Past Events

Description

Until the outbreak of hostilities in 1939, Mackenzie King prided himself on never publicly saying anything derogatory about Hitler or Mussolini, unequivocally supporting the appeasement policies of British prime minister Neville Chamberlain and regarding Hitler as a benign fellow mystic. In Mackenzie King in the Age of the Dictators Roy MacLaren leads readers through the political labyrinth that led to Canada’s involvement in the Second World War and its awakening as a forceful nation on the world stage.

Roy MacLaren has been a diplomat, businessman, minister in three federal cabinets, and Canada’s high commissioner to the United Kingdom.

The Bill Graham Centre is a joint undertaking of Trinity College and the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy, in the University of Toronto

Description

A gathering of colleagues, friends, writers/artists and scholars of Glenn Gould (1932-1982) to develop new perspectives by sharing memories, recent news and achievements as well as forthcoming events and projects. The event will involve presentations and a film screening.

PRESENTATIONS:
“Glenn Gould and Japan: A Two-Way Street”
Junichi Miyazawa
Junichi Miyazawa, Ph.D., is music/literary critic and award-winning professor of humanities at Aoyama Gakuin University, Tokyo. In 2018/19 he is Visiting Scholar at Massey College; Visiting Professor at Robarts Centre for Canadian Studies, York University, and St. Michael’s College, University of Toronto. He is one of the world’s leading Glenn Gould scholars. His major books are: Glenn Gould: A Perspective (Tokyo, 2004), McLuhan’s View (Tokyo, 2008), and Thinking Music (co-authored, Tokyo, 2017).

“Malleability and Machines: Glenn Gould and the Technological Self”
Edward Jones-Imhotep
Edward Jones-Imhotep is a cultural historian of science and technology and Associate Professor of History at York University. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard University. His book,The Unreliable Nation: Hostile Nature and Technological Failure in the Cold War (MIT Press), won the 2018 Sidney Edelstein Prize for the best scholarly book in history of technology.

“Evolving Interpretative Approach in Glenn Gould’s Recordings of Alban Berg’s Piano Sonata”
Michael Thibodeau
Dr. Michael Thibodeau is a recent graduate of the University of Toronto. Equally at home in the library carrel as on the piano bench, Michael has spent unreasonable amounts of time researching the interpretative processes performers use to bring notation into sound. His dissertation is an ontological examination of concepts belonging to common practice—namely, musicality and authenticity.

“Matter of North: An Anthology”
Anthony Cushing
Anthony Cushing received his Ph.D. in musicology from Western University in 2013. He completed an undergraduate degree in music at Acadia University where he majored in composition and cello performance. In 2003, he had the distinction of being the first graduate student in music at the University of Southern Maine where he studied composition with J. Mark Scearce and Elliott Schwartz. His current research interest is in Glenn Gould’s Solitude Trilogy radio documentaries.

FILM SCREENING:
Radio as Music (1975)
A long-forgotten film in which Gould talks about composing radio documentaries with interviewer John Thompson and sound technician Donald Logan. (30 minutes)

Description

Donald Trump has notoriously promised to “bring back a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding” along with other unlawful practices. Furthermore, his administration has advanced policies that undermine international human rights commitments, particularly related to migration and refugees. While Trumpism is undoubtedly shocking, it exists within a continuum of American challenges to international law, justified in the name of national security. Drawing from Sanders’ new book, Plausible Legality (Oxford University Press, 2018), this talk traces how the Bush and Obama administrations, to varying degrees, legally rationalized torture, targeted killing, and mass surveillance after 9/11. What do these largely successful efforts to construct legal cover for human rights abuses tell us about the capacity of legal rules to constrain state violence, both in the past and today? Can the law prevent “worse” from occurring in the future?

Description

On April 21, Ukraine elected its sixth President since independence. Volodymyr Zelensky is the first Ukrainian President without political experience. In addition, outside of Israel, Ukraine is now one of the few countries in the world with a Jewish head of state. What does the election tell us about Ukrainian democracy? What are its implications for relations with Russia?

