The main objectives of Quebec and Canadian Studies at Vanderbilt University is to complement and enhance work throughout the University community on issues relating to Canadian and Quebec concerns, often in a comparative perspective. Thanks to a new program enhancement grant from the Government of Quebec, and four years of Enhancement Program Grants from the Canadian government's Washington Embassy, the establishment of a Canada-US Fulbright Chair, occasional support provided by the Canadian Consulate in Atlanta, and infusions from centers, departments and programs at Vanderbilt University, Canadian Studies has been firmly established at Vanderbilt in the form of teaching, conferences, research, publishing and inter-university cooperation. In 2009, thanks to a major grant from the Government of Quebec through its international office in Atlanta, we have now initiated a major new collaboration with McGill University, in Montreal, called the McGill-Vanderbilt Initiative.

The Vanderbilt-McGill Initiative. 
Quebec and Canadian Studies at Vanderbilt University was awarded a Program Enhancement grant in 2009 from the Government of Quebec to support applications of graduate students and faculty who wish to collaborate with McGill University. This funding opportunity will support research collaborations between Vanderbilt and McGill, and requests can be made for funds for travel to McGill, for lodging in Montréal, or for research-related expenses for collaborations. Applicants are requested to supply a 1-2 page description of the research project including the proposed link with McGill, as well as a budget proposal. Funding will be limited to $1,000 per proposal. Funding is available for projects proposed by any graduate student or faculty member (any rank) throughout the College of Arts and Sciences.
Prof. Barsky will serve as an initial reviewer of the proposals, and he may be able to assist with suggestions for additional funding from other sources. The vetting process would include a review by the A&S International Committee, with final approval for those going forward by Dean Dever.
Deadline: e-mail applications should be sent to robert.barsky@vanderbilt.edu by March 31, 2009

AmeriQuests (www.ameriquests.org)
AmeriQuests is committed to the study of the Americas as a way of considering the resources, culture, history and environment we share, from the North to the South Pole along the mass of land and adjoining islands that make up the Americas. We have also produced the a special issue of AmeriQuests entitled Quebec and Canada in the Americas a significant tribute to continued work in this area at Vanderbilt. The journal is www.ameriquests.org.

In the coming years, we will continue to:

1. promote Canadian content in courses dealing with the Americas and to sensitize students to Canada-Americas issues;
2. continue to assist in the publishing costs of Canadian contributions to AmeriQuests, the journal on border crossing, relocation and dislocation in the Americas;
3. promote research and studies in Canadian/American issues through teaching of courses, encouragement of students interested in Canadian and comparative Canadian-Americas issues, and work within the Center for the Americas;
4. encourage strong Canadian representation within the Center for the Americas by the staging of conferences, talks and research on key Canada-Americas issues;
5. promote manuals and materials aimed at assisting students with Canadian Studies;
6. promote Maymester courses in Montreal, Canada as well as alternative spring break in Montreal, Toronto and other Canadian cities;
7. pursue efforts at bringing Canadian scholars to give talks, seminars and input at VanderbiltUniversity events. The Canada-Americas lecture series of talks has been instrumental in these efforts;
8. continue to promote Canadian and comparative Canadian studies research, to which a number of faculty at Vanderbilt have contributed over the years;
9. promote new work and collaborations in the area of Dance through new initiatives with the Vanderbilt Dance Program and a proposed event in French;
10. initiate new collaborative work linking the Vanderbilt University Art Gallery to the Museum of Modern Art in Montreal for a major Borduas exhibit.
11. promote Canadian content in courses dealing with the Americas and to sensitize students to Canada-Americas issues.

Canada-US Fulbright Grant
In the spring of 2007 Vanderbilt University signed an agreement with MichaelHawes, the Director of the US-Canada Fulbright organization, to foster new and growing cooperation with Canadian institutions. The first Chair holder joins the Vanderbilt community this year.

