Cynthia Macdonald

Researchers reveal the small changes that can make a picture more likeable

Christopher.Sorensen — Wed, 24 Jan 2024 20:44:32 +0000

Researchers reveal the small changes that can make a picture more likeable

Christopher.Sorensen Wed, 01/24/2024 - 15:44

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(Photo By Alex Zea/Europa Press via Getty Images)

Cynthia Macdonald

Topic

Breaking Research

Faculty of Arts & Science

Research & Innovation

Subheadline

“We show that by selecting certain contours in an image ... we can make people like an image more or less”

We’ve all had the experience of looking at a picture – of a sunset, a person, a sleek vehicle or adorable animal – and finding it enormously pleasing.

But why? Are we culturally conditioned to gain pleasure from certain images and not others, or is there something else going on in our brains?

Understanding the psychological mechanisms that underlie aesthetic perceptions is a key activity in the lab of Dirk Bernhardt-Walther, associate professor in the ��ϲ��’s department of psychology in the Faculty of Arts & Science.

A recently published paper in Psychological Science co-authored by Bernhardt-Walther and PhD student Delaram Farzanfar shows that by modifying mere lines and contours in a scene, one can increase its likeability.

In the study, the researchers asked 75 participants to rate how much they liked line drawings of complex scenes. The researchers then derived a statistical model of the importance of contour properties – such as orientations, curvature, junctions and symmetry – to measure the aesthetic appeal of the drawings.

By selectively removing contours based on their predicted appeal, Farzanfar and Bernhardt-Walther generated two versions of each drawing. One was predicted to be liked more than the other. When a new set of 77 participants were shown these manipulated drawings, they indeed preferred one version more than the other, as predicted by the statistical model – even though the two drawings depicted the same scene.

“These are the properties that we measured and manipulated,” says Bernhardt-Walther. “We show that by selecting certain contours in an image based on these properties, we can make people like an image more or less.”

(Image via Psychological Science)

Other studies have been conducted on aesthetic valuation of images. But Bernhardt-Walther says these studies examined images as a whole – not the shapes or spatial relationships contained within them.

“We think that’s important,” he says. “We developed these algorithms to measure contour properties, and we can use these algorithms in other studies. Our lab made a major effort during the pandemic to develop these techniques to measure contour properties that could not be measured automatically before.”

The set of algorithms, known collectively as the Mid-Level Vision Toolbox, was able to predict, and then confirm, that structural regularities in an image increase the likelihood that people will find it pleasing. In particular, the presence of “T junctions” in a scene – the effect created when a horizontal line is placed atop a vertical one – elevates a picture’s likeability.

The researchers believe that regularity in the way lines and shapes appear in a picture may elicit a sense of psychological safety in the viewer; arrangements that are more familiar, and that make geometric sense to viewers, may thus appear to be more likeable.

Marketers, designers, architects and others all stand to benefit from studies such as this, which help to increase our scientific understanding of aesthetic preference.

“The scientific study of aesthetics can help us develop evidence-based interventions for improved subjective well-being and social connectedness” says Farzanfar, who is also a registered psychotherapist.

Farzanfar is conducting follow-up studies on this line of work with Norman Farb, an associate professor of psychology at ��ϲ�� Mississauga.

Though researchers in Bernhardt-Walther’s lab concentrate on the neural and computational principles behind high-level sensory perception, they are making important contributions toward uncovering an emerging language of aesthetics. And with his training as a physicist, computer scientist and psychologist, Bernhardt-Walther is well-placed to ensure that the new discoveries being made are technically sound.

“I’ve been trained as an experimental physicist, so I want to measure things. If you tell me something is beautiful, I want to know – how do you measure that? We’re always trying to measure new effects in tightly controlled experiments. It’s an exciting time because there’s so much to do in this field.”

Wars, Diaspora & Music: ��ϲ�� courses explores the role of music during times of war

Christopher.Sorensen — Thu, 07 Dec 2023 17:17:03 +0000

Wars, Diaspora & Music: ��ϲ�� courses explores the role of music during times of war

Christopher.Sorensen Thu, 12/07/2023 - 12:17

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Simon Bikindi, right, a Rwandan singer-songwriter, is pictured with his lawyers and a United Nations guard at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in 2008 (photo by STR/AFP via Getty Images)

Cynthia Macdonald

Topic

Our Community

Anne Tanenbaum Centre for Jewish Studies

Faculty of Arts & Science

Undergraduate Students

Victoria College

In the 1990s, Simon Bikindi was Rwanda’s most popular musician – a United Nations official even dubbed him the “Rwandan Michael Jackson.” A sometime wedding singer, Bikindi’s lyrics often told of love stories and his country’s beautiful landscape.

