VIRTUAL ROUND TABLE SERIES
FALL 2022 | WINTER 2023
The Canadian Historical Association has organized a series of six virtual round-tables on some of the key challenges and opportunities facing historians in, but not necessarily of, Canada. We would like to thank the Department of Canadian Heritage for making this year’s series possible.
RETHINKING THE UNDERGRADUATE CANADIAN HISTORY SURVEY
Thursday 15 September 2022
12h00-14h00 Eastern Time
With the start of a new academic year, the first CHA round-table invites us to reflect on the past, present and future of the introductory Canadian History survey course as well as innovative approaches to its teaching.
Laura Ishiguro, Jamie Murton, Angela Tozer, Dominique Marshall, Mark Leier, Michael Dawson.
Chair: Funké Aladejebi
Note: Each presenter will have only seven minutes to present in order to leave sufficient time for discussion.
THE FUTURE OF THE HISTORY PhD IN CANADA
Thursday 6 October 2022
12h00-14h00 Eastern Time
In response to shifting trends in the discipline of history and academia in general, this committee has been investigating the requirements of PhD programs, the funding landscape, the time to completion, the lack of diversity in the historical profession and the outcomes of PhD graduates. The report provides the results of this research and examines ways of training PhD students that would improve their PhD experience and position them for a changing job market, including careers beyond the academy.
Martin Pâquet, Christine O’Bonsawin, Sam Hossack, William Langford, Tina Loo, John Walsh.
Chair: Catherine Carstairs
MOVING BEYOND THE TWO LINGUISTIC SOLITUDES
Monday 21 November 2022
13h00-15h00 Eastern Time
One of the challenges we face as a discipline is the linguistic divide between French- and English-speaking historians in Canada. In a 2009 essay on this issue, Magda Fahrni challenged the mutual separation of the two solitudes in the writing of history. What can we learn from those historical journals and research teams that have successfully straddled this language divide? How might the CHA better bridge francophone and anglophone historians?
Magda Fahrni
Sylvie Taschereau, Brian Gettler – Montreal History Group
Harold Bérubé, Nicolas Kenny – Urban History Review
Nicole Neatby, Emmanuel Hogg – Social History
Donald Fyson, Cory Verbauwhede – Centre d’histoire des régulations sociales
Chair: Matthew Hayday
TOWARDS A MORE GLOBAL CHA
Wednesday 18 January 2023
12h00-14h00 Eastern Time
In the past twenty years, Departments of History across Canada have pivoted towards researching and teaching a more global history. The Canadian Historical Association has been slow to follow. What do we as an association need to do to build relationships with non-Canadianists teaching at Canadian universities? How might our annual conference open outward to the world in future years?
Juanitas De Barros, Meredith Terretta, Wendell Adjetey, Twisha Singh, Paula Hastings.
Chair: Alexandre Dubé
HISTORICAL SOCIETIES AND THE STUDY OF THE PAST
Thursday 16 February 2003
12h00-14h00 Eastern Time
When the Canadian Historical Association was founded in 1922, there was little distinction between community-based historical societies and historians in the country’s universities, archives and museums. In the twentieth century, interest in history spread, with the citizen practice of history attracting the interest of thousands of Canadians, while at the same time the development of the professionalization of history as an academic discipline had the effect of loosening the initial links. The panel will examine the role of historical societies in producing new historical knowledge and in educating Canadians about the past. It will also look at how we can build a stronger link between associations of professional historians, citizen historians and heritage organizations.
Introduction by Jean-Louis Vallée
The Panel consists of six historical associations across Canada.
Chair: Steven High
Organized in partnership with la Fédération Histoire Québec
HISTORIANS AND/IN THE MEDIA
Thursday 2 March 2023
12h15-14h00 Eastern Time
The final CHA round-table considers how historians go public with their research and expertise in the media. Answering media questions or writing op-eds is not always easy in these politically charged times, what have we learned in doing so? To what extent is media work part of our changing practice as historians? What advice can we offer other public-facing historians?
Mathieu Arsenault, Blake Brown, Frank Clarke, Rebecca Lazarenko, Valérie Lapointe-Gagnon, Sarah Nickel.
