Dr. Deanna Reder | The Obligations of Stories: Missing Jim Brady and Abbie Halkett

2020, PFL 2019-2020, Arts + Culture, President's Faculty Lectures, Indigenous Voices

As a literary scholar I’ve learned techniques to read and analyze stories. But I’ve always been taught to use different ways to listen to the stories shared with me by my family—that Cree and Métis stories are not so easy to hammer down, that they ask you to take responsibility for your interpretations, that stories can incur obligations.

In this lecture I will remember the 1967 unexplained disappearance of Métis leader Jim Brady and Cree councilor Abbie Halkett. I think about the stories I’ve heard and learned about them and think about the responsibilities I hold because I listened.

– Deanna Reder

Thu, 06 Feb 2020

6:00 p.m. (PT)

Segal Graduate School of Business
500 Granville Street, Vancouver
Room 1200

We respectfully acknowledge that this event takes place on the Unceded, Traditional, Ancestral Territories of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, Musqueam, Tsleil-Waututh, and Kwikwetlem, Kwantlen, Katzie, and Semiahmoo First Nations.

The President’s Faculty Lectures shine a light on the research excellence at Simon Fraser University. Hosted by the SFU president, these free public lectures celebrate cutting-edge research and faculty that engage with communities and mobilize knowledge to make real-world impacts.

Cree-Métis scholar Deanna Reder is the Chair of the Department of First Nations Studies, and an Associate Professor in the Department of English at Simon Fraser University. Her research focuses on the understudied archive of Indigenous literary work in Canada up to 1992 (see thepeopleandthetext.ca). She is a founding member of the Indigenous Literary Studies Association, also called ILSA (see Indigenousliterarystudies.org), a co-chair of the Indigenous Voices Awards (see Indigenousvoicesawards.org), and the Series Editor for the Indigenous Studies Series at Wilfrid Laurier University Press.

Nov 26, 2019

Dr. Nathalie Sinclair | An Arithmetic Touch

PFL 2019-2020, President's Faculty Lectures, 2019, Media + Information

Dr. Nathalie Sinclair, Canada Research Chair in Tangible Mathematics Learning, discusses her design of touchscreen technologies that could help make mathematical thinking and learning less abstract and more empowering for children and adults.

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Feb 6, 2020

Dr. Deanna Reder | The Obligations of Stories

2020, PFL 2019-2020, Arts + Culture, President's Faculty Lectures, Indigenous Voices

Cree-Métis literary scholar Dr. Deanna Reder discusses the stories she was told about the 1967 unexplained disappearance of Métis leader Jim Brady and Cree councilor Abbie Halkett, and the responsibilities she holds because she listened.

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Feb 25, 2020

Dr. Faranak Farzan | A Neuroengineering Lens into Treatment of Youth Mental Health and Addiction

Health, 2020, PFL 2019-2020, President's Faculty Lectures

Dr. Faranak Farzan, Chair in Technology Innovations for Youth Addiction Recovery and Mental Health, shares how she and her team are combining neuroscience and engineering to develop novel diagnostic and treatment solutions for youth mental illnesses.

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Mar 10, 2020

Dr. Paul Budra | The Shakespeare Conspiracy

2020, PFL 2019-2020, Arts + Culture, Media + Information, President's Faculty Lectures

English professor Dr. Paul Budra explores the contrasts between the conspiracy theories rampant both in William Shakespeare's time and in our own era (including theories about Shakespeare himself), providing insight into our modern conspiratorial imagination.

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