But Bikindi’s music could also be dangerous. Over the three months in which almost a million Tutsis were massacred during the Rwandan Civil War, the country’s Radio Télévision Libre des Milles Collines repeatedly broadcast the singer’s violent, inflammatory songs. In 2008, Bikindi, an ethnic Hutu, was convicted for his role in inciting war crimes.

The Bikindi story is but one of the case studies covered in “Wars, Diaspora and Music” – a ��ϲ�� course in the Faculty of Arts & Science that explores the important role that music often plays in ethnic conflicts, wars, exile and displacement.

“We look at how music can be a weapon – as military music and propaganda,” says course creator Anna Shternshis, the Al and Malka Green Professor of Yiddish Studies and director of the Anne Tanenbaum Centre for Jewish Studies.

“But we also look at songs created by people under duress – songs about love and the reclamation of humanity, when everything has been destroyed.”

Shternshis says she conceived of “Wars, Diaspora & Music” while working on Yiddish Glory, the Grammy-nominated album of Holocaust-era Yiddish songs she assembled with Russian performer Psoy Korolenko.

Anna Shternshis is the director of the Anne Tanenbaum Centre for Jewish Studies and is the Al and Malka Green Professor of Yiddish Studies (photo by Diana Tyszko)

Yiddish Glory is part of the course’s syllabus, along with music from many other conflicts of the 20th and 21st centuries. That includes music from Rwanda, Korea, Bosnia, Afghanistan, Ukraine and Palestine.

“I decided to take this course as I had never heard of anything like it,” says Anjali Joshi-Dave, who is in her third year as a member of Trinity College. “Although I do not play any musical instruments, I adore music and was interested to see its connection to violence and diasporas from an academic perspective.”

Gabriella Batikian is a fourth-year member of Victoria College. A member of the Armenian diaspora, she grew up listening to a wealth of music from her heritage – much of which was produced around the time of the 1915 Armenian genocide.

She says the course helped her contextualize such music, as well as that from other countries.

“We do a deep analysis of the lyrics that we’re studying,” Batikian says. “And it’s really interesting to learn how music can be used for good and for bad. We’ve learned how it can be used as a propaganda tool and to incite violence. But at the same time, music is also used to comfort survivors of war. That’s the main thing – discovering the power that music truly holds.”

War invariably involves displacement – hence its connection to diasporic communities longing for home. To this end, students learn about initiatives such as the U.S.-based Refugee Orchestra Project.

Shternshis is a scholar of refugee experience and a supporter of refugees in Toronto.

“In class, we’ve discussed what kind of music is created in refugee camps,” she says. “Listening to music like this becomes a way of learning what people really care about. And I think that when students examine events in future, they will count music among the sources they use to try and make sense of them.”

By studying music produced within different conflict environments, Shternshis has drawn several unique insights. She notes, for example, that the closer a musician is to conflict, the less “martial” the music becomes. That includes war songs in which soldiers sing about their loved ones back home, or joke about inferior army food.

“A lot of soldiers also learn to play a musical instrument, because they desperately need the emotional break,” she says.

Hearts of Pine by Joshua D. Pilzer (Oxford University Press)

The course also features a unit on Hearts of Pine, a book by Joshua Pilzer, an associate professor in the Faculty of Music. The book explores how Korean women used song as a means of coping with trauma while forced into sexual enslavement during the Second World War.

“When people live through sexual violence in war, very few songs describe the violence itself,” says Shternshis, noting it was a phenomenon she noticed when interviewing Holocaust survivors who were also musicians. “They sing about everything else but that.”

Shternshis has been teaching “Wars, Diaspora & Music” since 2018 and changes the syllabus every year to incorporate music from the world’s current wars. “I keep hoping that this will become a historical course,” she says ruefully. “But it is always contemporary.”

Last year, for example, she monitored music – emerging in real time on social media – created during the Russian invasion of Ukraine. This year, she and her students are keeping watch on music from the Israel–Hamas war with the help of a student translator.

While it is painful to engage with contemporaneous pain, Shternshis says it’s a valuable way of recording experiences and emotions that are easily forgotten with the passage of time.

