History

Canadian History

Academics

Black History Month

St. Michael's College

Trinity College

How familiar are you with Black Canadian history?

“So many people educated in Canada, or external to Canada, don't know about the long-standing presence of Black people in this country,” says Funké Aladejebi, an assistant professor of history in the ��߲ݴ�ý’s Faculty of Arts & Science.

“This breadth of knowledge on Black Canadian history often gets ignored or is not often inserted into broader courses on Canadian history.”

Determined to change this, Aladejebi is teaching a year-long course titled “Black Canadian History.” It’s part of a new Certificate in Black Canadian Studies offered through University College and open to all students in the Faculty of Arts & Science.

“Many of the students in this class come from health and science, equity studies and Indigenous studies, and a lot of them like the idea of being able to say they have specific expertise on Black Canadian studies more broadly,” says Aladejebi.

“It's trying to give students a broad overview of the movements and migrations of persons of African descent into the land that is now called Canada and thinking in complex ways about how people were living and existing in this country.”

Salt Spring Island's Central School, 1929 (photo courtesy of the Salt Spring Island Archives)

The course goes as far back as 1604, which marks the earliest records of persons of African descent in Canada. It also explores the experiences of Black Loyalists – people of African descent who sided with the British during the American Revolutionary War – passengers of the Underground Railroad, as well as lesser-known movements to the West Coast, the Prairies and Maritimes.

Funké Aladjebi (supplied image)

“We tend to forget about these regions where Black people resided in smaller numbers,” says Aladejebi. “But it's our responsibility as historians to show the breadth of where Black people have been and where they still are.”

For example, most Canadians are unfamiliar with the history of the Jamaican Maroons in Nova Scotia.

After a series of wars fighting for freedom from British control in Jamaica, more than 500 Maroons – men, women and children – were forcibly transported to Halifax in 1796.

Despite an inhospitable reception, the Maroons flourished and maintained a strong sense of community in exile, says Aladjebi, adding that they were connected to the city’s larger community, having been involved in the construction of the Halifax Citadel. However, many in the community spent years petitioning the colonial government to leave Nova Scotia, and in 1800, most of them left for the free Black colony of Sierra Leone in West Africa.

“But it’s widely believed some Maroons stayed behind and their continued presence is reflected in the surnames, accents, idioms, customs, oral histories and traditions of African Nova Scotians,” Aladejebi says.

The Halifax Citadel (photo by Ron Cogswell, CC BY 2.0)

The second half of the course dives into more contemporary issues such as racial violence, anti-Black racism, immigration trends, equity and inclusion for Black communities, and injustice in Canada.

“We never just stay in the history, we always bring it to the contemporary with these historical foundations and track why this continues to exist today,” says Aladejebi. “By the time we move through the course, students understand the roots of anti-Black racism in Canada, and they're able to navigate institutions in a clearer way.”

Aladejebi says she is intrigued by the range of emotions the students experience as she teaches the material.

“They move through emotional stages where they are surprised at first and then get frustrated because of what they didn't know,” says Aladejebi. “The Black students go through a variety of feelings, but at end of the class, they’re feeling like they know a little bit more about themselves and the experience of persons of African descent.

“Non-Black students also go through a series of emotions. They feel better equipped to talk about Black Canadian history, they’re able to better understand various social relationships that are part of Black experiences across the diaspora.”

There can be anxious moments.

“Students have to talk about, ‘What was my experience in school? What was my experience and engagement with policing and the judicial system?’ So we go through pockets where students are nervous about saying the right and wrong things.”

For many students, working through these tensions leads to knowledge and understanding.

“As a Black Canadian political science major pursuing a career as a policy analyst, the course’s material, conversations and activities are crucial to both my academic and professional development,” says Dacian Dawes, a third-year member of St. Michael’s College who is double majoring in political science and critical studies in equity and solidarity, with a minor in African studies and a certificate in Black Canadian history.

“It has increased my understanding of systemic inequalities, inspiring me to use this information to build on my political science studies and future career.”

Erinayo Adediwura Oyeladun, a second-year student in African studies and a member of Trinity College, says she has been empowered by studying the work of Black Canadian history scholars, and sees how historical understanding can be a powerful tool in creating change.

“The historians’ research teaches me the importance of situating your work as more than just an intellectual discovery. Your work should also represent your community and serve a broader purpose in making a positive impact for your community.”

For Aladejebi, teaching the course has been equally as energizing, with her students continually challenging the way she delivers – and receives – information.

“We all come with our limitations, biases and prejudices. This course is helping us to think about where they come from, why they exist, and how we can interpret them. It's about interrupting the cycles, unlearning what we thought we knew, and re-imagining something better.”

Elite Africa Project shines light on the creativity, expertise and power that thrives on the continent

Christopher.Sorensen — Fri, 23 Feb 2024 19:50:09 +0000

Elite Africa Project shines light on the creativity, expertise and power that thrives on the continent

Christopher.Sorensen Fri, 02/23/2024 - 14:50

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Students on the upper gallery of the Alioune Diop University Lecture Building in Bambey, Senegal (photo by Chérif Tall/Aga Khan Trust for Culture)

Topic

Arts & Science news staff

Subheadline

An international group of African studies scholars has launched the Elite Africa Project, which seeks to redefine the notion of power in Africa and shift public perceptions about the continent’s most prominent and prosperous people.