Description

Japan hossted the 2019 G20 summit in Osaka on June 28-29, 2019.  In anticipation of that meeting, the Centre for the Study of Global Japan and the G20 Research Group of the University of Toronto hosted a one-day symposium on May 8, 2019 to survey the agenda for the summit and provide an assessment of its prospects.   In addition to leaders of G20 countries, other leaders and the heads of many international organizations were invited.  It was the largest summit Japan has ever hosted. According to Prime Minister Abe, “At the Osaka Summit, Japan is determined to lead global economic growth by promoting free trade and innovation, achieving both economic growth and reduction of disparities, and contributing to the development agenda and other global issues.  Furthermore, we will discuss how to address the digital economy from an institutional perspective and issues that arise from an aging society. We will introduce Japan’s efforts, including the productivity revolution amid a “Society 5.0” era, towards achieving a society where all individuals are actively engaged.”  The day-long U of T symposium was held in the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy, Vivian and David Campbell Conference Facility, 1 Devonshire Place on May 8, beginning at 9AM.  A range of distinguished officials and scholars from Japan, Canada, Europe, and the United States discussed the evolving G20 agenda.  All were welcome to attend.    View a live webcast of the symposium here.  

PROGRAM | PROSPECTS FOR JAPAN’S G20 OSAKA SUMMIT  8:30AM | REGISTRATION  9:00-9:15AM | WELCOME Consul-General Takako Ito, Consulate-General of Japan in Toronto  OVERVIEW John Kirton, Co-Founder and Director, G7 Research Group Co-Founder and Director, G20 Research Group and Interim Director, International Relations Program, University of Toronto   Louis Pauly, Interim Director, Centre for the Study of Global Japan, Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy J. Stefan Dupré Distinguished Professor of Political Economy, Department of Political Science, University of Toronto  9:15-10:30AM | G20 SUMMIT PERFORMANCE, 2008-2019 Chair:  John Kirton  Evolution of the G20 Len Edwards, G20 Sherpa for Canada (2008-10)  Japan, the United States, and the G20 Economy Robert Fauver, US G7 Sherpa (1993-94) President, Fauver Associates, LLC  Do G20 Commitments Count? The 2019 Compliance Report Alessandra Cicci and Ji Yoon Han, Co-Chairs, Summit Studies, G20 Research Group (2019 Osaka Summit), University of Toronto   10:30-11:00AM | BREAK  11:00AM-12:15PM | PREPARATION AND PROSPECTS FOR THE OSAKA SUMMIT Chair: Louis Pauly  The Agenda for Osaka Shotaro Oshima, G7 Sherpa (2002) Chairman, Institute for International Economic Studies (IIES) Adjunct Professor, National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies (GRIPS)  Osaka G20 Conception and Hopes Jonathan Fried, Current G20 Sherpa for Canada Canada’s Ambassador and Permanent Representative, World Trade Organization   Japan and Global Economic Challenges in a Rapidly Changing World Motoshige Itoh, Professor Emeritus, University of Tokyo, Japan Professor, International Social Sciences, Gakushuin University, Japan  12:15-1:15PM | LUNCH  BREAK  1:15-2:30PM | INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC POLICY: CHALLENGES IN TRADE AND FINANCE  Chair: Tiff Macklem, Dean, Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto  Challenges in the Trading System Matthew Goodman, Senior Vice President; Simon Chair in Political Economy and Senior Adviser for Asian Economics, Center for Strategic & International Studies, Washington, DC  The World Economic Outlook & G20 Options Patrick Cirillo, Principal Assistant to the Secretary, International Monetary Fund  Multilateral Cooperation for Financial Stability: A Historical Perspective and Prospect Sara Konoe, Professor, Faculty of Economics, Kansai University, Japan    2:30-3:45PM | SOCIETY 5.0: SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT, AND THE PROMISE OF INCLUSION  Chair: David Welch, University Research Chair and Professor of Political Science, Balsillie School of International Affairs, University of Waterloo Senior Fellow, Centre for International Governance Innovation, University of Waterloo  New Frontiers for Economic Governance and the Promotion of Diversity Paola Subacchi, Professor, International Economics, Queen Mary University London Visiting Professor, University of Bologna, Italy   Science in Global Health and Wellness Mal Evans, Chief Scientific Officer, KGK Science, London, ON  Sustainable Oceans and the Management of Plastic Waste Atsushi Sunami, President, Ocean Policy Research Institute of the Sasakawa Peace Foundation Executive Advisor to the President and Adjunct Professor, National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies, Tokyo, Japan  Performance and Possibilities for G20 Gender Governance Julia Kulik, Director of Research, G20 Research Group, University of Toronto  3:45-4:15PM | BREAK   4:15-5:30PM | SOCIETY 5.0: TECHNOLOGY, INNOVATION, AND FUTURE PROSPERITY  Chair: Alan Alexandroff, Director, Global Summitry Project; Senior Editor, Global Summitry: Politics, Economics and Law in International Governance, Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy, University of Toronto  Governance of AI in Society 5.0: Japan’s Domestic Challenge and International Strategy Hideaki Shiroyama, Professor, Public Administration, Graduate School of Public Policy and Graduate School for Law and Politics, University of Tokyo, Japan  The G20’s Governance of Climate Change Ella Kokotsis, Director of Accountability, G20 Research Groups, University of Toronto  Innovation in a Global Digital Environment Carin Holroyd, Associate Professor, Department of Political Studies, University of Saskatchewan  President, Japan Studies Association of Canada   5:30-5:45PM | CONCLUDING REFLECTIONS  The Honourable William C. Graham, Chancellor of Trinity College, University of Toronto   5:45-6:30 | RECEPTION

