CIH Fellows 2009-2010

Annual Fellows 2009-2010

Bart Beaty received his Ph.D. in Communications from McGill University, and he is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Communication and Culture.

Dr. Beaty's fellowship project is titled "Me Am Not Art: Comics Enter the Art World."  It is a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council funded project exploring the evolving relationship between comics and institutions of art history (such as galleries, museums, auction houses, the art press).  It proposes that the historical exclusion of comics from art history is drawing to a close as a result of the transformation of the comics art object in the contemporary period.  It also reflects a shifting generational dynamic that has influenced the art world in the wake of theories of postmodernism and the push towards ‘blockbuster' exhibitions in the field of fine arts. Understanding the reconciliation of the traditionally separate domains of comics and fine art carries the potential to shed light on the concrete processes that are used to generate symbolic power in the contemporary cultural field.

Dominique Perron holds her Ph.D. in French Literature from Université Laval, and she is an Associate Professor in the Department of French, Spanish and Italian.

Dr. Perron's fellowship project is based on her previous research involving energy discourse analysis of information from the petroleum industry in Western Canada.  It deals with themes of sustainability and the environment in promotional materials including that of the Canadian oil sands with particular focus on ‘ecoblanchment' (greenwashing).  The project draws on theories of French thinkers (such as Andre Gorz, Jean-Pierre Dupuis, Serge Latouche, and François Mancebo) to address views of post-sustainability, post-growth and post-catastrophe.  The project seeks to question and understand the function and role of sustainability and growth rhetoric in the social discourse of the Canadian oil industry.

Visiting Research Fellow 2009-2010

Theresa L. Cowan recently received her Ph.D. ("Vox Populi: The Genealogies, Cultures, and Politics of Spoken Word Performance in Canada") in English from the University of Alberta and she will join the University of Saskatchewan as an Assistant Professor in 2010.  She is the Killam Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Calgary.

Dr. Cowan's fellowship project is titled "Viscera & Ephemera: Feminist Grass-Roots Performance in Canada 1983-2008."  It is an archival and analytic study that critically examines the politics and aesthetics, as well as the social relations of production and circulation of feminist grass-roots (community-based) performances, including sketch comedy, cabaret, monodrama, street performance, and literary (and anti-literary) reading series.  The project documents feminist performances that now exist only in the anecdotes women tell each other about "that show."  This material is typically found in closet and basement archives filled with hand-bills, posters, ticket-stubs, and old reading-copies those artists and audience members keep.  Ultimately, this project will be supported by a user-generated database that will be an on-line repertoire of ephemera, stories, videos, pictures and interviews.

Francis Spratt Graduate Student Fellow 2009-2010

James Lange holds his M.A. in English from the University of Western Ontario, and he is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of English at the University of Calgary.

Mr. Lange's fellowship project, titled "Performing Femininity after Darwin," is a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council funded project.  It examines how Darwinism, in both its scientific and social forms, was deployed in performances of femininity in the last forty years of the nineteenth century.  From popular entertainment produced only weeks after the publication of Darwin's On the Origin of Species in 1859, to plays by suffragists, eugenicists, and the leading playwrights of Modern Drama, the study seeks to discover the intricate ways that Darwinism was used to represent women in a period where the social roles of women were under constant scrutiny and transformation.

Undergraduate Student Fellow 2009-2010

Autumn Whiteway is a fourth year undergraduate student at the University of Calgary, completing Honours majors in Archaeology (Physical Anthropology) and also in Greek and Roman Studies.

Ms. Whiteway's fellowship project is titled, "Ceremonial Slaughter, Tribal Affiliation, and Heirlooms on the Funerary Landscape: An Ethnoarchaeological Approach to the Interpretation of Bedouin Mortuary Customs in Jordan."  The project builds upon her 2008 research project, "Mortuary Ethnoarchaeology of Pastoral Nomads in Jordan: Understanding Desert and Camel Caravan Burials in the Archaeological Record."  It uses data obtained from contemporary groups (particularly in Anatolia and in Jordan) as a research strategy to explain archaeological problems (ethnoarchaeology) and paleopathology (the study of ancient human disease through human remains in an archaeological context).  A primary focus of her studies includes mortuary practices and human remains.