A global hub of information for scholars, activists, journalists and practitioners, the initiative aims to foster deeper engagement with the expanse of creativity, expertise and power that thrives in Africa today while challenging negative portrayals of the region.

“We’re in a moment where Africans are playing a leading role in almost every field of human endeavor you can imagine,” says Antoinette Handley, a professor in the ��߲ݴ�ý’s department of political science in the Faculty of Arts & Science who is the project’s principal investigator.

“For example, several of the world’s top prizes for literature have gone to a range of African authors in recent years, the 2022 Pritzker Architecture Prize was awarded to a native of Burkina Faso – the first African and first Black architect to receive the honour — the World Health Organization is currently headed by an Ethiopian public health researcher and the World Trade Organization is headed up by the former finance minister of Nigeria.”

In addition to Handley and fellow U of T scholars Dickson Eyoh, Sean Hawkins and Nakanyike B. Musisi, the project is led by Gerald Bareebe of York University, Peter Lewis of Johns Hopkins University, Landry Signé of Arizona State University and the Brookings Institution and Thomas Kwasi Tieku of King’s University College at Western University.

Despite the many achievements emerging from across the world’s second-most populous continent, the researchers say most popular and academic treatments of Africa tend to feature people commonly regarded as weak and poor or villainous and despotic.

Calling for a reassessment of former approaches, the scholars’ aims are to:

Challenge the narrow and sometimes racist popular understanding that the continent is composed largely of poor or disempowered populations and a class of individuals who are either corrupt, self-serving or puppets of international forces.
Map the dynamics of elite formation in Africa.
Present power as more multidimensional: comprising “soft” forms of power such as knowledge, skills and creativity, as much as it also comprises the more commonly considered “hard” forms of power, such as coercion or material resources.

“Ultimately, our goal with the Elite Africa Project – aptly named to refer to the people who are unusually influential in agenda-setting and decision-making – is to challenge academic and public perceptions of influential Africans as grasping and self-interested, a framing that perpetuates negative depictions of the continent and its peoples and draws on a simplistic understanding of power and how it is wielded,” Handley said.

“Our focus is on the burgeoning ranks of globally renowned artists, prominent intellectuals, innovative businesspeople, accomplished scientists and many others who are flourishing and, in the process, transform both Africa and the global fields within which they work.”

Clockwise from top left: Antoinette Handley, Dickson Eyoh, Sean Hawkins, Nakanyike Musisi, Thomas Kwasi Tieku, Landry Signé, Peter Lewis and Gerald Bareebe (photos courtesy of Elite Africa Project)

The project’s central feature is a database curated primarily for scholars and students of African studies that’s designed to be an entry point into more research about – and a better understanding of – elites and elite accomplishments across the continent.

“With the help of our team from across the globe, we're building an essential hub of information for scholars, activists, journalists and practitioners – anyone intrigued by Africa's vibrant domains ranging from politics and economics to religion and the arts, and everything in between,” said Eyoh, an associate professor in U of T’s department of political science in the Faculty of Arts & Science and the African Studies Centre at New College.

The database contains key academic works, a curated assortment of relevant podcasts and videos, and a collection of biographies of personalities and organizations.

“Whether someone is looking for information about highly regarded African photographers or fashion designers, or some background on the political history of any one African nation, or the roles of religious leaders across many African societies, our hope is that the database can serve as a starting point or a source of supplementary information in the course of their investigation,” Handley said. “It could also be used as a teaching tool for students at any level.”

Another key feature of the project’s website is a weekly roundup of news articles offering insights into a wide variety of people, places and proceedings making headlines both domestically and internationally.

“We're very conscious about presenting items that are not just limited to politics or big economic stories, but represent accomplishments by leading Africans in every imaginable sphere of human activity,” said Handley.

“There’s a huge amount of news stories and data about Africa out there – we’re trying to present a shorthand, easy overview that provides a more well-rounded picture. It lands in your Instagram feed once a week and you can keep track broadly of what’s happening on the continent.”

Handley says her hope for the project is “to go beyond negative stereotypes and ensure a broader, balanced, perhaps more positive view of all that Africa has to offer.”

U of T prof uses the ubiquitous banana to explore capitalism's history in the Americas

Christopher.Sorensen — Mon, 27 Nov 2023 15:03:40 +0000

U of T prof uses the ubiquitous banana to explore capitalism's history in the Americas

Christopher.Sorensen Mon, 11/27/2023 - 10:03

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A scene from a banana town in Honduras run by the United Fruit Company (photo by Rafael Platero Paz)

Topic

Subheadline

Visualizing the Americas project shines a light on the banana industry and its legacy of discrimination, exploitation and political struggle

On the surface, bananas seem an uncontroversial fruit – delicious, nutritious and widely consumed all over the world.

But peel back the layers and you’ll find that the banana has much to teach us about capitalism, exploitation and political struggle, according to Kevin P. Coleman, an associate professor of historical studies at the ��߲ݴ�ý Mississauga.

Coleman’s new research project demonstrates how the historical journey of this tropical fruit from Latin American farms to North American homes has been anything but straightforward.