Penn-Vanderbilt-McGill
In the autumn of 2007, and in the spring of 2009 and 2010, students in the M.Sc. course in Organizational Dynamics of the University of Pennsylvania traveled to Montreal with Professor Robert Barsky of Vanderbilt, to meet with community representatives, government officials, academics and artists involved in issues relating to intercultural translation and multiculturalism.

Courses relating to Quebec and Canada
A range of courses taught by Vanderbilt University faculty contains significant or majority Canadian content, notably:

Maymester ENG272 From Leonard Cohen’s poetry to Illicit Jazz in ‘Criminal’ Montreal: Literature, Dance and Music in America’s ‘Paradise’

Maymester HUM294 “Destination Montral: Multiculturalism, Jewish-Catholic Relations and the Law in the Other America. A report on this course was published in an article entitled "U.S. students view city through nightlife, letters", in the Montreal Gazette.

• French 294b Montréal, Paris, New York: Littératures et mouvements sociaux.
• French 115W The French Connection in North America: Cod to Cartier to Quebec Libre. ProfessorSusanKevra.
• Introduction to Francophone Literature. AnthèreNzabatsinda.
• Inter-American Literature: The Twentieth Century to the Present
• FR 270 The French Literary Tradition: “Passion, raison, littérature”, Professor Robert Barsky, fall 2004
• CLT108 World Short Stories, Susan Kevra, Lecturer, fall 2004
• CLT294 Issues in Canada/Quebec-US Migration, Professor Robert Barsky, Spring 2004);
• CLT278 Postcolonialism and Multiculturalism, Professor Robert Barsky, Spring 2004
• French214 French Conversation, Professor Robert Barsky
• French270 Literature and Law, Professor Robert Barsky
• CLT287 Inter-American Literature : The Twentieth Century up to the Present, Professor Paul Miller, Spring 2004
• CLT285. Inter-American Literature: The Pre-Columbian Period through the Eighteenth Century. (Also listed as Comparative Literature 285 and English 253, Professor Earl Fitz)
• CLT286 Inter-American Literature: The Nineteenth Century. (Also listed as Comparative Literature 286 and English 257, Professor Earl Fitz)
• CLT294 The Beat Generation's Other America (Also listed as Comparative Literature 294-01, Professor Robert Barsky, Fall 2003)
• WS150 Images of Women, Julia Fesmire
• Hum/CLT 107W Literature and the Interpretation of Culture, Julia Fesmire
• Hum115 Freshman Seminar on Modern/Postmodern Literature, Julia Fesmire
• Hum141 Great Books, Julia Fesmire
  

Canadian Studies Contribution 2009-2010
1) Julius H. Grey, “The Decline of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms:  What it Teaches Us About Our Own Rights and Freedoms in the United States”  on Monday, November 2, 2009 at 4:00 p.m. in the Hyatt Room, 1st Floor of the Law School.  
2)The Program in Jewish Studies featured Julius Grey, Canadian lawyer and professor, and one of Canada's leading civil rightst and minority rights advocates speaking on “George Eliot, Eliza Orzeszkowa: Two Different 19th Century Visions of the Jewish Question”, November 3rd, 2009 123 BUTTRICK HALL

Julius H. Grey is a Canadian lawyer and former professor, and one of Canada's leading minority rights advocates. Born in Wrocław, Poland, he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1971, a Bachelor of Civil Law degree in 1971, and a Master of Arts degree in 1973 from McGill University. Julius Grey is a renowned constitutional lawyer and former McGill Law Professor.  He is senior partner at Grey Casgrain whose representation of clients before the Supreme Court of Canada and the Quebec Court of Appeal has resulted in establishing legal precedents. His academic work has been widely published in Canada and abroad. Julius Grey has been a member of the Quebec Bar and the Canadian Bar Association since 1974. Since 1976 he has been involved in numerous associations such as the Canadian Foundation for Individual Rights, serving as its president from 1985 to 1988. Grey assisted in annulling a stipulation in the Charte de la Langue Française (Bill 101) that forbade the application of different languages on business signboards. Among a multitude of key civil rights cases, Grey defended La servante écarlate by Margaret Atwood, the French version of The Handmaid's Tale, in the French version of Canada Reads, broadcast on Radio-Canada in 2004, and La Presse Chinoise against a defamation lawsuit filed by Falun Gong. Maitre Grey is a recipient of the Medaille du Barreau, the highest honor given by the Quebec Bar to its members. This event is free and open to the Vanderbilt community and is sponsored by the Vanderbilt Department of French and Italian, the Vanderbilt Program in Jewish Studies, the Vanderbilt Program in Quebec and Canadian Studies, the Government of Quebec, and the Vanderbilt Law School International Legal Studies Program. If you have any questions, please contact Brandy Drinnon.

