Research 4pm
Prolific and best-selling author Emma Donoghue will talk to students about her approach to writing and research
methods. This is a special event co-ordinated with Outstanding Scholars and the Departments of English and
History.
November 11th — Camisha Sibblis, Mind Over Matter(body): the ubiquity of carcerality
for Black bodies 7pm
Assistant Professor in the School of Social Work, Camisha Sibblis will will share her research followed by an
audience Q&A. To learn more about Dr. Sibblis please see page 5.
November 12th — An Evening with Emma Donoghue 7pm
Multi-award winning author Emma Donoghue will join the HRG for an exploration of her craft followed by an
audience Q&A. To learn more about Dr. Emma Donoghue see page 5.
November 13th — “Why Humanities” Celebration 1pm
Join the HRG and Provost Douglas Kneale for a celebration of the finalists in our annual “Why Humanities?”
contest which is generously supported by the Office of the Provost and the Office of the President. This year
entrants will be asked tell us “Why the Humanities matter in times of crisis?” For details about the contest
please read on...
Issue 27, September 2020 5
THE WHY HUMANITIES? CONTEST
Thanks again to the generous support of the
President’s Office and Provost’s Office, we invite
University of Windsor students to answer the
question: Why do the Humanities matter? This year
our question is more specific “Why do the
Humanities matter in times is crisis?” All University
of Windsor students are eligible to submit a short
essay, poem, video — anything that can be read,
heard, or seen, in 2 minutes or less.
The winning entrant will receive a $3,000 tuition
credit. The deadline is October 30th, 2020. To
submit, please send your entry directly to
HRGmail@uwindsor.ca with the email subject “Why
Humanities Contest.” Entries under 20 MB can be
attached, over 20 MB please send a link to Vimeo or
YouTube.
Why Humanities? Contest Congratulations to Meg Mooney, the winner of the
winner 2019-2020, HRG Why Humanities contest for the 2019-2020
Meg Mooney.
academic year, and to the absolutely stellar finalists:
Katrina Bahnam, Emma Grant, Alexander McKenzie
and Julienne Rousseau.
2020 HRG COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIP EVENT
September 22, 7pm via Zoom
The HRG is pleased to partner with the Windsor Law Centre for Cities and the UW student group
Making It Awkward: Challenging Anti-Black Racism to present placemaker Jay Pitter on Anti-Black
Racism and Canadian Cities.
For more information and the link to join us, please see uwindsor.ca/hrg
Issue 27, September 2020 6
HRG 2020 - 2021 CALENDAR OF ONLINE EVENTS
OCTOBER 13, 7PM
Dr. Lydia Miljan is an Associate Professor of Political Science, with a focus
on Canadian public policy. She has been on the faculty at the University of
Windsor since 2001. She served as the Assistant Provost for Inter-Faculty
Programs for two years. Previously she was the Director of the Institute's
Alberta Policy Research Centre and the National Media Archive. She is also
a Senior Fellow at the Fraser Institute. Dr. Miljan completed her Ph.D. at the
University of Calgary. Her research interests include: political
communication; public policy; and the electoral process. She has organized
conferences and workshops with diverse topics ranging from Canadian
public policy to zombie studies. She is a highly sought after media
commentator having been interviewed on local and national television,
radio, and newspapers. In addition to peer-reviewed papers, she has
published four books: Counting Votes: Essays on Electoral Reform; Public
Policy in Canada, and is a co-author of Hidden Agendas: How Journalists
Influence the News, and Cross- Media Ownership and Democratic Practice
Lydia Miljan in Canada. Hidden Agendas was short-listed for the Donner Prize for the
best book in public policy 2003/04.
“Primate Politics”
NOVEMBER 11, 7PM
Dr. Camisha Sibblis’s research is part of a broader effort across various disciplines,
including history, humanities, equity studies, philosophy, psychology, and education,
to study identity, oppression and anti-oppressive alternatives. Her work engages
with the studies of space, social exclusion, and the physics of Blackness which
examines de-colonized constructions of time. It explores how excluded Black youth
are constructed in the education system and how the intersection of the forms of
social identity influence their experiences, outlook, trajectory, and mental health.
Furthermore, her work traces the manner in which different spaces throughout
history have constructed the Black body as abject and have functioned as regulating
sites of violence - thereby contributing to anti-Black racism as a theoretical
framework. Dr. Sibblis has extensive experience working with youth deemed ‘at risk’
as a school social worker, child protection worker, and as a clinician assessing the
impact of anti-Black racism on the lives and mental health of convicts for courts to
consider upon sentencing. She has been a mental health practitioner in private
practice, as well as a clinical agent for the Office of the Children’s Lawyer. Among her
Camisha Sibblis community work, she teaches for the Tabono Liberation Learning Academy —
“Mind Over Matter(body): fostering activism among young adults; she has been a long-standing member of the
the ubiquity of carcerality Council for Adolescent Suicide Prevention in Peel, as well as a suicide intervention
and ARAO trainer. She was also a contributor named on the Honourable
for Black bodies”
Commissioner Judith C. Beaman’s Motherisk Commission report.
