Passings: Professor John Saywell, a pioneering figure at York, dies at 82

University Professor Emeritus John Tupper (Jack) Saywell, noted Canadian historian and a member of the Founders Society of York University, has died. Prof. Saywell, or "Jack" as most knew him, died on April 20 in Toronto. He was 82. Known as the "kid from Cowichan Lake, British Columbia", Prof. Saywell arrived at the University of […]

SSHRC-funded project provides daily facts about African-Canadian history

Did you know that African Canadians worshipping on the lakeshore founded Toronto's first Baptist Church in 1826? Did you know that Upper Canada was the first place in the British Empire to make laws limiting slavery (1793)? Did you know that Mathieu Da Costa, a multilingual translator of African descent, came to Canada with Samuel […]

Professor Carolyn Podruchny: What it took to be a real man in the 18th and 19th centuries

What made a man in the 18th and 19th century? That’s what York Professor Carolyn Podruchny, graduate director of the Department of History, will reveal at her public lecture tomorrow as part of the Canada: Like You've Never Heard It Before Speakers' Series. Podruchny’s talk, “Tough Bodies, Fast Dogs, Well-Dressed Wives: Measures of Manhood Among French-Canadian […]

York PhD graduate and alumna wins two prizes for history of Ontario's summer camps

Historian and York grad Sharon Wall (PhD ’03) has won two awards for her book, The Nurture of Nature: Childhood, Antimodernism, and Ontario Summer Camps, 1920-55. In the spring, the book won the Canadian Historical Association's 2010 Clio Prize for Ontario, and now it has won the Champlain Society’s Floyd S. Chalmers Award in Ontario […]

History Professor Marcel Martel: RCMP had files on Canadians for or against bilingualism during 1960s and 1970s

What few people realize when looking at French and English language rights issues across the country is that the RCMP were instructed to open files on individuals and organizations both for and against bilingualism in the 1960s and 1970s, says York history Professor Marcel Martel, co-author of a new book. “It raises some serious questions,” […]

Professor Michael Zyrd focuses on 'ugly ducklings' of film world

York film Professor Michael Zryd is interested in the ugly ducklings of the film world. As a researcher, Zryd’s current work is focused on the complexities of history and academic institutionalization from the 1960s onward in relation to experimental and independent film. While most of his past research has concentrated on American films, Zryd is also […]

Four York students win Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarships

Four students from York’s Faculty of Graduate Studies have won Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarships for research on everything from protecting vulnerable women to finding alternatives to the global takeover of organic agriculture. This is only the second year the Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarships have been awarded. “We are delighted with the results of the Vanier […]