The Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS) held its annual publication and performance launch last week, showcasing the hard work faculty from across its many departments put in this year outside the classroom.
The event offered a window into the diversity of recently produced research, scholarship and creative output from members of the faculty’s 11 departments, one school and two programs.
Scenes from the FASS publication and performance launch.
“We’re celebrating a wide range of diversity in the research of our faculty,” said Howard Ramos, associate dean of research for FASS.
This year’s launch, held last Thursday in the McCain Building’s Fireside Lounge, featured 17 books, 33 peer-reviewed articles, 19 book chapters, three special issues, four edited collections, three reports, nine performances and three exhibitions.
Artistic and scholarly works
One book on display at the launch was Martha Radice’s Urban Encounters: Art and the Public. The new book from the faculty member in Sociology and Social Anthropology is an investigation of public art in Canadian cities — a project that began through working with professors at NSCAD in 2011.
“It’s about how art in public settings can play with and disrupt the normal comings of urban life,” said Dr. Radice (left).
Along with the research and written publications, Dr. Ramos highlighted the Fountain School of Performing Arts and their performances within the community, including operas, concerts, and shows at Neptune Theatre and other venues.
“This is one of those things that really shows the range of what we are doing,” said Dr. Ramos, noting FASS is often the first point of contact for the community to get to know Dal. “So much of our work plugs into the community.”
Dalhousie president Richard Florizone attended the launch and celebrated the important impact FASS research has on society and the community.
President Florizone speaks to attendees at the event.
“There’s the teaching and learning mission, but what really distinguishes a university is our scholarly output,” said Dr. Florizone.
He explained how the university believes in this teacher-scholar model, and that these research projects inform teaching and learning. “It’s every bit as important in FASS,” said Dr. Florizone, “It’s a valuable endeavor.”
A broad spectrum
Take Lyn Bennett’s new book, Rhetoric, Medicine, and the Woman Writer, 1600-1700, featured at the event.
Dr. Bennett (right) explained how the book and the research she put into it came to impact her teaching. Her new English class, Literature and the History of Medicine, touches on the themes of her book, and she will also be teaching a graduate seminar on Writing Illness that will incorporate elements of the research as well.
Dr. Ramos highlighted the great work being done on topics such as immigration, Indigenous issues, and noted that the range of FASS’s work also extends to areas like oceans and agriculture — fields where the contributions of humanities researchers can sometimes get overlooked.
“Our work is very valuable and important.”
Some of the authors whose work was celebrated at the event (left to right): Lyn Bennett (English), Leonard Diepeveen (English), Jack Mitchell (Classics), Daniela Rodica Firanescu (Classics), Martha Radice (Sociology and Social Anthropology), Laura Eramian (Sociology and Social Anthropology), David Black (Political Science).