CIH Fellows 2006-2007

Annual Fellows

Richard Davis

Richard Davis received his Ph.D. in English from the University of New Brunswick, and he is a Professor in the Department of English.

Dr. Davis' fellowship project deals with understanding expedition journals in Australia and New Zealand.  It works from the observation that the records of English-speaking people who first explored the New World constitute the foundations of the national literatures that evolved from colonial societies.  The project seeks to understand the genre of expedition journal - especially during the English-speaking world's discovery of new lands by investigating specific instructions about what to record in journals, how field notes became official journals, and the transformation of journals into public narratives.

Marc Ereshefsky

Marc Ereshefsky received his Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and he is a Professor in the Department of Philosophy

Dr. Ereshefsky's fellowship project is entitled "The Many Faces of ‘Natural' " - and it works from the understanding that conceptual questions about scientific classifications, natural kinds, and human kinds often depend upon what is thought about a natural classification.  Philosophical discussions of how to define ‘health' and ‘disease' and what to preserve in the environment turn on whether humans have natural states and whether some human actions are unnatural.  The project explores the use of ‘natural' from four perspectives: natural kinds, human kinds, health and disease, and environmental preservation.

Richard Zach

Richard Zach holds his Ph.D. in Logic and the methodology of Science from the University of California, Berkeley, and he is an Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy.

Dr. Zach's fellowship is entitled "The History of Logical Metatheory, 1900-1940".  Logic and the foundations of mathematics have had a profound influence on the development of philosophy - but especially since the late 19^th century when the logician Gottlob Frege revolutionized the subject.  Indeed, many of the important conceptual developments that have shaped logic into its modern form occurred in the first forty years of the 20^th century.  They include the development of formal systems of logic, and the emergence of semantics, of computability, and of proof theory.  These, and other developments, have been a driving force in metaphysics, epistemology, and the philosophy of science.  They have been of central importance in other fields such as theoretical linguistics, computer science, and mathematics.  The project traces the conceptual evolution of notions such as consistency and completeness, of decidability and computability, and of the syntax/semantics distinction.  It combines a study of the philosophical and mathematical writings on symbolic logic between 1900 and 1940 with a detailed analysis of logic that emerges from these writings.  It situates the development of logic during 1900 to 1940 in the broader context of the emergence of analytic philosophy.

Undergraduate Student Fellow

Leah Wotherspoon

Leah Wotherspoon was a fourth-year student in the Department of Religious Studies.

Ms. Wotherspoon's research project is entitled "Pilgrimage as Territoriality - A Case Considered: Lac Ste. Anne, Alberta".  The project is based on the understanding that pilgrimages are popular phenomena that involve travel to places understood to be sacred or ideal.  Religious pilgrimages generally include a variety of ritual activities, and they are opportunities for people to form a unique and particular form of community based on their shared experience during the pilgrimage.  The project critiques the dynamics of community formation as demonstrated in the Lac Ste Anne pilgrimage as pilgrims form and maintain a place-bound community.  It also explores how pilgrimage gives Lac Ste Anne its religious meaning.

Visiting Fellow

Julie Cormack

Julie Cormack holds her Ph.D. in Archaeological Sciences from the University of Liverpool, and she is an Instructor at Mount Royal College (Anthropology and Archaeology) in Calgary.

Dr. Cormack's project is entitled "Bone Men: Dr. Davidson Black and the Peking Man".  Dr. Davidson Black, the Canadian anthropologist responsible for the identification of the earliest Asian fossil human ancestor, Homo erectus (known as Peking Man) made significant historic and scientific contributions to the development of Chinese prehistory.  The project will complete an authorized scientific biography of Black based on materials from numerous international and national archival sources, as well as from the private Black family archives.  The forthcoming monograph will correct historical and biographical details about Black, and it will invigorate interest in his life, the context of his research, and also his scientific legacy.

Visiting Scholar

Jim Whitman

Jim Whitman holds his  Ph. D. in Peace Studies from Bradford University in England. He holds a senior lectureship in the Department of Peace Studies at Bradford University.

Whitman's book, The Limits of Global Governance, Routledge, was published in June, 2005. The governance challenges posed by converging technological systems are now Jim's main research focus, with three recent conference papers on various aspects of this theme. Other continuing research interests include the use of force and humanitarian intervention; human rights; and problems of ethical and legal deliberation in globalising circumstances. The Palgrave Global Issues book series, of which Jim is the general editor, will see its 30th title in print in 2006. After co-founding the Journal of Humanitarian Assistance ten years ago, Jim and his fellow editors hope to announce a new home for it in 2006, which will allow him to give more attention to his central research interests.