Description

A Talk By TINA CHEN

The celebration and promotion of mobile film projection has been central to the multi-media landscape of the PRC at two historical moments: 1950s-1960s and 2010s-present. In each moment, the female film projectionist occupies privileged space, albeit in radically different contexts. This talk explores apparent visual, rhetorical, and experiential continuities framing the female film projectionist from socialist to post-socialist China. Through critical consideration of female film projectionists as conduits of advanced media technology and spatial projects, this talk considers how and why feminism has been a delayed promise in the PRC.

Tina Mai Chen is Professor of History at the University of Manitoba. Her current research considers the intersection of feminism, cultural politics, media landscapes, and subjectivity in the People’s Republic of China. She is co-editor with David Churchill of The Material of World History as well as Film, History, and Cultural Citizenship: Sites of Projection.

ROUNDTABLE: From Socialist Mobile Cinema to Global Media Now

TINA CHEN (University of Manitoba)
YI GU (University of Toronto)
TONG LAM (University of Toronto)
YUROU ZHONG (University of Toronto)

Description

10:00 – 10:15

Welcome

Randall Hansen, Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy
Thomas E. Schultze, Consul General of Germany in Toronto
Knut Dethlefsen, Friedrich Ebert Foundation

10:15 – 10:35

E-Day: What Do the European Elections Hold in Store for a Continent in Flux?
Wolfgang Schmidt, State Secretary, Federal Ministry of Finance

10:40 – 11:55
Session 1: Madness at the Polls: Canadian and European Elections in an Era of Right-wing Populism

Wolfgang Schmidt, State Secretary, Federal Ministry of Finance

Nathan Cullen, Member of Canadian Parliament

Moderator: Shachi Kurl, Executive Director, Angus Reid Institute

11:55 – 13:00
Lunch break

13:00 – 14:15
Session 2: A Coalition of the Modest? Canadian and German Leadership for a Liberal Democratic World Order

Janice Gross Stein, Founding Director, Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy

John Ralston Saul, Co-Chair, Institute for Canadian Citizenship and former President, PEN International

Moderator: Roland Nelles, Chief US Correspondent, Der Spiegel

14:15 – 14:30
Closing remarks

This event is sponsored by the Centre for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, and the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) with funds from the German Foreign Ministry.

Description

The lecture will address the politics of demographic panics the world over, which are entangled with geo-politics and the increasing strength of ethno-national identities. Imaginations of the purity of the nation, perceptions of differential fertility rates coupled with increasing international migration fuel pro-natalist discourses and policies especially in Eastern Europe, which is also witnessing a strong anti-feminist and anti-LGBTQ rights backlash. The same mix of factors, however, lead to selective anti-natalism for the poor and for religious minorities in India, for example, where a model of economic development based on neo-Malthusian premises continues to animate a state-driven population control program. The contemporary dynamics of the governance of reproduction in a world imagined as simultaneously under-populated and over-populated will be considered against the background of the global history of (post)- colonial population control.