“This is a story of the power dynamics these farmers experienced as a result of a foreign company working in their country, of the power dynamics in their societies and also of how they organized and succeeded,” says Coleman, whose project was supported by an Insight Grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.

Kevin P. Coleman (supplied image)

In Visualizing the Americas, Coleman documents the economic, social and political dynamics of the banana industry in countries such as Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras and Panama. Working in collaboration with the UTM Library, he has created a comprehensive resource that reveals how worker exploitation, racial discrimination and ecological destruction have shaped the production and consumption of this popular commodity.

The resource can be used to inform current and future political struggles in Latin America and the Caribbean since it shows how poor and marginalized banana workers resisted unfair treatment by foreign employers.

“Visualizing the Americas is about insight, motivation, empowerment,” Coleman says.

Through historical records, photographs and interviews with scholars, Visualizing the Americas details the practices of the United Fruit Company, a multinational corporation based in Boston, Mass., that owned extensive land and employed tens of thousands of people in the Eastern Caribbean and Central and South America. The company created a workforce with a racial hierarchy that placed white Americans in upper-level positions and members of the local population – Black residents, mestizo and other mixed-race groups, Indigenous Peoples, Garifuna communities and immigrants – in low-wage, unskilled jobs. For the middle roles, including overseers, managers, timekeepers and engineers, the company recruited West Indian migrant workers from the British Caribbean.

Photographer Rafael Platero Paz in a 1954 self-portrait.

To explain the ramifications of this racially stratified labour force, Coleman interviews Michigan State University history professor and author Glenn Chambers, who notes that the West Indian workers served as a “buffer” between management and manual labourers.

“West Indians were of African descent, but saw themselves as British, Christian, and ‘civilized’” and “viewed non-West Indians as outsiders and their culture inferior,” said Chambers, which “made organizing around Blackness difficult.”

The site also explains how the United Fruit Company exerted its influence on governments in the region to suppress the rights of workers. A key example was the Oct. 6, 1928 strike by Colombia’s banana labourers over long hours and low pay. Records show how the company was complicit in the military’s violent quashing of the strike, which resulted in the deaths of more than 1,000 workers. The Visualizing the Americas website features an archive of nearly 2,000 pages of letters, photos and other documents generated by the company from 1912-1982 that reflect unjust employment practices.

Visualizing the Americas also explores how exploitative labour practices make bananas so cheap, the environmental impacts of monoculture cultivation practices and the gains made by worker unions to create better working conditions in banana-growing regions.

There is a rich visual history of the life, culture and struggles of members of a banana company town in Honduras as captured by photographer Rafael Platero Paz, who sought to document the community’s social transformations over 57 years.

“I think it’s easy for many of us to forget that history is made by people,” Coleman says. “Many may not realize what an important role ordinary banana plantation workers played in the history of their countries.”

Remembering U of T's Natalie Zemon Davis, a renowned social historian

Christopher.Sorensen — Fri, 27 Oct 2023 19:54:47 +0000

Remembering U of T's Natalie Zemon Davis, a renowned social historian

Christopher.Sorensen Fri, 10/27/2023 - 15:54

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(photo by Laura Pedersen)

Topic

Honorary Degree

Humanities

Subheadline

"I have tried my best to be not only a truth-teller about the past, but also to be a historian of hope"

The ��߲ݴ�ý is joining others around the world in remembering Natalie Zemon Davis, a renowned social historian who brought to life the lesser-known lives of workers, women and peasants.

The New York Times described Zemon Davis – a professor emerita of history in U of T’s Faculty of Arts & Science who died Oct. 21 at age 94 – as a researcher who drew insights from anthropology and literary criticism, as well as meticulous archival digging.

“Professor Davis both represented and inspired an emerging approach to history in the second half of the 20th century, often by filling in gaps in the historical record with informed speculations based on deep immersion in the period under study,” the Times said.

Zemon Davis chose not to focus on the history of royalty or aristocrats but rather on populations previously ignored by historians – workers, peasants, women and outsiders. Her work originally focused on France, but later broadened to include other parts of Europe, North America and the Caribbean.

She told U of T News in 2017 that she believed traits such as daring, a sense of wonder and passion were essential for a researcher to do their job well.

“That’s really something quite important: the unexpected, the surprise that satisfies or nourishes one’s curiosity,” she said.

One of the first female humanities professors at U of T, Zemon Davis was a mentor to a generation of historians. Her teaching career took her to Brown University, the University of California, Berkeley and Princeton University. Zemon Davis was also president of the American Historical Association in 1987 – the second woman to hold the position.

She was a prolific writer, with more than a dozen books and essay collections. Her best-known book, The Return of Martin Guerre (1983), is the story of a 16th-century French peasant who abandoned his wife and lands – and later returns to discover an imposter has taken his place. The book generated worldwide attention and was translated into more than 20 languages. (A year earlier, she consulted on the French film of the same title.)

Her book of essays, Society and Culture in Early Modern France (1975), is regarded as a landmark in historical anthropology and the history of women and gender. It combined her intensive archival research with the study of cultural rituals, violent chapters of religious wars and social work of women’s religious groups.

At U of T, Zemon Davis was a supporter of fundamental research, joining a group of experts in 2017 who called on the federal government to implement the recommendations of Canada's Fundamental Science Review.

