Four Burning Questions

By Cynthia Lee

On Thursday May 1, Fraser will be a participant at the upcoming McGill Institute for the Study of Canada (MISC) public event commemorating the 50th anniversary of the launch of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism. While there are several events across Canada acknowledging the anniversary of the Commission, most of them have looked back at its history. MISC intends for this event to look forward, asking, “Does bilingualism have a future in Canada?

By McGill Reporter Staff

Blackface and ethnic jokes have and do offend, but where do we draw the line between free expression and racism? The Minor Program in Canadian Ethnic and Racial Studies in conjunction with the UN Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination presents a panel discussion on March 28 that will debate the issues that arise when walking that fine line between funny and racist. 

Professor Matthew Grenby is a professor of 18th-Century Studies at Newcastle University. His research interests include children’s literature and culture in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, in particular the overlap of children’s books and political fiction.

Dr. Kathryn Church is Associate Professor and Director of the School of Disability Studies at Ryerson University. For the past decade, she has been part of key initiatives that have brought the School’s “vision, passion, action” message to life across the university and in the public eye. As part of McGill’s second annual Disability Week, Church will be  giving the annual endowed Rathlyn lecture on Disability Studies entitled Accessible and Mad Positive in the Academy on Wednesday, March 20, from 5:30 to 7:00 p.m.

By McGill Reporter Staff

Dr. James Basham is an Assistant Professor at the University of Kansas in the Department of Special Education. His research is focused on student learning in modern learning environments chiefly related to the application of Universal Design for Learning (UDL). On Monday, March 18, Basham will open McGill’s second Disabilities Awareness Week when he delivers the keynote address, Packing the Digital Backpack: Creating Sustainable Classrooms in which he discusses the role of modern technology in teaching the “digital-age student.”

Irwin Cotler, Law Professor, Constitutional and Comparative Law Scholar, International Human Rights Lawyer, Counsel to prisoners of conscience, NGO Head, Public Intellectual, Peace Activist, Member of Parliament, and former Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada – has been variously described in these roles and responsibilities as being “at the forefront of the struggle for justice, peace and human rights.”

Science is often inconvenient for journalists. Scientists insist on talking about background literature, replication and the caveats and nuances of their findings in language peppered with ugly terms and impossible acronyms. Journalists then work black magic to turn years of research into bite-sized stories, sprinkled with puns and a dollop of mind-blowing principle. In the balancing act between scientists and their audience, journalists have to take care neither to overstate results, nor leave their consumers feeling nothing.

By McGill Reporter Staff

Sahar Khamis is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Maryland, College Park. She is an expert on Arab and Muslim media and the former Head of the Mass Communication and Information Science Department at Qatar University. She co-authored the 2009 book Islam Dot Com: Contemporary Islamic Discourses in Cyberspace with Mohammed El-Nawawy, and has published numerous articles on media in the Middle East, in both English and Arabic.