What unites the music studied in the course is its enormous power – both to incite killing, as in the case of Rwanda’s Bikindi, but also to provide healing.

Shternshis says the latter may ultimately be stronger than the former.

“If a person who lives under extreme duress is able to enjoy music, that often gives them incredible strength to move on,” Shternshis says, adding that her course offers a glimpse of the human spirit at its most threatened – and most triumphant.

“We are asking: What are the things that people are saying, or singing, or even laughing about in conditions that are not designed for life at all?”

��ϲ�� science historian's research on woolly mammoths comes alive in children's play

Christopher.Sorensen — Fri, 13 Oct 2023 13:20:44 +0000

��ϲ�� science historian's research on woolly mammoths comes alive in children's play

Christopher.Sorensen Fri, 10/13/2023 - 09:20

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The Last Mammoth, a children’s play, was developed by ��ϲ�� science historian Rebecca Woods and her PhD student Alexander Offord (supplied image)

Cynthia Macdonald

Topic

Our Community

Faculty of Arts & Science

Subheadline

The Last Mammoth sees a young girl and her mammoth friend explore questions about climate change, extinction and environmental preservation

One summer day in 2022, a gold miner working in the Yukon came upon something even more valuable than what he was looking for: an almost perfectly preserved woolly mammoth, with skin and hair intact.

The baby female calf was thought to have been resting in the permafrost for more than 30,000 years.

It was among the biggest paleontological finds in Canadian history – and the latest milestone in a great tradition. Since the 18th century, frozen woolly mammoth specimens (usually skeletons or bones) have been periodically found in diverse locations around the world.

A science historian, Rebecca Woods shows how animals such as frozen woolly mammoths can teach us about the march of history (supplied image)

Such finds captured the imagination of Rebecca Woods, an associate professor in the ��ϲ��’s department of history in the Faculty of Arts & Science. Her current research focuses on the place of frozen woolly mammoths in the global history of science – work that is being transformed by Alexander Offord, her research assistant and a PhD candidate at the Institute for the History & Philosophy of Science & Technology (IHPST.)

Alongside his academic career, Offord and his partner Nicole Wilson are the artistic directors of Toronto theatre company Good Old Neon. Their new children’s play is called The Last Mammoth, which sees a young girl and her mammoth puppet friend embark on a journey to explore questions about climate change, extinction and environmental preservation.

Alexander Offord is a PhD candidate at the Institute for the History & Philosophy of Science & Technology and co-artistic director of Toronto theatre company Good Old Neon (supplied image)

Woods, who is cross-appointed to IHPST, says she first became interested in mammoths through her research on sheep.

“As a historian of science I find myself drawn to stories about animals and the ways in which they can help us understand different historical processes,” she says.

For example, in her 2017 book The Herds Shot Round the World: Native Breeds and the British Empire, 1800-1900, she illustrated how farmers in Australia and New Zealand created sheep breeds to serve British meat markets. In the early days of refrigeration, diners were mistrustful about eating meat that had been slaughtered six months previously – so vendors decided to allay their fears by pointing to the example of a famous woolly mammoth discovered earlier in the century in Siberia, which had been unearthed from ice and fed to dogs without harm.

“That story got me thinking about how the scientific and cultural meanings of mammoths have changed since that time,” says Woods. “For contemporary audiences, in a moment of great anxiety about global warming, frozen mammoths preserved by permafrost serve as a loud warning bell about a warming earth. It’s totally different than how they were first understood in the early 19th century.”

Indeed, recent reports suggest that as the planet warms and permafrost melts, ever more mammoth discoveries are being made.

Along with an impressive baby mammoth, The Last Mammoth’s animal characters include two mischievous raccoons (supplied image)

The idea for a children’s play was born out of a desire to showcase Woods’s research in schools – and Offord, not surprisingly, played a key role.

“We’d never made theatre for young audiences before,” Offord says, admitting that the subject matter did not immediately lend itself to a production for kids.

“A lot of children’s shows are very optimistic and shiny. And we said to ourselves, ‘How do we speak to some of the darkness that children will go through on this topic in a way that is respectful to them?’”

First workshopped in September, The Last Mammoth’s script continues to evolve (supplied image)

Offord says he feels an urgency to the project given the climate crisis.

“Mass species extinction is happening,” he says. “And because it’s new, adults don’t really have the language to talk about it, let alone in a way that kids will understand.”

He adds that he felt it was necessary to create a piece that made these concepts accessible to children in a fun and honest way.