(photo by Ralph Alswang/National Endowment for the Humanities)

For her contributions to academic scholarship, Zemon Davis received several honorary degrees from universities around the world, including U of T, Harvard University, Yale University, the University of Edinburgh, Hebrew University of Jerusalem and others.

Among her many accolades and prizes, she was awarded the prestigious Holberg Prize established by the Norwegian parliament in 2010 and was named Companion of the Order of Canada in 2012.

In 2013, she received the National Humanities Medal from U.S. President Barack Obama.

“The president spoke of the humanities and hope, and his words rang in my ears as he put the medal around my neck,” said Zemon Davis in an interview with the Faculty of Arts & Science that year, “for I have tried my best to be not only a truth-teller about the past, but also to be a historian of hope."

U of T researchers help study, catalogue ROM's ancient Greek coins

Christopher.Sorensen — Thu, 19 Oct 2023 17:14:14 +0000

U of T researchers help study, catalogue ROM's ancient Greek coins

Christopher.Sorensen Thu, 10/19/2023 - 13:14

Cutline

An Athenian coin, circa 454-404 BCE, with the head of Athena and an owl near an olive branch (photos by Laura Lipcsei © Royal Ontario Museum)

Sean McNeely

Topic

Classics

Humanities

Royal Ontario Museum

Subheadline

“No two coins are exactly alike – they’re unique little works of art”

Did you know the change rattling in your pocket is similar to coins used in ancient Greece?

In fact, the current design of our quarters, loonies and toonies is almost identical to those used more than 2,000 years ago – an insight the ��߲ݴ�ý’s Ben Akrigg is keen to share with a wider audience.

An associate professor in the department of classics in the Faculty of Arts & Science, Akrigg is working with a team of scholars and the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) to study, catalogue and publish information on more than 2,000 ancient Greek coins through the ROMkomma project.

“Greek coinage is so interesting because it’s almost the earliest coinage – at least in the Western tradition of coinage,” Akrigg says. “The idea is to make sure that our high-resolution photographs and up-to-date identification, dating and commentary are available on the museum’s website for anyone who wants to look at them.”

A Seleukid Empire coin (circa 155/4 BCE) with the head of King Demetrios and Tyche: the personification of fortune or luck.

The ROMkomma project – komma means “impression of a coin” in ancient Greek – launched last year and is supported by funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). Akrigg works alongside Boris Chrubasik, an associate professor and chair of the department of historical studies at U of T Mississauga; Kate Cooper, an assistant professor, teaching stream, in the department of historical and cultural studies at U of T Scarborough; as well as a team of graduate students.

Ben Akrigg (photo supplied)

The first phase of the project, which wraps up in 2024, focuses on about 250 coins from two regions of ancient Greece: the city of Athens (sixth to first centuries BCE) and the cities of the Hellenistic empire of the Seleukid rulers (fourth to first centuries BCE).

Akrigg and his team are providing information such as the weight, size and dimensions of each coin, an approximate date it was minted, what the markings mean and other relevant information about its use and significance in ancient Greek history.

While the bulk of the updated information is housed in a database for ROM internal use only, there is a small database available to general public.

“To some extent, we can trace changes in the economies and the day-to-day lives and day-to-day uses of money in Greek cities by seeing what kinds of coins they're minting,” Akrigg says.

To update the database, the team had to first refer to the original files from the ROM – some of which were decades old – and put their research talents to good use.

“My favorite part was looking for ‘mystery coins,’” says Anastasia Zabalueva, a PhD student in the department of classics.

“Some old printed pictures of coins had incorrect inventory numbers or did not have a number at all – so we had to identify the right number so that we could match the picture and the page of coin in the database.”

Zabalueva and her colleagues also searched filing cabinets and other source materials to ensure the descriptions were accurate, sometimes comparing and matching descriptions with those from other international ancient coin collections.

“We felt like detectives solving a mystery,” she says.

Most of the coins are made from silver and all were made by hand. First, a blank coin was heated to become softer and placed on a die containing the design on the one side – the obverse or “heads” side. Then another die containing the design of the other side – the reverse or “tails” side – was placed on top and was struck by a hammer, creating a two-sided coin in a single blow.

A Greek coin (circa 125-124 BCE) with the head of Athena and an owl standing on an amphora – a type of Greek vase.

One group of coins the team is studying is from ancient Athens, one of the earliest Greek cities to create its own coinage in the middle of the sixth century BCE.

“If you look at the Athenian coins, what's striking is that they’re instantly recognizable as coins, monetary instruments like ours – and partly because, in many ways, they resemble the coins we have in our pocket,” Akrigg says.

On the “heads” side, many of these coins have a profile image of Athena – the goddess of wisdom and war, and the city’s protector. The other side of the coins display symbols associated with Athena such as an owl or an olive branch.

“The owl is a symbol of wisdom associated with the goddess, though owls have other meanings as well,” says Akrigg.

A coin from the Hellenistic period (circa 300-295 BCE) with the head of a young Herakles and Zeus sitting on a throne holding an eagle.

Later coins from the Seleukid Empire often placed rulers on the face of the coin – especially Alexander the Great, with the image of a god such as Zeus or Apollo on the reverse, as well as a variety of creatures such as turtles, lions, elephants.