Issue 27, September 2020 7
NOVEMBER 12, 7PM
Dr. Emma Donoghue is an Irish emigrant twice over: she spent eight
years in Cambridge, England—where, at the Univeristy of Cambridge
she received her PhD on the concept of friendship between men and
women I eighteenth-century English fiction, then settled in Canada’s
London, Ontario. Dr. Donoghue has written literary history and for
stage, screen and radio, but is best known for her novels, which range
from the historical (The Wonder, Slammerkin, Life Mask, The Sealed
Letter) to the contemporary (Akin, Stir-Fry, Hood, Landing). Her newest
novel The Pull of the Stars (2020) was inspired by the centenary of the
Great Flu of 1918 and is set in a Dublin hospital where a nurse midwife,
a doctor and a volunteer helper fight to save patients in a tiny maternity
ward. international bestseller Room was a New York Times Best Book of
2010 and was a finalist for the Man Booker, Commonwealth, and
Emma Donoghue Orange Prizes; her screen adaptation, directed by Lenny Abrahamson,
An Evening with was nominated for four Academy Awards.
Emma Donoghue
JANUARY 26, 7PM
Naomi Klein is the inaugural Gloria Steinem Endowed Chair in Media, Culture
and Feminist Studies at Rutgers University, and an award-winning journalist,
syndicated columnist and international and New York Times bestselling author
of, No Is Not Enough: Resisting the New Shock Politics and Winning the
World We Need (2017), This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate
(2014), The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism (2007) and No
Logo (2000). Naomi Klein was named Senior Correspondent at The Intercept
in February 2017. She is a Puffin Fellow of the Type Media Center. She has
also written a regular column for The Nation, The Globe and Mail and The
Guardian. She has received multiple honorary degrees and awards. In 2019
she was named one of the The Frederick Douglass 200, a project to honor the
impact of 200 living individuals who best embody the work and spirit of
Douglass. In 2015 she was awarded the Izzy (I.F. Stone) Award for Outstanding
Independent Media and Journalism: “Few journalists today take on the big
issues as comprehensively and fearlessly as Naomi Klein. She combines
rigorous reporting, analysis, history and global scope into a package that not
only identifies problems, but also illuminates successful activism and solutions.
That goes for her groundbreaking book on climate change and for columns
Naomi Klein that brilliantly connect the dots – such as the intersection of climate justice
An Evening with Naomi Klein and racial justice.”
Issue 27, September 2020 8
FEBRUARY 9, 7PM
Dr. Ashley Glassburn is a President’s Indigenous Peoples Scholar and
Assistant Professor of women’s and gender studies at University of
Windsor. Her first book manuscript “Settling the Past: Epistemic
Violence and the Making of Indigenous Subjectivities” draws on Miami
historical narratives and contemporary political projects to explore the
dynamics of race, land dispossession, and historical evidence in
constituting Indigenous subjectivities. Her research appears in
American Quarterly, William & Mary Quarterly, Settler Colonial Studies,
Feminist Studies, among others. The Woodrow Wilson Foundation
named her a 2017 Nancy Weiss Malkiel scholar for her dedication to
working toward racial justice as junior faculty. She is a member of the
Miami Nation of Indiana and serves on the language committee
designing Myaamia language programing, as well as providing research
and museum support for the nation. Her language revitalization work
Ashley Glassburn emphasizes models for teaching Algonquian grammar, which open up
“An Indigenous Feminist Standpoint: possibilities for developing multi-lingual Algonquian language
disentangling bodies, identities, and programming and building the skill-blocks necessary for decolonizing
Indigenous language studies.
knowledges”
MARCH 9, 7PM
Dr. Adrian Guta is an Assistant Professor in the School of Social Work at
the University of Windsor and has training in social work, public health,
and bioethics. As an interdisciplinary scholar, he conducts both social
science research about health issues and critical analysis in a health
humanities tradition (e.g., using continental philosophy and discourse
analysis to theorize changing ideas about care and the relationship
between the body, technology, and forms of governance). His
substantive focus for over 15 years has been the health and wellness
needs of people living with HIV and people who use drugs. This has
informed his work on the social and structural determinants of health,
community engagement, and ethical issues in research, care, and public
health interventions. Dr. Guta has received funding from the Social
Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Canadian
Institutes of Health Research. The focus of Dr. Guta’s HRG fellowship is
molecular HIV surveillance and what it means for the health of people
Adrian Guta living with HIV and medicine and public health broadly.
HRG Fellow 2020-2021
“From the social to the molecular:
Reflections on biotechnological
panacea in the HIV and COVID-19
pandemics”
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