Events

Professor Mehrzad Boroujerdi, Vice Provost and Dean of College of Arts, Sciences, and Education at Missouri University of Science and Technology

Talk:  One Year On: Assessing The 2022 Protest Movement in Iran

Thursday, September 15, 6:00 - 7:00 p.m. MDT
Virtual via Zoom. Please register HERE

On the first anniversary of the “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement that rocked Iran for a few months beginning in September 2022, Professor Mehrzad Boroujerdi will present a critical examination of the movement’s strengths, weaknesses, legacy, and prospects.

Bio: Dr. Mehrzad Boroujerdi is Vice Provost and Dean of College of Arts, Sciences, and Education at Missouri University of Science and Technology. Previously he was a Professor of Government and International Affairs and Director of the School of Public and International Affairs at Virginia Tech (2019-2022) and before that Professor of Political Science at Syracuse University (1992-2019). He is the author of Iranian Intellectuals and the West: Tormented Triumph of Nativism (Syracuse University Press, 1996) and Tarashidam, Parastidam, Shikastam: Guftarhay-i dar Siyasat va Huvyiyat-i Irani (Tehran, 2010); co-author of Post-revolutionary Iran: A Political Handbook (Syracuse University Press, 2018); and editor of Mirror for the Muslim Prince: Islam and Theory of Statecraft (Syracuse University Press, 2013). His articles have appeared in Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, Critique: Journal for Critical Studies of the Middle East, International Third World Studies Journal and Review, Iranian Journal of International Affairs, Iranian Studies, Foreign Service Journal, Journal of Peace Research, Middle East Economic Survey, and Syracuse Law Review. Dr. Boroujerdi has been President of the Association for Iranian Studies, a fellow of the American Council on Education, a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University and a Rockefeller Foundation Fellow at the University of Texas at Austin, a visiting scholar at UCLA, a non-resident scholar at the Middle East Institute (Washington, D.C.), and a Co-PI of Iran Data Portal. He is frequently consulted by both government entities and such national and international media outlets as Al Jazeera, Associated Press, Economist, Guardian, LA Times, NPR, New York Times, Reuters, Spiegel, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post.

Nanna Halldorsdottir, Department of Philosophy, University of Iceland

Talk:  Fatigue with or without energy? A phenomenological exploration of different perspectives on fatigue among ME/CFS patients in Iceland

Thursday, September 21, 4:00 - 5:30 p.m. MDT
Tory 12-15

The different experiences of tiredness form a considerable part of life, yet the concept of fatigue has not been extensively researched compared to, e.g. the concept of pain. Yet a great number of people live with the debilitating condition ME (Myalgic Enchephalomyelitis/ Chronic fatigue syndrome), the main symptom being a strong sense of exhaustion often interpretated as depression in the medical system as if fatigue cannot be a chronic condition on its own. Jonathan Sterne has claimed that the predominant account of fatigue within the medical system as well as amongst disabled people, consists in fatigue being a depletion of energy. This paper explores to what extent a new perspective on fatigue is necessary and to what extent the connotation to energy remains important in light of 13 phenomenological, qualitative interviews with people living with ME in Iceland.

As the interviews show, both approaches are of vital importance in understanding fatigue. The particular form of chronic fatigue characterising ME (and Long Covid): Post exertional malaise (PEM) occurs after mental or physical exertion, even 48 hours afterwards. This temporal delay of the fatigue is thus central to the disease and unique to it. It is the fact that you can go through a certain activity like everything is fine, only to experience afterwards that it actually was not. PEM thus makes explicit how we normally make use of the immediacy of fatigue to navigate different active and passive bodily states, and what happens when we cannot rely on this sense as with ME. This indicates that a new perspective centering on the temporality of fatigue might be vital. However, PEM also shows us the importance of fatigue as a lack of energy as it appears to be a problem of a very long “recharge“ time within the human body leaving the patients desperate for being more energetic.

Bio: Nanna is a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Philosophy at the University of Iceland, specialising in feminist philosophy, critical theory and medical humanities. She has also been living with ME for 14 years and has taken part in disability activism as well as other social justice movements in Iceland.

Distinguished Visitor Patrick Fafard, School of Public and International Affairs, University of Ottawa

Patrick Fafard has enjoyed a lengthy career that spans both government and academia. While with the Government of Canada, he served as a Director-General in the Intergovernmental Affairs Secretariat of the Privy Council Office. At the provincial level, he served in multiple capacities with three provincial governments, including the Deputy Minister’s Office in the Alberta Department of Advanced Education and Manpower and Executive Director of the Saskatchewan Commission on Medicare.

Fafard’s academic interests are wide-ranging, and he is the author, co-author or editor of numerous publications on public health, trade, environmental policies, and intergovernmental relations. He serves as co-editor of the monograph series Palgrave Studies in Public Health Policy Research.

For detailed information on these events, click here.

