Maxime Dagenais Since I last posted with Borealia – a post titled “The ‘Canadian Revolution,’ the Early American Republic, and … Slavery?” – my SSHRC postdoctoral fellowship at the McNeil Center for Early American Studies ended and I took up a new position as the research coordinator for the Wilson Institute for Canadian History at… Continue Reading
Latest in: Research
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Oana Godeanu-Kenworthy This fall, when nationalism is marking an unwelcome return in European and American politics, it behooves Early Canadianists to reflect on the relevance of borders–disciplinary and national–in studying and publishing about Early Canada. The paradox of academic life in the global village in an age of instant connectivity and seemingly endless access to… Continue Reading
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Patrick Lacroix “The President also desires me to assure Lord Durham, ‘in the strongest manner’, of his sincere desire to do all in his power to keep up a good understanding between the two Countries.”[1] So wrote British emissary Sir Charles Grey (the son of a British prime minister and father of a Canadian governor… Continue Reading
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Leah Grandy Future historians are facing a crisis in a skill set that has not been a significant issue in the past. As the teaching of cursive writing has been eliminated or greatly diminished from North American elementary school curriculums, we are seeing the arrival of university students to arts programmes unable to read written… Continue Reading
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Aaron Willis The relationship between Britain and supranational structures has consistently raised questions of authority and sovereignty. While the E.U. has provided the most recent theatre for debates over these political concepts, in the eighteenth century it was the expanding empire that generated political crises and the attendant debates. The concept of sovereignty, often in… Continue Reading
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Loren Michael Mortimer In September of 1759, great armies were on the move through the upper St. Lawrence Valley. Not the military forces under the command of Montcalm and Wolfe en-route to their climactic showdown on the Plains of Abraham, but an army of black bears migrating en-masse southward from Canada into Britain’s Atlantic colonies.… Continue Reading
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dann j. Broyld & Matthew Warshauer Note: This essay, with its cross-border themes, is being jointly posted by Borealia and The Republic, the new blog of the Society of Historians of the Early American Republic (SHEAR). Borealia is grateful for The Republic’s support and cooperation! The net has been abuzz with news of United States… Continue Reading
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Kathryn Magee Labelle I always try to incorporate the life stories of lesser-known and often-overlooked historical actors when I teach the Pre-Confederation history survey (see a few examples from my course outline at the end of this blog). The content for these biographical sketches are usually drawn from the Dictionary of Canadian Biography (DCB). Easily… Continue Reading
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Colin M. Coates Some species are better to “think” with than others. Environmental activists often draw attention to their causes through reference to “flagship” or “charismatic” species. Invocations of the threatened habitat of the marbled murrelet helped galvanize opposition to logging in the Pacific Northwest in the 1990s, just as the Kermode bear subspecies has… Continue Reading
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Jason Hall Rivers have been foundational to the development of historical thinking since the Greek philosopher Heraclitus coined the expression “no man can cross the same river twice,” 2,500 years ago. Many scholars have subsequently encouraged students to “think like rivers” to recognize the inherently transient nature of the world. My dissertation, River of Three… Continue Reading