Past Events
Pathways Speaker Series 2017/2018
In 2017-18, the Richard Charles Lee Asian Pathways Research Lab invited a group of local Asian-Canadian scholars, prominent politicians, and community activists to talk about their unique pathways.
Pathways are the journeys that span and connect physical places, ideas, feelings and public policy. Through narratives that are both personal and professional, the talks in this series expose the interdependence of lived embodied experiences, academic and professional life, and social justice activism. These are complicated stories of mobilities, of the self, of ideas, of places, and of politics.
Each speaker presented personal, political, and social events that have been turning points for them: moments of clarity or realization or crisis. They shared how these experiences led to unexpected geographical moves or ‘epistemological breaks’ that changed the ways they identify and act in the social-political arena. Through non-reductive storytelling, the series sought to reveal the complex entanglements that constitute peoples’ mobilities. Speakers captured the level of nuance which so many of us experience as people with intersectional identities and multiple attachments to publics at various spatial scales.
A Journey of Love and Pride
Dr. Alan Li, September 12th, 12:00 – 2:00 pm, 208N, 1 Devonshire Place, Toronto
Dr. Alan Li immigrated from Hong Kong at age 16. Since the 1980s, through his work as physician at Regent Park Community Health Centre and his many community connections, Alan has integrated his personal, professional and community work with many diverse marginalized communities and taken on roles as physician, community organizer, capacity builder, researcher and advocate to advance access and rights many issues related to immigrants and refugees, racial and sexual minorities, HIV/AIDS, and mental health. He has co-founded and played key leadership roles in many pioneering social justice and community service organizations, including as chair of Gay Asians Toronto, as National President of the Chinese Canadian National Council, the Hong Kong10% Club, Asian Community AIDS Services, and the Committee for Accessible AIDS Treatment.
Finding the Third Way
Councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam, October 5th, 12:00 – 2:00 pm 208N, 1 Devonshire Place, Toronto
Kristyn Wong-Tam is Toronto’s only openly gay, racialized City Councillor. She was elected in 2010 and has been a champion for social justice equity. She has championed the development of Gender-Responsive Budgeting at the Municipal level, Toronto’s first LGBTQ youth shelters, and initialized comprehensive, sustainable planning policies downtown. She has led the way in ensuring the city’s downtown communities are liveable and sustainable for all.
Risk, Relation, Revolution, Repair: Refusing Closure, Accepting Ambivalence
Professor Minelle Mahtani, November 16thth, 1:00 -3:00 pm, 108N, Munk School of Global Affairs
Minelle Mahtani is an Associate Professor in the Department of Human Geography, and the Program in Journalism at University of Toronto, Scarborough. Previously, she taught in Media Studies at Lang College at the New School. She is former President of the Association of Canadian Studies and the winner of the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee award. She is a former national television news journalist with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and a former associate producer with “Canada: A People’s History.” She is the author of “Mixed Race Amnesia: Resisting the Romanticization of Multiraciality” (UBC Press) and one of the editors of the book, “Global Mixed Race” (NYU Press). Currently, she hosts a radio programme, “Sense of Place” at Roundhouse Radio.