Department Events:

The Future of the Chief Medical Officer of Health: A Public Debate

Monday, September 25, 4:00 PM MDT
CCIS L1-140

Knowledge Mobilization to 'Save the World'

Wednesday, September 27, 2:00 PM MDT
Cameron Library 3-10

Careers in Public Health

Tuesday, October 3, 3:00 PM MDT
Senate Chamber, Arts and Convocation Hall

Douglas Wilson Leadership Lecture

Wednesday, October 4, Noon MDT
Location: TBA

Katharine M Millar, Department of International Relations, London School of Economics

Talk title: Why Support the Troops? Military Obligation, Gender, and the 'Global War on Terror

Thursday, September 28 ,  4:00 to 5:30pm. MDT
Tory 12-15

Dr Millar will discuss her newly published book, which is the first book to systematically examine "supporting the troops" as a distinct phenomenon both in general, and as specifically manifest in the US and UK from 2001-2010, during the first decade of the war on terror. She takes a feminist reading on liberalism (and social contract theory in particular), to look at how gendered, masculinised obligations to commit and/or support collective violence are important to a) making liberal wars possible and b) creating political community. Empirically, the book argues that "support" for the military, in an era of professionalised armed forces and often distant wars, has supplanted military service as the hallmark of "good" gendered citizenship. Conceptually, it argues for the importance of gendered loyalty and solidarity in making liberal violence.

Bio: Dr Katharine Millar is Associate Professor of Gender and International Relations in the Department of International Relations at the London School of Economics. Her broad research interests lie in examining the gendered cultural narratives underlying the modern collective use of force. Her other on-going research examines gender, race (particularly whiteness), militarism, and contemporary populism(s); gender and cybersecurity; and the politics of hypocrisy. Dr Millar has also published on female combatants, gendered representations of violent death, military and civilian masculinity, and critical conceptions of militarism. She frequently consults on policy for international organisations, state governments, and NGOs on gender and the armed forces, as well as gender and cybersecurity. Dr Millar holds a DPhil from Somerville College, Oxford, a Masters of International Studies from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva, and a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) from the University of Alberta.

Public talk by Jasmin Zine, Professor of Sociology and Religion & Culture at Wilfrid Laurier University

For more information and to register, please click here.

The 2023 Annual Hurtig Lecture will be given by Katherine Govier, CM

For more information and to register, please go to the Hurtig Lecture page.

Trygve Ugland, Department of Politics and International Studies, Bishops University

Talk: The Nordic Model(s) Under Pressure 

Thursday,  Oct 26, 7pm – 8:20pm MDT
Senate Chamber, Arts and Convocation Hall

The Nordic countries – Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden – have long been portrayed as models for the development of politics and public policies for other countries. Their approaches to democracy, welfare provision and international relations/diplomacy have often been perceived to form distinct models. The Nordic model is currently under pressure due to important endogenous and exogenous challenges related to immigration, increasing economic inequality and new regional security threats.

In light of these challenges, Trygve Ugland discusses the future of the Nordic model. He argues that the Nordic model has proven flexible and robust over time, and that its survival is intrinsically linked to the Nordic countries’ pragmatism, and their willingness and ability to learn from experience, their own and others. This discussion will be illustrated with examples of how the Nordic countries actively and systematically have sought inspiration from Canada’s internationally recognized immigration and integration policy model.

Geert Decock, Electricity and Energy, European Union, Brussels

Talk: "Negotiating the European Union's Renewable Energy Directive: Promoting the sustainable transport fuels of the future"

Thursday, November 2, 4:00 - 5:30 pm MDT
Tory 12-15

Bio: Geert joined T&E in July 2019 after a decade in advocacy roles in Brussels for organisations representing civil society and industry. Geert has been deeply involved in the European Union's negotiations on the Renewable Energy Directive, promoting renewable electricity as a transport fuel as a sustainable alternatives to biofuels. He leads T&E's work on green hydrogen and e-fuels and how such synthetic fuels can help to decarbonise planes and ships. In his previous positions Geert worked on a host of environmental and energy dossiers, ranging from the EU’s Clean Energy Package negotiations to Ecodesign and Energy Labelling policies to a campaign to ban fracking for shale gas.

Federico Navarrete, Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas, UNAM (Institute for Historical Research, National Autonomous University of Mexico)

Talk: The contradictions of Mexican mestizos, from family racism to social inequalities

Thursday, November 9, 4:00 - 5:30 pm MST
Tory 12-15

This lecture shall examine the contradictory manners in which Mestizo identity is experienced in everyday life. It will start by examining the ways in which the systemic classification of persons according to their phenotypes leads to racist and gender based discrimination within Mexican families. Then it will analyze how these discriminations are reflected in the wider Mexican society, leading to the enforcement of a pigmentocratic regime of social stratification.

Bio: Federico Navarrete does research on the history of the Native peoples of the Americas and their relations with Europeans and Africans, and the way they have adapted to the process of colonization and State building. He is internationally recognized as a pathbreaking researcher and writer on the Mesoamerican visual histories and their relation with oral and ritual traditions, as well as their adaptation to the Colonial context and their appropriation of European scriptural and pictorial practices. He has published articles on that subject in the United States, Mexico, Brazil, and Germany. He has published and lectured extensively on the military conquest of Mexico and the indispensable role played by the Indigenous conquistadors. He also works on racism and discrimination in contemporary Latin America. Some of his recent books are Malintzin, or the conquest as translation (2021); Who really conquered Mexico? (2019); Mexica histories (2018); Alphabet of Mexican Racism (2017); and Racist Mexico (2016); among others. He also publishes historical novels, such as El códice perdido (2017).