With funding from a SSHRC Partnership Engage Grant and sponsorship by the Jackman Humanities Institute, The Last Mammoth was first workshopped in early September for an audience of elementary school students and caregivers. The feedback is being used by Offord’s company as it continues to develop the script.

Though in its early stages, the play offers ample proof that it’s not only possible, but necessary to translate academic research on serious issues that will affect future generations.

“To me it feels like an incredible honour,” says Woods. “What I appreciate so much about it is that a cross-generational audience from all walks of life can learn about my research – embodied in this incredibly evocative puppet, these gifted actors, and Alexander and Nicole, who’ve figured out how to make it all come alive.

“It’s a play that really gets at the emotional core of what’s at stake in the work that I do.”

Archaeologist looks to ancient solutions to help solve contemporary global problems

Christopher.Sorensen — Tue, 22 Aug 2023 20:04:06 +0000

Archaeologist looks to ancient solutions to help solve contemporary global problems

Christopher.Sorensen Tue, 08/22/2023 - 16:04

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Justin Jennings, the curator of world cultures at the Royal Ontario Museum and an associate professor in ��ϲ��’s department of anthropology, explores alternative methods of resolving global issues in his new book, Rethinking Global Governance (photos supplied)

Cynthia Macdonald

Topic

Our Community

Archeology

Faculty of Arts & Science

Subheadline

“Other societies had political, social and economic ideas that could be very useful as we look at the decades ahead of us”

As the world grapples with cross-border challenges such as climate change, pandemic disease, cybercrime and income inequality, it may be tempting to look to the United Nations and other international organizations for solutions.

Or is it time to change our modern thinking about the best way to address global problems?

Justin Jennings thinks so.

The curator of world cultures at the Royal Ontario Museum, Jennings is an associate professor in the department of anthropology in ��ϲ��’s Faculty of Arts & Science who has been researching different societies – some of them thousands of years old.

In doing so, he says he has learned a great deal about alternative methods of resolving difficult issues and maintaining order – insights that form part of his new book, Rethinking Global Governance.

“The book is structured to say that global governance could benefit from some of these lessons,” Jennings says. “Other societies had political, social and economic ideas that could be very useful as we look at the decades ahead of us.”

Jennings notes the world has changed significantly since many of the current crop of international organizations were first convened in the 20th century in the wake of two catastrophic world wars. Authoritarianism and nationalism are once again on the rise and trading blocs based on Western ideals did not anticipate the rise of economies in the East – all of which can make international co-operation more difficult.

Yet, Jennings says before the rise of the nation-state people often governed themselves in a more flexible, borderless way.

He says one such society is the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, a group of First Nations Peoples in the northeastern region of North America. The Confederacy’s constitution, known as the Great Law of Peace, outlined a detailed, thoughtful process to be used when seeking consensus on important decisions.

In fact, when crafting their own constitution, the founding fathers of the United States were initially curious about incorporating ideas from the Great Law of Peace, Jennings says.

“I quote from John Adams in the book, who said the framers of the constitution could learn a lot from the Haudenosaunee,” he says.

“[But] then they didn’t – because those ideas weren’t in their wheelhouse.”

While Jennings notes that some ancient societies were also hierarchical – ancient Egypt, he says, was a “pyramid society in more ways than one” – he asks whether a more decentralized governance model, where power is more equitably shared, might not be more responsive to our changing times.

“The galactic polities of traditional Southeast Asian kingdoms were often organized around a centre, with different groups in and out of the orbit of that centre. There wasn’t a lot of effort towards creating rigid connections between that centre and other places. Now, is this a good idea? I’m not sure. But it’s a different idea and one that should be explored because putting patches on the big bucket that is the nation-state isn’t proving very effective.”

A council meeting held by the Onondaga, one of the nations of the Haudenosonee Confederacy, is depicted from the 1700s (Illustration by H. Armstrong Roberts/ClassicStock/Getty Images)

He says decentralization could be useful when it comes to dealing with climate change since some of the most affected regions are located far from the centres of decision-making.

“Perhaps we can start to build new coalitions of impactful groups and provide them with the capacity to work through solutions that adapt to local conditions,” Jennings says. “Then get funding for them that isn’t tied up in red tape.”

In other parts of the book, Jennings describes ways in which perennial problems were managed in the past. He shows how the Enga people of Papua New Guinea defused warfare and resolved economic inequality through a system known as the “tee cycle,” and how societies such as the Pomo of northern California organized daily life by creating order out of anarchy.

