Blog

Welcome to the blog for the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences. Posts on this site are the opinion of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position of CFHSS, its staff or board of directors. Entries are posted in the language of the author.

Members of the university research community are invited to comment on the various posts or to submit their own entry on issues relating to the wellbeing of the humanities and social sciences research and learning enterprise in Canada. Please send your submission to media@fedcan.ca

May 11

News from the social sciences and humanities

Milena Stanoeva Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences

Statistics Canada is facing significant budget cuts and staff layoffs that critics worry will result in the quality of data produced by the agency being compromised. Léo Charbonneau of University Affairs reports that two programs that have already been discontinued are the University and Colleges Academic Staff System, which analyzes data on university faculty in Canada, as well as the Education Matters publication, whose last issue was released this month. On the other hand, Alex Usher of Higher Education Strategy Associates points out that cuts are not to Statistics Canada’s analytical capacity but to...

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May 9

Les origines de la liberté, version canadienne

 

Daniel Drolet

Quand ils parlaient du Canada, raconte Michel Ducharme, ses étudiants ne cessaient de lui dire que le concept de « paix, ordre et bon gouvernement » était un principe fondateur du pays – par opposition au concept de liberté prisé par nos voisins américains.

L’historien sortait troublé de ces discussions, car ayant lu plusieurs documents historiques importants, il savait que le mot « liberté » était très cher à nos ancêtres canadiens. Pourquoi ne fait-il pas partie de notre discours politique moderne?

Son livre Le concept de liberté au Canada à l’époque des Révolutions atlantiques, 1776-1838 est un peu une réponse à ses étudiants.

Ce qu’il découvre, c’est en fait que deux versions très distinctes de « liberté » se sont affrontées au Canada au cours des années qui ont précédé les rebellions de...

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May 4

News from the social sciences and humanities

Milena Stanoeva
Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences

Governor GeneralWith Congress only three weeks away, excitement is mounting. Yesterday, we announced the addition of Governor General David Johnson to the Congress Big Thinking line-up. The Governor General will deliver the opening keynote on May 26. The announcement was covered by The Record.

Alex Usher wrote a blog post on the need for university faculty to be able to counsel their students on careers outside of the academy for Higher Education Strategy...

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Apr 27

News from the social sciences and humanities

Milena Stanoeva
Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences

Susan R. Fisher

The Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada has signed a new licensing agreement with Access Copyright. University Affairs published an analysis of the agreement.

The Chilliwack Progress published a profile of Canada Prize in the humanities winner Susan R. Fisher. Fisher won the prize for...

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Apr 26

First World War shaped values of Canadian children: author

Daniel Drolet
Freelancer

Susan Fisher says writing Boys and Girls in No Man’s Land: English-Canadian Children and the First World War had an unexpected personal benefit: It helped her understand the world in which her parents grew up.

Fisher, whose book has won this year’s Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences Canada Prize for Humanities for an English-language work, says both her grandfathers fought in the First World War, and their experiences had an effect on their families.

By studying how children on the home front reacted and responded to the war, she says she came to a better understanding of the values and behaviour of an entire generation.
Fisher says she became interested in the topic when she discovered, while doing research for another project, that there are quite a lot of...

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