ACSN Presidency
by Conny Steenman-Marcusse
When I accepted the ACSN presidency in September 2003 I was going to commit myself for three years. Another four years were added as no successors presented themselves. I will continue to do part of the work in my function as Past President but I am delighted to let you know that my colleague Dr. Cornelius Remie will be Acting President as from now on. For many ACSN members he does not need much introduction as he was one of the co-founders of ACSN in 1985. He has certainly built up a lot of expertise in the field of Canada Studies. Cor founded and presided the European Network for Canadian Studies for fifteen years and just finished his term as president of the International Council for Canadian Studies.
ACSN, the European Network for Canadian Studies and the International Council for CS have played an important part in my life. During my presidency I was honoured to be part of the 60th and 65th anniversaries of the end of World War II with subsequent book publications Building Liberty: Canada and World Peace, 1945-2005, co-edited with Aritha van Herk, and Tulips and Maple Leaves in 2010, Perspectives on 65 years of Dutch/Canadian Relations, co-edited with Christl Verduyn. Moreover I can look back upon many successful conferences and seminars throughout the country, whether it was Groningen, Nijmegen, Utrecht or Middelburg. Together with Dutch Foreign Affairs in the Hague ACSN plans a book launch of Tulips and Maple Leaves in 2010 at the end of September or the beginning of October. Please consult the ACSN website in the next two months for more information.
Canada Studies are subject to change, not only contentwise but also sponsorwise. With tighter budgets it is difficult for the ACSN Executive board to service ACSN members but we want to remain the focal point of an interactive and hopefully vibrant community of Canadianists in the Netherlands.
Online Research Guide
The R.P. Bell Library and the Centre for Canadian Studies at Mount Allison University wish to inform you about a web-based research guide on Canadian political life and government. The purpose of this guide is to introduce students, researchers, and others interested in Canadian government and politics to the major sources of information for research in these fields. the guide provides connections to primary source and addresses such topics as:
- political party financing
- immigration
- international relations
- trade
- women in politics
-defense policy, and
- local government
Additional topics are planned. This project was made possible through the generous support of the Crabtree Foundation. The site is open to the public, students, faculty, researches and interested parties at:
www.mta.ca/library/govt&politics/main/home.html
Tulips and Maple Leaves in 2010, Perspectives on 65 years’ Dutch-Canadian Relation
By Conny Steenman-Marcusse
The 65th anniversary of the end of World War II will be celebrated in May 2010. MP Stephen Harper plans to come over with Canadian War Veterans and 2000 Canadian Highschool students. Ever since July 1, 2009 there have been talks between ACSN and Dutch Foreign Affairs in the Hague what to do to observe this important event. With the financial support of Foreign Affairs ACSN has been requested to issue a book Tulips and Maple Leaves in 2010, Perspectives on 65 years’ Dutch-Canadian Relations, to be published by Barkhuis, Groningen, full-colour, hardcover. The book comprises 10 interviews with a high level of human interest content conducted by journalist Olga van Ditzhuijzen. The interviewees have special connections with Canada and the Netherlands. Included in the book are also 10 essays supplied by students from Groningen, Nijmegen en Middelburg. Some of the topics are “NATO: The Importance of Afghanistan”, “In the Land of Lisbon: Canadian relations with the EU”, “From G8 to G20: Expanding the Global Framework” and “Copenhagen and After: Cooping with Climate Change.” The book will be presented to all Canadian guests and Dutch officials, communities and schools on May 6, 2010 in Bergen op Zoom, where a commemoration service will be held at 11.00 a.m. at the Canadian War Cemetery with 1.118 war graves.
Report Expert Meeting THE CANADIAN ARCTIC IN MOTION
Self Governance in Canada’s North: Nunavik and Nunavut
By Cunera Buijs, Leiden
On the 26th of October an expert meeting on Nunavik and Nunavut was held at the National Museum of Ethnology in Leiden. The meeting was organized by the Canadian Embassy, the National Museum of Ethnology and the Research Group Circumpolar Cultures.
The meeting was organized in connection to the visit of two esteemed guests from the north, Pita Aatami, President, Makivik Corporation, Quebec, and Jean-Francois Arteau, Legal Counsel and Executive Assistant to the President of Makivik Corporation. This provided an excellent opportunity to discuss developments in Nunavik and Nunavut in the past, the present and the future. 