“At the end of the fourth century BCE, some of Alexander’s successor kings put Alexander's portrait on their coins, but then after a while, the kings thought, ‘Hang on, why don't we just put ourselves on?’” says Akrigg. “And so coins became a way to assert their own legitimacy as kings in their new kingdoms.”

For Zabalueva, the ROMkomma project is more than the analysis of ancient artifacts and identifying whose face is on what coin – it’s a journey into cultural history.

“Each kingdom depicted on their coins represents something very important for the community: it might be a god or goddess, an animal, a ruler, an abstract symbol,” she says.

“It's much more than just a means of exchange. It's a display of local culture, history, power and state propaganda all at the same time.”

That tradition remains relatively unchanged. Most Canadian coins have a portrait of the late Queen Elizabeth II on one side – and for our loonies, quarters and nickels, a loon, a caribou and a beaver, respectively, on the opposite side.

Though ROMkomma is a massive project that will ultimately take years to complete, Akrigg says he will always get a charge out of seeing the coins first-hand.

“The coins are mass produced but because they're handmade, each one is unique,” he says. “No two coins are exactly alike. They’re unique little works of art.”

U of T science historian's research on woolly mammoths comes alive in children's play

Christopher.Sorensen — Fri, 13 Oct 2023 13:20:44 +0000

U of T science historian's research on woolly mammoths comes alive in children's play

Christopher.Sorensen Fri, 10/13/2023 - 09:20

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The Last Mammoth, a children’s play, was developed by U of T science historian Rebecca Woods and her PhD student Alexander Offord (supplied image)

Cynthia Macdonald

Topic

Subheadline

The Last Mammoth sees a young girl and her mammoth friend explore questions about climate change, extinction and environmental preservation

One summer day in 2022, a gold miner working in the Yukon came upon something even more valuable than what he was looking for: an almost perfectly preserved woolly mammoth, with skin and hair intact.

The baby female calf was thought to have been resting in the permafrost for more than 30,000 years.

It was among the biggest paleontological finds in Canadian history – and the latest milestone in a great tradition. Since the 18th century, frozen woolly mammoth specimens (usually skeletons or bones) have been periodically found in diverse locations around the world.

A science historian, Rebecca Woods shows how animals such as frozen woolly mammoths can teach us about the march of history (supplied image)

Such finds captured the imagination of Rebecca Woods, an associate professor in the ��߲ݴ�ý’s department of history in the Faculty of Arts & Science. Her current research focuses on the place of frozen woolly mammoths in the global history of science – work that is being transformed by Alexander Offord, her research assistant and a PhD candidate at the Institute for the History & Philosophy of Science & Technology (IHPST.)

Alongside his academic career, Offord and his partner Nicole Wilson are the artistic directors of Toronto theatre company Good Old Neon. Their new children’s play is called The Last Mammoth, which sees a young girl and her mammoth puppet friend embark on a journey to explore questions about climate change, extinction and environmental preservation.

Alexander Offord is a PhD candidate at the Institute for the History & Philosophy of Science & Technology and co-artistic director of Toronto theatre company Good Old Neon (supplied image)

Woods, who is cross-appointed to IHPST, says she first became interested in mammoths through her research on sheep.

“As a historian of science I find myself drawn to stories about animals and the ways in which they can help us understand different historical processes,” she says.

For example, in her 2017 book The Herds Shot Round the World: Native Breeds and the British Empire, 1800-1900, she illustrated how farmers in Australia and New Zealand created sheep breeds to serve British meat markets. In the early days of refrigeration, diners were mistrustful about eating meat that had been slaughtered six months previously – so vendors decided to allay their fears by pointing to the example of a famous woolly mammoth discovered earlier in the century in Siberia, which had been unearthed from ice and fed to dogs without harm.

“That story got me thinking about how the scientific and cultural meanings of mammoths have changed since that time,” says Woods. “For contemporary audiences, in a moment of great anxiety about global warming, frozen mammoths preserved by permafrost serve as a loud warning bell about a warming earth. It’s totally different than how they were first understood in the early 19th century.”

Indeed, recent reports suggest that as the planet warms and permafrost melts, ever more mammoth discoveries are being made.

Along with an impressive baby mammoth, The Last Mammoth’s animal characters include two mischievous raccoons (supplied image)

The idea for a children’s play was born out of a desire to showcase Woods’s research in schools – and Offord, not surprisingly, played a key role.

“We’d never made theatre for young audiences before,” Offord says, admitting that the subject matter did not immediately lend itself to a production for kids.

“A lot of children’s shows are very optimistic and shiny. And we said to ourselves, ‘How do we speak to some of the darkness that children will go through on this topic in a way that is respectful to them?’”

First workshopped in September, The Last Mammoth’s script continues to evolve (supplied image)

Offord says he feels an urgency to the project given the climate crisis.

“Mass species extinction is happening,” he says. “And because it’s new, adults don’t really have the language to talk about it, let alone in a way that kids will understand.”

He adds that he felt it was necessary to create a piece that made these concepts accessible to children in a fun and honest way.