Hippies experimented with anarchy in the 1960s, he adds, “but communes often failed because members weren’t looking at solid examples of communal, collective, egalitarian structures that lasted millennia.”

While Jennings is studying smaller societies, he believes there are nevertheless learnings that could inform global governance.

“Certainly there are scalar elements,” he says. “As a community gets larger it does tend to get more hierarchical, and the decision-making process changes. But this book suggests there may be alternative pathways. Those New Guinea tee cycles, for example, created vast amounts of wealth moving from one side of the country to the other. Thanks to a solid overarching structure, they had a playing field that was much larger than the village where they lived their day-to-day lives. This allowed them to interact with and organize hundreds of thousands of people doing things hundreds of kilometers away.”

As the world changes and our concerns mount, Jennings says rather than rely on ideas that clearly aren’t working, we should look to the past to find new solutions.

“Human history is all about trying to solve problems together,” he says. “We’ve been doing it successfully for many years. Now, as we take on some of the biggest challenges that humans have ever faced, it would be wrong for us not to be looking at other ways that people can come together to solve issues, especially because the context in which some groups used to – and in some cases still continue to – live is in many ways parallel to where our societies are going in this increasingly globalized world.”

Using smartphones, ��ϲ�� PhD candidate works with Nigerian women to protect communities

Christopher.Sorensen — Wed, 02 Aug 2023 14:11:01 +0000

Using smartphones, ��ϲ�� PhD candidate works with Nigerian women to protect communities

Christopher.Sorensen Wed, 08/02/2023 - 10:11

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Wumi Asubiaro Dada's PhD project involves working with local organizations and women in Nigeria to protect their home communities through the use of geospatial imagery and a mobile app (photo courtesy of Wumi Asubiaro Dada)

Cynthia Macdonald

Topic

Global Lens

Anthropology

Centre for Criminology & Sociolegal Studies

Faculty of Arts & Science

Global

Graduate Students

Growing up in Nigeria, Omowumi (Wumi) Asubiaro Dada was outspoken, argumentative and animated by injustice.

It was obvious to her family what path her life would take: “They always said, we know you’re going to be a lawyer,” she says of her career in human rights law and feminist advocacy that has spanned two decades.

Now as a PhD candidate at the Centre for Criminology & Sociolegal Studies in the ��ϲ��’s Faculty of Arts & Science, Dada is working with local organizations and women in Nigeria to help them achieve justice by protecting their home communities through the use of modern technology – work that is being supported by a Connaught PhDs for Public Impact Fellowship.

In particular, she’s helping women in Kaduna – one of Nigeria’s 36 states – become a major force in conflict prevention and resolution. Dada worked with her PhD supervisor Kamari Maxine Clarke, a distinguished professor in the department of anthropology, and a local organization known as the CLEEN Foundation to create a project called the Early Warning Early Response (EWER). The system trains villagers, including women, to use publicly available geospatial imagery to identify planned attacks before they happen. A mobile app then sends push alerts to warn others to be prepared.

So far, 120 women have been trained on EWER since it was launched in 2021.

“They’ve been able to get information across, which, in some cases, has led to a de-escalation of violence,” says Dada. “And when there is a trigger, meetings are called. One of the conditions of these meetings is that women must form part of the quorum, which has increased their participation in decision-making in conflict prevention. Another effect is that women have brought other women into the fold.”

Dada believes that women can play a prominent role in defusing violence, which is a massive problem in Nigeria’s northern region. That includes kidnapping, sexual assault, village burnings and murder.

The sources of violence are complex and varied, Dada explains. “Kaduna in particular is very unsafe,” she says. “The violence there started as religious and ethno-communal clashes, with many reprisals and counterattacks and has now changed in dynamics to kidnapping, village burning with various violations such as murder and sexual assault.”

Climate change has also played a role.

“A lot of land has been affected by desertification,” Dada says. In the Lake Chad Basin across the border, “people who make their living by herding cows have lost their livelihood and become desperate, which has also led to crime.”

In all these cases, she notes, the voices of women are regularly ignored. “This is because they’re not considered part of the problem. And because they bear the brunt of much violence, they’re simply considered victims. I’m pushing the argument that we need to recognize the agency of women – it’s important that they be part of the solution.”