Canadian Studies Contribution 2008-9
1) The Canada-US Fulbright Chair was nominated for the coming year.
2) The collaboration with U of Pennsylvania's Organizational Dynamics Program continued with a research trip to Montreal to meet with Canadian scholars and officials involved with Canadian multiculturalism, intercultural communication and immigration.
3) A host of Vanderbilt scholars, from graduate students to faculty, were granted funds for their work in Canadian and Quebec Studies (see projects).
4) AmeriQuests presented an advertisement in the renowned New York Review of Books for past work on Quebec and Canada, and forthcoming calls for two new issues, which will both feature considerable Canadian and Quebecois work on radicalism, and on dance in the Americas. 
5) Vanderbilt University and Nashville have been chosen by the Government of Canada as a site for the Advanced Leadership Program (ALP), the Government of Canada’s highest level leadership development program for senior executives. Participants are usually the equivalent to corporate vice-presidents and are preparing for the highest leadership positions in the Canadian federal government. The ALP incorporates executive education best practices, including sending participants on site-visits to expose them to top leaders and managers throughout the world. ALP participants visit organizations from the public and private sectors as well as civil society. Such a diverse mix of organizations exposes participants to various issues from multiple perspectives, allowing participants to look beyond the scope of their regular context in Ottawa. 
6)Vanderbilt will have a chance to host Lawrence Hill, where he has agreed to do a mini-residency of perhaps 2-3 days, sometime in March of 2009. We had made tentative arrangements for this last year in coordination with the Black Cultural Center, the English Department and the Program in African American and Diaspora Studies, when he suddenly had to postpone on account of his having received the excellent news that he’d been nominated for the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction (which he won). He then went on to win overall Best Book winner of the 2008 Commonwealth Writers' Prize for The Book of Negroes, a prize that brought him to visit the Queen of England (!). Original planning last year included several classroom presentations, a public reading and book-signing, and an event in the Bishop Joseph Johnson Black Cultural Center.
7) Vanderbilt University students were featured on CBC radio, describing their activities with the Montreal Maymester, in May of 2008.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Canadian Studies Contribution 2007-2008
1) The Canada-US Fulbright Chair was nominated for the coming year.
2) The grounds were set for a new collaboration with University of Pennsylvania through a trip research trip to Montreal with Penn students from the Program of Organizational Dynamics.
3) A new collaboration with Penn aimed at bringing Edith Trepannier's new Jewish Modern Art exhibit to Penn and Vanderbilt, currently in discussion with a range of Centers and the Vanderbilt Art Gallery.
4) Several new or continuing research collaborations with Canadian content, funded by the Program Enhancement Grant (see below).
5) Robert Barsky joined the Committee 15 interdisciplinary Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council to adjudicate more than one hundred grants from across Canada.