About our speaker: Shalini Randeria is the Rector of the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna, Professor of Social Anthropology and Sociology at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, as well as the Director of the Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy. She serves on the Board of European Forum Alpbach, the Board of Trustees of the Central European University (CEU), the Academic Advisory Board of the Wien Museum as well as the Advisory Board of the Higher Education Support Program of the Open Society Foundations. Her research focuses on the anthropology of law, state and policy, reproductive rights, population policy and gender, the anthropology of globalisation and development, displacement, and civil society, social movements and NGOs.

Description

Born from necessity, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has always seemed on the verge of collapse. Even now, some seventy years after its inception, some consider its foundation uncertain and its structure weak. At this moment of incipient strategic crisis, Timothy A. Sayle offers a sweeping history of the most critical alliance in the post-World War II era.
In Enduring Alliance, Sayle recounts how the western European powers, along with the United States and Canada, developed a treaty to prevent encroachments by the Soviet Union and to serve as a first defense in any future military conflict. As the growing and unruly hodgepodge of countries, councils, commands, and committees inflated NATO during the Cold War, Sayle shows that the work of executive leaders, high-level diplomats, and institutional functionaries within NATO kept the alliance alive and strong in the face of changing administrations, various crises, and the flux of geopolitical maneuverings. Resilience and flexibility have been the true hallmarks of NATO.
As Enduring Alliance deftly shows, the history of NATO is organized around the balance of power, preponderant military forces, and plans for nuclear war. But it is also the history riven by generational change, the introduction of new approaches to conceiving international affairs, and the difficulty of diplomacy for democracies. As NATO celebrates its seventieth anniversary, the alliance once again faces challenges to its very existence even as it maintains its place firmly at the center of western hemisphere and global affairs.

“The logic, history, and analysis of Enduring Alliance are impeccable, and Timothy Andrews Sayle’s account is particularly useful at this moment when the Atlantic partnership is on unsteady ground. A must-read for policymakers seeking to ensure the Pax Atlantic is the indispensable and truly enduring alliance of our times.”
– Admiral James Stavridis, USN (Ret), Supreme Allied Commander at NATO, 2009-2013, and author of The Accidental Admiral

“Enduring Alliance is a deeply researched and engaging account of the complicated and consequential history of the United States and NATO. Sayle offers new insights, exposes various myths, and explores the complexities and challenges of this unique, oft-troubled, but resilient alliance. Must-read for scholars of history, security studies, and institutions, as well as anyone concerned about the state of NATO today.”
– Francis J. Gavin, author of Nuclear Statecraft

“Enduring Alliance is an ambitious, wide-ranging, and much-needed book in the development of inter-alliance politics within NATO.”
– Matthew Jones, London School of Economics, and author of After Hiroshima

“Timothy A. Sayle’s Enduring Alliance abounds with keen insights and brilliant turns of phrase. Enduring Alliance excavates a vital history that speaks to our present moment and will be a valuable resource for scholars, students, and interested readers and policymakers.”
– Christopher McKnight Nichols, Oregon State University, and author of Promise and Peril

“At a time when the president of the US is questioning the future of NATO, it is essential to understand the alliance’s past. Timothy Andrews Sayle’s engaging account shows why NATO came into being, how it has endured, and where it may be going. Highly recommended.”
– Mary Sarotte, author of 1989

Description

Information is not yet available.

Description

Presented by the Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival in partnership with Vtape. Supported by the University of Manitoba, the University of Toronto, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Tong Lam’s series meticulously documents contemporary China’s outdoor film phenomena, where films are sometimes screened next to dancing people and even animals, and where propaganda films have to compete with images of conspicuous consumption. In addition to showing the diversity of people and places in a rapidly changing nation, Lam’s work also invites viewers to consider an increasingly complex global media environment overrun with commercials, misinformation, and media spectacle.

