Professor Priscila Uppal launches sports poems collection written during 2010 Vancouver Olympics

Sports and poetry aren’t usually thought of as intertwining, but York English Professor Priscila Uppal is almost as much a sports fan as she is a poet. Given that she was the Canadian Athletes Now Fund (CANFund) poet-in-residence during the Vancouver 2010 Olympics and Paralympic Games, it’s not surprising that her poems have made their way […]

Professor Marcus Boon's book and blog detail why copying is necessary to our evolution

A new book by a York University professor argues that the act of copying, much maligned in our culture, is fundamentally necessary to our evolution. In Praise of Copying, which was officially launched last night in Toronto, explores different aspects of copying and looks at everything from quilting and cooking to gang warfare and martial […]

Professor Michael Helm a finalist for the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize

York English Professor Michael Helm is up for yet another literary prize for his novel Cities of Refuge. Last week he was nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize; this week he’s been selected as one of five finalists for the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize announced by the Writers’ Trust of Canada yesterday. Along with […]

Professor James Carley launches landmark book on John Leland tomorrow at UK's Bodleian Library

Described as a landmark in the history of medieval, Renaissance and Reformation scholarship, York English Professor James Carley’s new book, John Leland: De uiris illustribus – On Famous Men, will launch at the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford. Assisted by Caroline Brett, Carley has edited and translated Leland’s original work De uiris illustribus, […]

Professor Priscila Uppal collaborates on photography exhibit exploring dream-states, trauma, sexuality and texture

York English Professor Priscila Uppal (BA Hons. ’97, PhD ’04) has a thing for dreams, sometimes dreaming fragments of poems. She adores the odd dialogue that can only happen in that surreal state of being. So when artist Daniel Ehrenworth, a former fine arts cultural studies student at York, asked her to collaborate with him for his […]

Professors launch memory and migration book at round table on cultural memory

Following the wars of the 20th century, how does cultural memory strengthen or undermine social and political cohesion in a time of global migrations? That question will be discussed at the upcoming round table, Memory Studies and the Identity Problem: A Cross Reading of European and Canadian Cultural Traditions. The round table will take place […]

York Centre for Asian Research awards six graduate scholarships to fuel innovative research projects

Six York students have won five awards for their research on Asia or Asian diaspora this year from the York Centre for Asian Research (YCAR). Vanessa Lamb (right), a second-year doctoral candidate in geography, is the 2010 Vivienne Poy Asian Research Award recipient. Her research interests include the politics of the environment and development, feminist political ecology […]

English professor wins award posthumously for latest book

York English Professor Emerita Barbara Godard, who died May 16, has received the 2009 Gabrielle Roy Prize (English Section) posthumously for her most recent book, Wider Boundaries of Daring: The Modernist Impulse in Canadian Women's Poetry, co-edited with poet Di Brandt. The award is given annually by the Association for Canadian and Quebec Literatures (ACQL) […]

Passings: Prof Barbara Godard, pre-eminent literary scholar, influenced many fields of study

Professor Emerita Barbara Godard, the Avie Bennett Historica Chair in Canadian Literature, died Sunday, May 16, from complications related to her illness, at Toronto Western Hospital surrounded by family. Funeral arrangements for Friday are noted at the bottom of this page. Here, York humanities Professor Jody Berland, English Professor Julia Creet and PhD student Elena Basile […]

Third novel by English prof wrestles with what people believe

York English Professor Michael Helm likens writing novels to driving bumper to bumper at 120 kilometres an hour for half a day, and being emotionally and physically spent by the end. That’s on good days. “You have to concentrate so hard, but when you get out of the car, you’re just so exhausted. I always […]