Canadian Studies Contribution 2006-2007
1) Expanding the Canada-US research ties at Vanderbilt via the Canadian Studies Programme, the Canada-US Fulbright agreement, formal academic links to major Canadian research institutions notably McGill, U of Toronto, Queen’s, York, UBC, Concordia, Université de Montréal, UQAM…
2) Canadian donors and the involvement of Canadian institutions in programming at Vanderbilt, specifically, the recent Jack & Minna Brussel donations (see the Vanderbilt Registrar article on the sculpture by William Tarr, pictured at right, and the Vanderbilt Acorn Chronicle image from the Brussel Collection) a projected exhibition/conference on Refus Global and Jewish artists in Montreal with the participation of Canadian donors and artists, and government officials.
3) New collaborative efforts in the Arts, including dance and visual art, with organizations and individuals in Montreal.
4) Recruitment of students, undergraduate and graduate, from top Canadian institutions.
5) A trip with Vanderbilt administration, including the Chancellor, to meet with select officials in Toronto and Montreal, including top administrators from McGill University and University of Montreal.
6) Individual initiatives by students and faculty in Canada.

Canadian Studies contribution 2005-2006
A host of events in Canadian Studies were sponsored by the Canadian Studies program in 2005-6, the Center for the Americas, the Canadian Consulate in Atlanta, as well as the Robert Penn Warren Center for the Humanities, the Department of French, the Department of English, the Program in Comparative Literature and the Law School, including talks/research trips supported by Canadian Studies by Julius Grey, Professor of Law, McGill University Law School; Denise Helly, director, Ethnic Studies and Migration, Institut national de la recherche scientifique (UQAM); a dance performance organized by Susan Kevra, Lecturer (French and Comparative Literature) at the McTyeire International Center; a preliminary trip by Joseph Mella, Director of the Vanderbilt Art Gallery, to establish contacts for a forthcoming major exhibition on Borduas and post-Borduas art in Quebec, to be held on Vanderbilt campus in 2007; a preliminary trip to Montreal by Marsha Tardy to look for possible collaborative efforts to be pursued in dance, particularly modern dance; a trip by Laurence DeLooze, University of Western Ontario, to consult on Comparative Literature at Vanderbilt, and to give a talk on Renaissance/Early Modern conceptions of “America”. Susan Kevra, has also planned for 2006 a talk and concert by the group “Le Vent du nord.” Le Vent du Nord has won the award for "Best Traditional Artist" at the 18th conference of the North American Folk Music and Dance Alliance which was held is Austin TX, from February 9th to 12th.

Canadian-Americas Lectures 2004-5

• “Writing Canada/US/Mexico,” conferences and readings by GeorgeSzanto.
• “Marc Angenot and the Scandal of History,” conferences and launch of the Yale Journal of Criticism special issue (Marc Angenot and the Scandal of History, edited by Robert Barsky), featuring Marc Angenot, Robert Barsky, Josias Semujanga, Michel Pierssens.
• “Reading Group on MarcAngenot,” held at the RobertPennWarrenCenter for the Humanities.
• “Migrant Workers in Canada and the US,” featuring VeemaVerna.
• Launching of Incubator Group on Incarcerated Migrants, directed by RobertBarsky. As a newly-established Workgroup, this research team, which meets regularly, will have a Canadian team join its ranks beginning in the fall of 2005 (see below).
• Launching of the new journal AmeriQuests at the Center for the Americas.
  

Canadian-Americas Lecture series 2003-4

• December 4, 2003. Robert Barsky and Patricia Foxen. “Refugee Determination in Canada”, Vanderbilt University Law School (Center for the Americas Seminar Series).
• February 4, 2004 Topic: Julius Grey, McGillUniversity, Montreal. “The Deportation of Permanent Residents on Security Grounds”
• February 11, 2004 Topic: Howard Foster, Johnson and Bell Attorneys. "Legalizing Illegal Immigrants: Effects and Challenges throughout the Americas"
• February 18, 2004 Topic: Paula Covington, and SueErickson, librarians at the Vanderbilt University Library: “Migration Research Sources and Databases”
• March 17, 2004 Topic Jim Silk, YaleUniversity. “Possible detrimental effects on human rights protection of an over-emphasis on international criminal justice in the Americas”
• March 24, 2004 Denise Helly, Whose Dream?” Denise Helly, INRS (Montreal), "Issues of Immigration and Integration in Canada"
• April 14 Debbie Anker, HarvardUniversity, “Gender and the Refugee Claimant"