With funding from a SSHRC Partnership Engage Grant and sponsorship by the Jackman Humanities Institute, The Last Mammoth was first workshopped in early September for an audience of elementary school students and caregivers. The feedback is being used by Offord’s company as it continues to develop the script.

Though in its early stages, the play offers ample proof that it’s not only possible, but necessary to translate academic research on serious issues that will affect future generations.

“To me it feels like an incredible honour,” says Woods. “What I appreciate so much about it is that a cross-generational audience from all walks of life can learn about my research – embodied in this incredibly evocative puppet, these gifted actors, and Alexander and Nicole, who’ve figured out how to make it all come alive.

“It’s a play that really gets at the emotional core of what’s at stake in the work that I do.”

'A medieval blockbuster': U of T acquires a rare 14th-century manuscript

Christopher.Sorensen — Mon, 18 Sep 2023 15:22:25 +0000

'A medieval blockbuster': U of T acquires a rare 14th-century manuscript

Christopher.Sorensen Mon, 09/18/2023 - 11:22

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Sebastian Sobecki stands over The Travels of Sir John Mandeville, which scholars believe was written in the mid-1300s (all photos by Diana Tyszko)

Sean McNeely

Topic

Centre for Medieval Studies

Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library

The ��߲ݴ�ý has acquired an ancient manuscript widely regarded as one of “medieval Europe’s biggest bestsellers.”

Led by the efforts of Sebastian Sobecki, a partial copy of The Travels of Sir John Mandeville that scholars believed was penned in the mid-1300s is now part of the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library’s collection.

“This is one of the texts that made explorers believe in circumnavigation,” says Sobecki, a professor in the Faculty of Arts & Science’s department of English who cross-appointed to the Centre for Medieval Studies.

To secure the ancient manuscript, Sobecki collaborated with the Fisher Library as well as the University Library.

“This is big news for the university – I'm thrilled,” says Sobecki. “This is probably one of our most important medieval manuscripts and it could be a crown jewel of the Fisher collection.”

Written on animal skin, Mandeville’s Travels is considered one of medieval Europe’s biggest bestsellers.

“It’s quite likely that this is the earliest surviving copy of what was one of the most popular and influential works of the Middle Ages,” says Tim Perry, a medieval manuscripts and early books librarian at the Fisher Library.

The manuscript was purchased from Bernard Quaritch Ltd – a London-based bookseller that specializes in rare books and manuscripts. Previously, it was owned by the Duke of Manchester’s family in the United Kingdom.

Written in insular French (or Anglo-French), the manuscript consists of 40 leaves – or 80 pages – and includes a substantial fragment of Mandeville’s Travels (chapters 11-12, 13-16 and 23-31). Each leaf measures approximately 27.5 by 18.5 centimetres.

The writing is on specially prepared animal skin – likely sheep or calf skin – rather than paper.

The book purports to be the travel memoir of Mandeville, though it’s more accurately described as fiction. He claims to have travelled through Turkey, Persia, Syria, Arabia, Egypt, Libya, Ethiopia, India and China in the 1320s or '30s.

It’s filled with tales of exotic beasts, treasures beyond imagination, as well as magical kingdoms with mythical people such as dog-headed humans and other strange creatures – all hallmarks of today's science fiction – and the book is considered by some to be one of the first widespread tales in the genre.

And the Travels goes beyond simply writing about destinations, delving into subjects such as religion and politics. For example, while trekking through Egypt, Mandeville engages in a lengthy conversation with the sultan of Egypt.

“They exchange ideas about the Qur’an and the Bible,” says Sobecki. “And they discuss differences of belief between Muslims and Christians. It's really quite open-minded.

“But it's not a religious text. This is a secular adventure text about [fictional] monsters of the East and what Asia looks like. This is one of the great global travel writing texts and it's remarkable for its tolerance and openness.”

Part of that adventure includes visiting the enchanted kingdom of Prester John, a legendary Christian patriarch and king who ruled over a large Christian settlement in India.

Mandeville describes the kingdom as having unmatched wealth with an abundance of precious stones, including an entire river composed of gemstones instead of water, which flows down from enormous mountains, and yields especially sweet-tasting fish.

Tim Perry is a medieval manuscript sand early books librarian at the Fisher Library.

Where did the author get his material for this book? From combining several authentic travel accounts from a variety of sources and adding his own flair.

“There's quite a lot of material from the 13th-century Franciscan missions to the Mongols,” says Sobecki. “They brought back fantastic reports about the peoples of Central Asia. Some of them are accurate, some are laced with fiction and science fiction.”

So who, exactly, was Sir John Mandeville?

“That’s a good question. We don't know that,” says Sobecki, noting that it is the subject of scholarly debate. “John Mandeville was probably a fictional name, one of the earliest pen names.”

Whoever the author is, it’s generally accepted that he didn’t do much travelling himself. However, he was a master at taking other people’s accounts and creating a new narrative.

“Someone said, very accurately, that his longest journey was to the nearest library,” says Sobecki. “So he was probably the world's greatest armchair traveller.”

Some scholars have suggested that the Travels was written by Jan de Langhe, a Flemish monk pretending to be an Englishman. He was known to be a prolific writer and avid collector of travel memoirs right up to his death in 1383.

What also makes this manuscript so important is that it’s far more than just a prize – it’s a valuable tool for research and teaching.