John Ralston Saul becomes first Canadian to head mighty PEN
Toronto author John Ralston Saul, who visitited the Netherlands last September, is vowing to shine a spotlight on disappearing languages in his new role as the president of International PEN, one of the world's oldest human rights organizations and a global champion of freedom of expression. Saul, elected Wednesday at the annual International PEN conference in Linz, Austria, is the first Canadian to hold the office, which carries a three-year term. The husband of former governor general Adrienne Clarkson succeeds former Czech dissident author Jiri Grusa. Past presidents of the organization, founded in 1921, include such literary heavyweights as John Galsworthy, Arthur Miller, Heinrich Boll and Mario Vargas Llosa. "It's exciting. It's a real commitment," said Saul, 62, on the line from Austria. "And it's very moving to stand up in a room full of writers and intellectuals from around the world, knowing that you're in an astonishing line of people. That carries with it a real responsibility. "One of the things I laid out was the importance of minority languages. There are hundreds of languages that are disappearing, mainly aboriginal indigenous languages, a lot of them in Canada. The ultimate removal of freedom of expression is to have your language disappear and, in a sense, to have your culture disappear." International PEN, based in London, has 144 chapters globally, representing 18,000 writers around the world. Its responsibilities include lobbying for the release of writers who have been imprisoned or exiled for their views. "This means that Canada will play a bigger role in International PEN," said Toronto Star columnist and past PEN Canada president Haroon Siddiqui, who had a hand in nominating Saul for the position. "PEN Canada is one of the most successful PEN centres in the world. This is partially a recognition of that and also a recognition that John would make a very good president." Over the years, PEN Canada has lobbied on behalf of several celebrated dissidents, including former Czech president Vaclav Havel and Turkish Nobel Prize laureate Orhan Pamuk. In 2002, the organization helped secure the release of Jose Francisco Gallardo, a Mexican brigadier-general sentenced to 28 years for writing an article urging his country to appoint a military ombudsman. Saul is the author of several fiction and non-fiction titles, including The Collapse of Globalism and A Fair Country. He is a past president of PEN Canada, which he joined in the 1980s.
To find out more please visit this page
Prepare for Studying in Canada
The Education in Canada website provides information to international students about education opportunities in Canada. Individuals interested can search for study programs, get cost estimates, learn about study permit requirements and work opportunities. For more information, visit this page.
5th Congress of Polish Canadianists
Towards Critical Multiculturalism: Dialogues Between/Among Canadian Diasporas.
October 7th - 9th 2010, CRACOW, POLAND
Organized by the University of Silesia and Jagiellonian University
First Announcement and Call for Papers
The Canadian policy of official multiculturalism has been recognized as unique in the world of multiethnic states. Many international comparisons of national performance show that the Canadian solution has yielded very good results in such areas as quality of life, human development, public education, economic freedom, and the protection of civil liberties and political rights. No wonder there is much interest in the multicultural politics all over the world, yet in Canada, it has become a sharply contested issue. Many critics claim that the federal model of multiculturalism has failed to control racism against ethno-racial minorities and hence a ,br more "radical" or "critical" multiculturalism is needed which would restructure power relations and envision a reciprocal process among all groups. Recent studies on diaspora in Canada have focused predominantly on the examination of relations between the dominant culture and a variety of minority groups and Indigenous peoples. While the results of such research are essential for critical examinations of Canadian multiculturalism, the predominance of the approach in effect both underlines and supports unequal power relations between the majority and minority groups. The problem becomes particularly clear in view of the fact that no sufficient work has been done on the exploration of encounters between/among various Canadian diasporic groups and First Nations people. New comparative frameworks are urgently needed to examine various transdiasporic practices which aim at reconceptualization of current Canadian national discourses and at forging and developing a successful transcultural communication.
Canadian short story writer Alice Munro wins Man Booker International Prize for fiction
Ms. Munro, who lives in Clinton, Ont., and Comox, B.C., was chosen from a field of 14 writers, including Peter Carey, E.L. Doctorow, Mario Vargas Llosa, V.S. Naipaul and Joyce Carol Oates.
The International Prize is open to writers from around the world and is awarded for an entire body of work. The inaugural International Prize was awarded to Albanian writer Ismail Kadare in 2005. Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe won it in 2007.
The Man Booker International Prize's three-person judging panel, chaired by author Jane Smiley, saw no reason for modesty, praising the winner in a statement: “Alice Munro is mostly known as a short story writer and yet she brings as much depth, wisdom and precision to every story as most novelists bring to a lifetime of novels. To read Alice Munro is to learn something every time that you never thought of before.”
For more information please visit this page of the Globe and Mail.
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