Chair: Marcel Martel
VIRTUAL CHA PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT WORKSHOPS
FALL 2022 | WINTER 2023
For the very first time, the Canadian Historical Association will be offering free Professional Development Workshops, offered by members for members and the wider historical community. This year’s line-up includes English- and French-language workshops on how to assess manuscripts, write book reviews or expert legal reports as well as training in project management, funding community-based projects, conducting oral history interviews. These workshops will interest emerging historians as well as long-established ones.
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT WORKSHOP 1
What Makes a Good Book Review?
Friday 23 September 2022
12h00-1h30 Eastern Time
English-Language Workshop
Book reviews are an important part of academic discourse. But what makes a good book review? While there is no one right answer, there are a series of wrong answers. This workshop will cover the basics of writing a good book review, from initial invitation to final submission.
Donald Wright is Vice-President of the CHA and was the review editor for the Canadian Historical Review, 2016-2022
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT WORKSHOP 2
Grant Writing for Social Change: How to fund a community-oriented history project for individual scholars and organizations
Wednesday 19 October 2022
12h00-13h30 Eastern Time
English-Language Workshop
Transitioning into the post-pandemic world has brought up new challenges for individual scholars and organizations committed to social change. In times of a growing economic crisis, we are being faced with major climate changes, rising inequalities as well as the emergence of new conservative and totalitarian forces undermining the rule of democracy in all parts of the world, including Canada.The need to develop innovative research and community-based solutions that would tackle and situate those issues in a broader historical and political context is now more important than ever. This workshop is for everyone interested in learning more about grant writing for social change. We will talk about the concrete steps to take in order to write a winning grant proposal, the difference between grant writing and fundraising as well as prospect research and the various types of grants-makers through which a community-oriented project can be funded. Andrea Prajerova is a researcher, writer and educator, passionate about advancing the issues of women, youth, and 2SLGBTQ+ people through an intersectional, anti-racist and anti-oppression lens. Her expertise lies at the intersection of multiple areas of interests, including feminist monitoring and evaluation, sustainable fund development and critical health, gender and reproductive issues in globalized and historical contexts.
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT WORKSHOP 3
Writing a thesis or a book: Exchange on the management of a major project
Thursday 3 Novembre 2022
12h00-13h30 Eastern Time
French-Language Workshop
This workshop in French – with the possibility of questions in English – aims to probe participants’ concerns, questions and good practices around how to complete a thesis or write a book within the prescribed time frame. Careful maintenance of a bibliography of priority readings and an Excel file to measure the time to be spent on each task will be among the practical tips that will be shared. I will also have questions for the participants, who will also undoubtedly have additional tips to share with the group. After writing 5 books (2 of which were inspired by my theses and one of which was a collaboration between two of us), I have refined a method of working that is unique to me, but that can also give ideas to doctoral students and young researchers in order to help them find “their” method of working, with a view to becoming a professor, an author, a civil servant or a consultant. I will emphasize the need to be efficient, flexible, rigorous and have integrity.
Born in Sudbury, Serge Dupuis, PhD, is an associate member of CEFAN at Laval University, offering research, writing, training and coaching services related to the political and institutional history of North American Francophonies. For more information, please visit SergeDupuis.com.
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT WORKSHOP 4
How to write an effective peer review assessment of a history journal or book manuscript? And, how to avoid being the infamous “Reviewer #2”
Friday December 9 2022
12h00-13h30 Eastern Time
Bilingual Workshop
Join six editors of history journals and university presses as they reflect on what makes for an effective peer review assessment of an article or book manuscript. They will also consider what constitutes a ‘bad’ review, including what some call “Reviewer #2”.