Dada adds that communities in Nigeria often left to fend for themselves with no assistance. Established in the days of colonial rule, the male-dominated police force is, like other units of the justice system, located far away and lacks the resources to properly assist rural communities, she says. This has resulted in widespread vigilantism – which can mean defensive violence, but also the prevention of crime before it happens.

This is where women come in.

“There’s a lot happening in the domestic sphere that is actually political,” she says. “Women often hear things being planned before anyone else hears about it. And women can influence the actions of others.” Dada points out that in pre-colonial society, women’s roles as keepers of knowledge, leaders of ritual and even warriors were far more respected than they are today. In her own Yoruba tradition, for example, many deities were female – which had a general effect on how human women were perceived.

Dada began her post-secondary studies immediately after high school and was practising law by age 21.

“At first, I worked in public interest litigation and human rights education, mostly representing incarcerated prisoners awaiting trial,” she says, noting this, too, is a critical problem in Nigeria, where the system is badly underfunded and some prisoners are held in congested facilities without bail for decades.

It was just one of the many problems Dada confronted in Nigeria’s legal system over the years – experiences that prompted her to identify the plight of women and make significant contributions to the women’s movement. That includes designing and managing a wide range of projects for non-governmental organizations, government and international development agencies.

As part of her current work, Dada seeks to advance Nigerian women’s participation at all levels of community justice administration. In addition to crime prevention, she is exploring restorative justice: examining the root causes of crime, and how best to reintegrate those who have offended back into society.

One of her Connaught Fellowship aims will be to present her findings at the annual meeting of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women next year. There, she hopes to show how women’s work in domestic life should not be dismissed – but appreciated for its value in political and public life.

She says her PhD studies are helping her realize her community justice goals.

“If you have your sights set on changing structural inequality, this qualification can help you do that,” she says. “I’m engaging with ways to amplify the voices of people who would not ordinarily have the opportunity to make an impact on the structures that control their lives.”

Magazine uses fiction to explore the toll taken by climate change – and our response

siddiq22 — Mon, 24 Jul 2023 17:27:35 +0000

Magazine uses fiction to explore the toll taken by climate change – and our response

siddiq22 Mon, 07/24/2023 - 13:27

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From left: Steven Bernstein, Matthew Hoffmann and Teresa Kramarz are co-editors of We Did It!?, a new publication that examines aspects of life in a fictional world that has achieved its net-zero carbon emissions goals (supplied images)

Cynthia Macdonald

Topic

City & Culture

Environmental Governance Lab

Climate Change

Faculty of Arts & Science

Political Science

School of the Environment

��ϲ�� Mississauga

��ϲ�� Scarborough

A new publication launched by the Environmental Governance Lab (EGL) in the ��ϲ��'s Faculty of Arts & Science is using speculative fiction to examine the toll climate change may take on our planet in the years ahead.

Set in an imagined Canada of 2050, the stories, poems, interviews and even advertisements in EGL's magazine We Did It!? explore aspects of life in a world that has managed to achieve its net-zero carbon emissions goals – but has yet to fully realize a fair and equitable low-carbon society.

For example, emissions in the magazine’s fictional Canada of the future have been reduced by 80 per cent following public forays into biofuels and carbon capture. The country is also less meat-dependent and less focused on consumption, with a circular economy centred on the reuse of existing materials.

However, supply-chain disruptions from wars, floods and heatwaves have led to periods of rampant inflation.

Steven Bernstein (supplied image)

“The magazine is taking place in the future, and is informed by all the social, political and technological processes that were required to get there,” says Steven Bernstein, Distinguished Professor of Global Environmental and Sustainability Governance at ��ϲ�� and the co-director of the EGL.

“It shows that this will not be a straightforward process – and that even if our climate goals are met, they won’t necessarily be met in a way that we envisage now.”

Bernstein, who is also the chair of department of political science at ��ϲ�� Mississauga, is a co-editor of We Did It!?, along with EGL co-directors Matthew Hoffmann, a professor of political science at ��ϲ�� Scarborough, and Teresa Kramarz, assistant professor at the School of the Environment in the Faculty of Arts & Science. Together, the trio oversaw a large team of writers, researchers and designers involved in the magazine’s production.

Matthew Hoffmann (supplied image)

The project was inspired in part by the Canadian Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act that enshrined the federal government’s Net Zero by 2050 pledge into law, and also by a magazine published by Lund University in Sweden that reflected on what higher education might look like 20 years into the future.

The researchers say they strived to paint an even-handed portrait of the potential road ahead.

