2020 Vanier College Humanities Symposium: Choice

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There is nothing straightforward about the idea of choice. During this year’s Vanier College Humanities Symposium, that will take place February 3-7, 2020, thirteen speakers will approach the theme in relation to music, language, democracy, philosophy, literature, medical ethics, the law, immigration and naturalization, mental health, and education. They will raise questions about how we make choices, how meaningful our choices are, who has choice, and to what extent our choices are truly our own. All talks take place in the Vanier Auditorium (A-103) and are open to the public.

Mavis Biss, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Loyola University, Maryland, will discuss “The Choice to Vaccinate: Conscience and Public Health”.

Nakuset, Director of the Native Women’s Shelter of Montreal, columnist and creator of the TV show ‘Indigenous Power’, will explore how colonialism has inflicted multi-generational trauma on indigenous people and call for a choice to mobilize and create positive change in her talk, “Colonialism vs Resilience”.

Andy Williams, musician, writer, and educator, will consider how jazz artists made musical choices that contributed to social change in America, in his lecture “Jazz and the Civil Rights Movement in North America”.

Kim Girling, Research and Policy Director at Evidence for Democracy, will discuss “Choosing credible information in a world of misinformation”.

Elisapie: a conversation with the multiple award-winning singer-songwriter, filmmaker and activist. During this event, a Vanier student will interview Inuk musician Elisapie onstage. Questions will come from students concerning Elisapie’s artistic choices, including her use of the Inuktitut language and Indigenous folk tunes as inspiration for many of her songs.

Leila Bdeir, Vanier Humanities and WGS teacher, and Nour Farhat, lawyer, will present “Your Choice is No Good Here!’: Law 21 and its effect on Muslim Women in Québec”.

Gabriel Tordjman, Dawson College Humanities teacher, will discuss “Choice, Coercion and the Sterilization of Indigenous Women in Canada”

Caroline Chwojka, Vanier Humanities teacher, will present “Freedom to choose or freedom from choosing?” Her talk will draw on research in psychology and connect it to popular culture to discuss the consequences of having too many options.

Brian Aboud, Vanier Humanities teacher, will present “Choice and Non-Choice in Citizenship: when Abu-‘Izz became a naturalized British Subject (Montreal, 1895)” This talk will explore choice in the legal and governmental process known as “naturalization”.

Ingrid Mittmannsgruber, Vanier Humanities teacher, will present “Education: Quality, Choice, and Democracy”. This talk will explore what we ought to do to strengthen democratic and humane values while providing quality education in a changing Cegep system.

Sterling Downey, City Councillor for the Borough of Verdun and founder of the 'Under Pressure' graffiti festival, will present **“**It’s your choice! Or is it?” and discuss how he got into political work.

Lynn Kozak, Associate Professor and Director of Classical Studies at McGill University, will explore why and how we tell stories, from our choice of words, venues, audiences and media, to our choices of the stories themselves, in her talk: “The Stories We Tell”.