Canadian Journal of History – Robert Teigrob
Canadian Historical Review – Catherine Desbarats
La Revue d’histoire de l’Amérique française – Léon Robichaud
Canadian Journal of African Studies – Belinda Dodson
University of Toronto Press – Len Husband
McGill-Queen’s University Press – Kyla Madden
Chairperson: Amanda Ricci
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT WORKSHOP 5
Contributions and challenges of oral history practice
Friday 6 January 2023
13h00-15h00 Eastern Time
French-Language Workshop
Often viewed with skepticism by professional historians in the past, oral history is now among the preferred methodologies of those interested in issues of research ethics, memory, identity, and the experience of marginalized people. This workshop is intended as an introduction to oral history: its theoretical foundations, concerns, and practice. We will also discuss the “beautiful challenges” of this methodology: researcher/interviewee relationships, the use of new technological and digital tools, critical practices of public history, etc.
Fred Burrill is a postdoctoral researcher at Cape Breton University. He has been practicing oral history for many years, including research on the history of deindustrialization in the St. Henri district of Montreal.
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT WORKSHOP 6
Preparing Historical Reports for Use in Litigation or other Dispute Resolution Processes
Friday 27 January 2023
12h00-13h30 Eastern Time
English-Language Workshop
Effective litigation reports differ in some important ways from materials prepared for an academic audience. In this workshop, I will share specific tips, advice and guidance for historians preparing expert reports for litigation or other dispute resolution processes. The session will include sections on working with counsel and clients, structuring research projects and written materials, the role of the historian-expert in the dispute resolution process, and strategies to increase the effectiveness and impact of the presentation of historical information in dispute resolution. I have had the privilege of being mentored by skilled counsel, clients and other experts and will draw on my experience in court to offer support to other historians coping with the high-pressure litigation environment.
Gwynneth Jones has been engaged in managing and conducting research for litigation and dispute resolution processes for over 35 years, for governments, First Nations and Métis clients. She has testified as an expert in nine trials and has reviewed reports and prepared research materials on dozens of issues related to Indigenous rights and claims. Her evidence was described as “crucial” by triers of fact in such leading cases as Powley (2003) and Daniels (2013).
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT WORKSHOP 7
Managing your digital research: DEVONthink for historians
Thursday 9 February 2023
12h00-13h30 Eastern Time
English-Language Workshop
More and more archives are allowing researchers to photograph material. This has revolutionized the way that historians can conduct research and has made research travel considerably more efficient. However, historians are now left with huge quantities of digital material to sort through and organize. This workshop will introduce DEVONthink, a MacOS-based application that offers powerful tools for organizing all kinds of digital records. We will show you key features, like tagging and built-in Optical Character Recognition, and also suggest possible workflows from the archive to the researcher’s virtual archive. Audience members will be welcome to suggest their own workflows and techniques for managing electronic research. The workshop will be conducted in English, mais nous encourageons des questions en français.
Jacqueline Briggs is a SSHRCC Postdoctoral Fellow at the faculty of Law, University of Ottawa. As a historian of ‘administrative colonialism’ in Canada, Jacquie’s critical approach to the study of the criminal justice system focuses on intersections between federal administrators and the legal profession. Her postdoctoral project is a history of the Department of Justice from the late 19th century to the present, exploring the public interest role of lawyers-as-bureaucrats.
Thomas Blampied is an instructor and research consultant. Thomas recently completed a PhD in history at the University of Toronto. His research focused on the impact of railway development on the Omushkegowuk communities of the Omushkego-Aski (James Bay Lowlands) in Northeastern Ontario.
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT WORKSHOP 8
Designing Large-Scale Partnership Research Projects in History
Thursday 9 March 2023
12h00-13h30 Eastern Time
Steven High
The historian working alone in the public archives has a strong hold on the disciplinary imagination. But there is growing interest in collaborative approaches to research amongst historians, between historians and researchers in other disciplines, and across the university-community divide : allowing historians to work in partnership with the communities we study. The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council has encouraged this shift through its partnership funding programs. This workshop will provide guidance for historians thinking about developing a partnership project.
Steven High has extensive experience leading SSHRC-funded partnership projects. He led the award-winning Montreal Life Stories project (2006-2012), funded by SSHRC’s Community-Research Alliance program, which worked with Montrealers displaced by mass violence in other parts of the world, and is currently heading the transnational « Deindustrialization and the Politics of Our Time » Partnership Project (deindustrialization.org).