“This is a book for readers, for real use,” says Sobecki. “We're trying to work out where in the family tree of Mandeville manuscripts this text belongs. And for teaching purposes this text would be enormously helpful because Mandeville is a canonical English writer and is taught every year, not only in my course, but in several others across U of T. This manuscript also presents many teaching opportunities for undergraduate, master’s and PhD students: comparing later Middle English translations to the original Anglo-French text.”

As well, this text can shed light on many other facets of historical literature and publishing.

“Once we know where this manuscript fits, maybe we can locate the particular dialect where the writing came from,” says Sobecki. “We can also understand more about how these early medieval manuscripts of Mandeville’s Travels were circulated in England.”

Sobecki adds that he can’t wait to dive into Mandeville’s pages and see what secrets can be unlocked.

“This text has really inspired people,” he says. “This is the text that really made me fall in love with medieval travel writing. I've worked with thousands of manuscripts, but every time you're in the presence of something that was written 700 years ago by hand, it’s just amazing.”

U of T researchers work to bring Indigenous doll collection into the digital realm

Christopher.Sorensen — Tue, 05 Sep 2023 19:42:07 +0000

U of T researchers work to bring Indigenous doll collection into the digital realm

Christopher.Sorensen Tue, 09/05/2023 - 15:42

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PhD student Miriam Castillo Orozco (left) and her mother María de Lourdes Orozco Cuautle, a historian, recently showcased a selection of Orozco Cuautle’s Indigenous doll collection at U of T Scarborough (photo by Chai Chen)

Topic

Subheadline

“With the Barbie movie, dolls are on people's minds. And I think it's a really interesting time to share a collection of Indigenous dolls.”

The YouTube teaser trailer for the popular Barbie movie claims that girls only played with baby dolls before Barbie came along, but Miriam Castillo Orozco wants people to know this simply isn’t true.

Her mother, María de Lourdes Orozco Cuautle, spent the last 30 years building a staggering collection of 500 handmade, culturally significant dolls from 60 countries – and very few are babies.

Most were made by Indigenous communities and all are treasure troves of information about the cultures that created them.

“Dolls have been created for centuries and many show, for example, religious obligations, fashion traditions, cultural practices – they can even be charms for superstitions,” says Castillo Orozco, a PhD student in environmental studies at the ��߲ݴ�ý Scarborough. “When they're specifically designed for girls, they’re also representations of how cultures teach girls how a woman should look and act.”

Castillo Orozco’s family are all involved in maintaining, studying, storing or adding to the collection. Now, she and her mother, a historian and Nahua descendant from Puebla, Mexico, are working with a multidisciplinary team of researchers at U of T Scarborough to bring the dolls – protected in cases, but scattered across family members’ houses – into the digital world.

They are starting with a doll by the Otomi people, an Indigenous community in Mexico, from the state of Querétaro.

Historian María de Lourdes Orozco Cuautle has spent 30 years collecting and researching more than 500 dolls, largely from Indigenous communities around the world (photo by Chai Chen)

The effort builds on the meticulous work by Orozco Cuautle, who has researched and cataloged each doll in her collection. To have been included, a doll must have substantial information about its origins and be created by ethnic groups, individuals or small businesses. They also need to wear traditional outfits or be made of local materials – for example, dolls from Morocco are made with camel skin, while dolls from Greenland use caribou. In some cases, the dolls are a testament to the climate crisis, as their materials change as certain species decline over time.

“The clothes are also really important – they communicate the history of how garments were made in that region, and the aims of clothing and traditions shown to girls,” says Castillo Orozco. “The dolls are almost always from women that are trying to be financially independent or trying to sustain their kids. They find a way to progress through dolls.”

Some of the dolls – the oldest of which dates to the 1800s – articulate centuries of world history. Take a doll made by the Herero people in part of what is now Namibia, a southern African country and former German colony. The doll’s outfit follows the dress code Germans forced on locals in a mandate that had a massive impact on the community, as the fibres used to make these clothes weren’t previously grown and required a seismic shift for agriculture systems.

Nicole Klenk, a project co-lead who is Castillo Orozco’s PhD supervisor, says she was hooked when she first learned about the Herero doll.

“I hadn't realized that through the lens of a doll we could look at the relationships between people and between people and the land,” says Klenk, an associate professor in the department of physical and environmental sciences.

Researchers digitally illustrating dolls’ history

As the project’s research assistant, third-year sociology student Simón Reyes is augmenting and illustrating Orozco Cuautle’s extensive data using a platform that lets users build interactive narrative maps.

“With the Barbie movie, dolls are on people's minds. And I think it's a really interesting time to share a collection of Indigenous dolls,” Reyes says.

In some cases, untangling the history of a doll can be a complex task. The dönxu doll, for example, is traditionally made by grandmothers in Mexico during New Year’s Eve as gifts for little girls, and the lele (or “baby”) doll it comes with. But the lele doll was co-opted and mass produced in a government effort to create a symbol of tourism in Mexico and now largely outsells the dönxu.

“It’s a beautiful illustration of these clashing Indigenous versus capitalist approaches to knowledge systems and how to present them,” says Erin Webster, project co-lead and associate professor, teaching stream, in the department of arts, culture and media.