Curated by Tina Chen (Head, Department of History, Unviersity of Manitoba)

Description

While the words travel and tourism are often used interchangeably, there is a difference between the two: a tourist travels for leisure, he dips into a foreign culture but remains largely unchanged while a traveller aims for experience as a means of understanding himself in the context of the foreign. Every Filipino child knows that Rizal travelled a great deal when air travel was but a figment of the imagination, but what is not emphasized is how Rizal was formed by his exposure to other lands, peoples, and cultures. It is not well known that Rizal travelled to America, travelling by land from San Francisco to New York to catch a voyage to London. Looking back on Rizal’s travels helps us understand the hero, ourselves, and the emergence of the Filipino nation.

José Rizal, in full José Protasio Rizal Mercado y Alonso Realonda, was born on June 19, 1861 in Calamba, Philippines and died on December 30, 1896 in Manila. Jose Rizal, the Philippine National Hero was a man of gifts: a multilingual writer, poet, artist, scholar, and physician, as well as a leading figure in a movement that called for basic reforms and civil liberties in the Spanish overseas colony.

AMBETH R. OCAMPO is a public historian whose research covers the late 19th century Philippines: its art, culture, and the people who figure in the birth of the nation.

Prof. Ocampo is Associate Professor and former Chairman of the Department of History, Ateneo de Manila University. He served as Chairman, National Commission for Culture and the Arts (2005-2007) and Chairman, National Historical Commission of the Philippines (2002-2011), and President of the Philippine Historical Association.

Prof. Ocampo has published over 30 books, writes a widely read Editorial Page column for the Philippines Daily Inquirer, and moderates a growing Instagram and Facebook Fan Page.

Reception to follow

Description

Eric Hobsbawm: A Life in History
By the time of his death in 2012, Eric Hobsbawm was the most widely read historian in the world. His books were translated into over 50 languages. They sold a million copies in Brazil alone.
His influence on the discipline of history was immense. But he was not just a writer: he was also present at some of the key moments of twentieth-century history, from the Nazi seizure of power in Berlin and the election of the Popular Front in France to the crisis of international communism in 1956 and the rise of New Labour in Britain in the 1980s. In this lecture, drawing on his recently published biography, Sir Richard J Evans explores Eric Hobsbawm’s life and deals with some of the controversies it has aroused.
Sir Richard J. Evans is Provost of Gresham College, London, and Regius Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Cambridge. He is the author of numerous books on modern German and European history, including The Coming of the Third Reich, The Third Reich in Power and The Third Reich at War. He was the principal expert witness in the libel action brought against Deborah Lipstadt in 2000, recently the subject of the movie, Denial.

Description

Kristina Kallas is a research fellow at Tartu University Narva College, Estonia. She has researched extensively the question of Russian-speaking population in post-Soviet space and the questions of minority rights and integration in post-communist nation-building. She obtained a Master’s degree from the Central European University in political science and a PhD from Tartu University with a thesis entitled “Revisiting the triadic nexus: an analysis of the ethnopolitical interplay between Estonia, Russia and Estonian Russians”. She has worked as a consultant for the Estonian government in developing national integration strategies since 2007 and is also the head of the council of Estonian Integration and Migration Foundation. In 2018 she formed a new liberal political party in Estonia Eesti 200 and became the first leader of the party.

Description

There is a widely shared belief that decentralization has the potential to lead to more efficient, responsive and accountable government. In the Indian context, however, the existing literature indicates that state (provincial) governments failed to devolve substantive powers and funds to municipalities. This presentation discusses municipal-state relations through the lens of urban environmental governance and in the case of small cities, which are generally understudied. While our findings based on in-depth research in Gujarat and West Bengal largely confirm the conclusions from the literature, they also point to important differences between the two states and to differing degrees of municipal agency and relative autonomy influenced by institutional frameworks and the flow of funds and personnel.

René Véron is professor of social geography based at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland. His research focuses on urban environmental governance with a regional specialization on India. He is particularly interested in exploring socio-environmental processes related to urban environmental services, waste and pollution using an approach of urban political ecology.