“Going between dystopia and utopia was definitely a goal from the outset,” Hoffmann says.

“We want readers to be able to see themselves in these pathways to 2050. That means telling stories about political and personal struggles, while also telling stories about things going well. It’s definitely a mix.”

Teresa Kramarz (supplied image)

One decidedly dystopian story is “Thirsty,” written by Kramarz, which depicts a lithium mine in the Argentinian desert that has displaced an Indigenous community – leaving its people fighting for water, food and electricity.

“In ‘Thirsty,’ I’m trying to call attention to the question of a just transition,” Kramarz says. “There’s no doubt we need to decarbonize, but it worries me that in doing that we aren’t paying enough attention to people and places.”

We Did It!? was crafted through an intensive workshop process, supported by the Alan Dean Family Symposium on Environmental Governance, where energy transition experts were brought in to provide writers with the accurate technical information they needed to develop and write their stories.

The EGL plans to work on more issues of We Did It!? and to devise other artistic, creative ways to engage citizens on the topic of climate change. In addition to the magazines, some ideas may include virtual reality or video games.

“There are all sorts of opportunities, as well as different kinds of media we may not have considered yet,” Bernstein says.

We Did It!? conveys public policy information in a clear, accessible way by showing how major climate decisions affect ordinary people – and, in turn, how people can play their part as consumers and voters in shaping those decisions.

“With this publication, we want to contribute to the public conversation around what’s going to have to happen in the next 25 years,” Hoffmann says.

“It’s not that there’s too little talk about the climate, but I’d say we’re not talking and thinking about the right things. We need to have a more expansive dialogue about what we want our society to be, and what large-scale choices we want to be making. We hope that storytelling like this is a good way to do that.”

Drag is having a moment – but its long history is marked by persecution and resilience

Christopher.Sorensen — Tue, 27 Jun 2023 15:45:23 +0000

Drag is having a moment – but its long history is marked by persecution and resilience

Christopher.Sorensen Tue, 06/27/2023 - 11:45

Cutline

A drag queen leads the Trojan group as thousands gathered for the massive 2023 Pride parade in Toronto (Steve Russell/Toronto Star via Getty Images)

Cynthia Macdonald

Topic

Our Community

Faculty of Arts & Science

Graduate Students

LGBTQ

Subheadline

��ϲ�� scholar Kevin Nixon researches the evolution of the vibrant art form

Drag isn’t just having a moment right now – it’s having an extravaganza.

There’s drag brunch, drag trivia and drag bingo. There are drag cabaret and drag burlesque shows; drag violinists and drag science lectures; even Drag Camp for those wanting to sharpen their sashay. And of course, drag queen story time.

“Traditionally when we think about drag, we think about performance art that involves gender-bending and gender play in some form,” says Kevin Nixon, a PhD candidate in the ��ϲ��’s department of anthropology in the Faculty of Arts & Science. “There’s an artistic component, of course. But it’s also quite political and has a long history in terms of activism.

“Traditionally, drag queens were framed only as cisgender men, and drag kings only as cisgender women. But the concept has exploded to encompass much more than it used to.”

Some 10 years ago, Nixon began ethnographic research for his doctorate. He conducted interviews with 30 to 40 drag performers all over Ontario and in other parts of Canada and has since informally interviewed many more. He has also performed in drag himself. After taking a leave from the university, he’s now writing his dissertation and has recently taught courses in sexual diversity studies and on gender from an anthropological perspective.

“When I started this work,” Nixon says, “RuPaul’s Drag Race was in its infancy. Since then, drag has become more mainstream. But in many ways it has stayed consistent.”

Drag is about glamour, sass and joie de vivre. But Nixon says drag performers have always been subject to persecution.

“When police raided bars in the 1950s and 60s, drag queens would have to show they were wearing male undergarments under their dresses – if they were wearing undergarments associated with the opposite sex, that was considered illegal.”

Over the years, as drag has become more accepted and inclusive, it has also been the subject of what Nixon calls “boundary debates.” Some feminists, for example, see drag as a mocking appropriation of femininity, “but you also see cisgender women happy to participate in an exaggerated entertaining, colourful form that they might not have access to in their daily lives.”

And while there are now many transgender as well as cisgender drag queens, “some trans scholars are vehemently against that inclusion, because they see drag as representing an identity that’s put on and then taken off,” Nixon notes.

