I’m fortunate enough to have been invited to speak about my current research and other projects at a few institutions in Quebec and Ontario this Fall (2018). It’s always so rewarding to visit communities and engage in discussions with people who are invested in the same topics and issues one is researching and writing about. I’m so grateful to all the folks who organize these talks and who take time out of their busy lives to come out to the events.

I’ve done two of these so far: a talk just over a week ago at Concordia University (in Montreal) with around 500 Fine Arts students on the topic of colonialism and cinema in Canada. We watched Tasha Hubbard’s brilliant decolonizing documentary BIRTH OF A FAMILY (which I’ve written about for POV Magazine here), then discussed the concepts of nation, sovereignty, settler colonialism, and the role of documentary in supporting or challenging narrow definitions of nationhood as well as colonization.

And yesterday I met with a smaller group at Ryerson University (Toronto) to talk about the recently donated Hot Docs archives at Ryerson (the image above show the poster for the event on a pillar at Ryerson). The talk was held in the brand new Catalyst lab space – a new hub for research and events engaging with the creative industries. My talk, called “Parts of Story: Researching and Writing About Incomplete Archives,” centered on critically assessing institutional discourse through archives, and figuring out how to put together all the parts of a story of an institution—both official and otherwise—like the Hot Docs film festival. The group who showed up at excellent questions and comments, and the discussion confirms my suspicion that we need a Critical Festival Studies research group that reaches across international borders, institutions and fields.

Next up: a talk about my research as Curator-In-Residency at Concordia – “Settler Frames.” That one will be at York University (Toronto) on Monday, then I’m off to Thunder Bay to collaborate with the amazing RiVAL organizers. Below is the whole list of Fall talks. Now I’m off to the best festival in Canada: imagineNATIVE begins today!!!

Sept 28 – Nationhood, Settler Colonialism and Cinema in Canada (Concordia University, Montreal)

Oct 16 – Parts of Story: Researching and Writing About Incomplete Archives (Ryerson University, Toronto)
Oct 23 – Settler Cinema, Ethics and Programming (York University, Toronto)
Oct 24 – Settler Frames: The Formation of Three Settler Identities in Cinema (Lakehead University, Thunder Bay)
Oct 26 – Documentary Futurism: Introducing the Program (Lakehead University, Thunder Bay)
Nov 7 – Settler Frames: Agitating the Archives (Concordia University, Montreal)
Nov 20 – Screen Ethics and Curatorial Politics (Concordia University, Montreal)