From the textiles and embroidery in their traditional clothes to the painting techniques in their faces, the dolls in María de Lourdes Orozco Cuautle's collection are packed with tiny, telling details (photo by Chai Chen)

A core goal for the project is to prioritize and centre Indigenous research, methodologies, sources and scholars – including Orozco Cuautle.

Researchers say it has been difficult to find information about Otomi people written by Otomi people, and part of the map includes a critique of the sources available, though Reyes is having luck connecting with Otomi knowledge keepers over Instagram.

“A lot of what’s been produced has been produced from the outside – it’s not the way the community would talk about themselves,” says Danielle Kwan-Lafond, co-lead of the project and assistant professor, teaching stream, in the department of sociology.

“We’re making sure there’s always constant conversations, transparency and the willingness to learn together.”

Historical study suggests link between institutionalization, hip fractures and death

Christopher.Sorensen — Fri, 01 Sep 2023 14:18:18 +0000

Historical study suggests link between institutionalization, hip fractures and death

Christopher.Sorensen Fri, 09/01/2023 - 10:18

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(photo by Sukanya Sitthikongsak/Getty Images)

Topic

Research & Innovation

U of T Mississauga

Subheadline

Researchers studied records of people who died between 1910 and 1967 and lived in Missouri state hospitals, city infirmaries and other public institutions

A team of anthropologists has found that the skeletal remains of people who lived and died in American public care institutions in the last century have much to tell us about the connection between patient neglect and hip fractures – a connection that may still exist today in Canada.

Using paleopathology – the study of disease in the past using sources including human remains – the three researchers studied individuals who lived in state hospitals, city infirmaries and other public institutions in Missouri and who died between 1910 and 1967.

They found evidence of hip fractures in 4.3 per cent of institutionalized individuals, almost double the 2.3 per cent prevalence among non-institutionalized people. Death records showed that many of these broken hips occurred from preventable accidents, including falling out of a wheelchair, tripping on an uneven floor, slipping in a bathtub or being pushed to the ground (most hip fractures need quick medical intervention to prevent deadly complications.)

“These folks were living in institutions that were supposedly caring for them,” says Madeleine Mant, assistant professor in the ��߲ݴ�ý Mississauga's department of anthropology and an author of the study, which was recently published in the journal PLOS One. “But ultimately the lack of care or the lack of resources or the lack of attention has created instances where they actually suffered fractures that led to their deaths.”

With colleagues Carlina de la Cova, of the University of South Carolina in Columbia, and Megan Brickley of McMaster University in Hamilton, Ont., Mant had access to a large anatomical skeletal collection housed at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. These were people unclaimed after death – either because they were alone in the world, their loved ones were too poor to afford a burial or their families simply weren’t informed of their passing.

The 600 individuals in the study included Euro-American and African-American women and men in their 40s through 90s. More than one-third had been institutionalized.

In both cohorts, older white women showed the greatest prevalence of hip trauma. But the finding that was most critical – and, for Mant, the most disturbing – was that of the instances of broken hips leading to death, 82 per cent of incidents happened in institutions.

“That’s what struck me the hardest – the idea that these vulnerable individuals were taken in by institutions that were obviously underfunded and understaffed and that undervalued the lives of these folks.”

Mant points to two explanations. The first is structural violence, a term describing the way social structures and institutions cause harm to people through inequities and marginalization. In the case of the institutions being studied, this could include underfunding, overcrowding, poorly trained staff and poorly maintained facilities. The second is cultural apathy, which means society doesn’t care enough to rise up, speak out and demand change.

While anthropologists look at the past to better understand the present, Mant says in this case it’s less an echo and more a direct line to what we’re seeing today in many care institutions in Canada. She says that whenever she talks about her research, people will tell her about an aunt, a grandparent or other family member who suffered a hip fracture while in care.

“This is not just a historical story, and it’s not just an American story,” Mant says. “It’s an ongoing modern concern and it seems to be, unfortunately, global.”

Other studies from the Netherlands and Switzerland have also shown a disturbingly high risk of fractures among institutionalized people. Mant’s study includes a mention of a Canadian news story that made headlines last year: a woman in an Oakville, Ont., nursing home had major spiral fractures in both thigh bones when she died, but staff seemed to know nothing about it.

Mant hopes the study will help increase awareness and encourage those making public policy to treat equitable care of institutionalized people as a basic human right.

“We need to be taking care of our most vulnerable, bring this to people’s minds who might not have been aware of it and, honestly, shame people who have known about these problems and haven’t done anything so far,” she says.

Global experts gather at U of T to discuss how ‘self driving labs’ will revolutionize scientific discovery

Christopher.Sorensen — Thu, 31 Aug 2023 18:44:06 +0000

Global experts gather at U of T to discuss how ‘self driving labs’ will revolutionize scientific discovery

Christopher.Sorensen Thu, 08/31/2023 - 14:44

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Linda Hung, manager of Toyota Research Institute, speaks at this year’s Accelerate Conference at U of T (photo by Worker Bee Supply © Acceleration Consortium)

Catrina Kronfli

Topic

Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering

Acceleration Consortium

Artificial Intelligence

Chemistry

Computer Science

Creative Destruction Lab