But Nixon’s own research reflects the idea that today, anyone can not only enjoy but also participate in drag. Examining the topic through the lens of race, sexuality and ethnicity, he’s witnessed the true breadth of drag performance, especially in Toronto.

“Toronto has had a very vibrant drag culture, going back to the 1950s and even before that,” he says. “We’ve had some really popular performers who’ve made it big internationally. I also think the multicultural component is fascinating, in that we’ve got many performers producing shows that incorporate elements of different cultural customs and practices.”

In order to add an “auto-ethnographic” element to his research, Nixon also briefly performed himself under the name Roxy Foxx.

“I used to joke with my friends that I had to walk a mile in their heels,” he says. “That was invaluable for me. There was something really interesting about being part of that scene and learning my way through performance: from hairstyles, how to do makeup, how to create costumes and things like that. It’s hard work, absolutely – a skill set I still don’t have to this day! But it’s also how I learned about some of the discrimination that drag performers experience.”

In recent times, that discrimination has been increasing. In particular, the introduction of drag queen story time in libraries has met with opposition from conservatives, who accuse drag queens of “grooming” youngsters.

This view stems in part from a refusal by some people to consider how broad the spectrum of drag really is.

“The idea that drag performances by their very nature are always sexualized is problematic,” Nixon says. “Certainly in bars and nightclubs, you’re going to have these salacious performances. But drag queen story times are just about exaggerated costuming, and the hyperbolic play with gender that children find fascinating. In this context, I’ve heard drag queens compared to clowns. It’s about playing with appearance – it’s visually appealing, but it’s certainly not sexual.”

And yet, in the U.S., the state of Tennessee recently passed legislation banning adult drag performance as well as story time. Ten other states have either introduced or are drafting similar legislation.

“I think of this as a convenient scapegoat to take attention away from other issues, such as gun laws,” Nixon says. “The drag queen becomes the monster. It’s a convenient trigger, particularly when you see things like RuPaul’s Drag Race, which is a very public manifestation of gender non-conformity. That makes people very uncomfortable.”

This suppression is especially perplexing in light of the tremendous social justice efforts made by drag performers over the decades – including a strong tradition of charitable fundraising. At the height of the AIDS crisis in the 1980s, American performers regularly put on shows to raise money for sick people who’d been rejected by their families and lacked health insurance. Here in Toronto, drag queens have raised over a million dollars for the Casey House hospice. And they have consistently staged many other fundraisers for various hospitals, community centres and other causes.

“When you think of Pride, the image of a colourful, bright drag queen might pop into your mind,” Nixon says. “They really play a key function within communities of bringing people together and increasing social solidarity. That’s a function that sometimes gets negated – and one that’s very much ignored through this demonization of the drag queen.”

From the oil sands to politics: New grad Eli Rose aims to use his voice to empower others

siddiq22 — Tue, 20 Jun 2023 20:29:21 +0000

From the oil sands to politics: New grad Eli Rose aims to use his voice to empower others

siddiq22 Tue, 06/20/2023 - 16:29

Cutline

Eli Rose says his undergraduate experience taught him how to articulate his ideas as an advocate (photo by Shayla Anderson)

Topic

Faculty of Arts & Science

Innis College

Political Science

Student Life

Subheadline

Getting involved in student leadership helped underscore ��ϲ�� political science graduate's interest in building community

Eli Rose has a reputation for asking challenging questions – and he intends to continue asking them, as an advocate for those who cannot.

A longtime mentor and community organizer, Rose – a member of Innis College – graduates this week from the ��ϲ�� with a degree in political science.

As he leaves the undergraduate life and prepares for graduate school, Rose spoke with Faculty of Arts & Science writer Cynthia Macdonald about how his many leadership activities have prepared him for his ultimate ambition: a career in politics.

How did you come to study at the ��ϲ��?

I had a full life before coming to ��ϲ��, having graduated from college with a marketing diploma. I worked in the oil fields of Alberta, then went back to school for another certificate. But it was always my dream to go to ��ϲ��. When my mom’s sister, to whom I was close, passed in 2018, I decided to dedicate the next part of my journey to honouring her.

You’re going to do a master’s degree in political science in the fall. Why did you decide on that field?

I have my own political aspirations, actually! Being in government has always seemed very interesting to me. I grew up in Malvern, in the northeastern part of Toronto. It’s a part of the city with many issues such as street violence and a lack of essential services. I was advocating for solutions to problems like that even before I knew that I could be an advocate professionally. I was already thinking about different ways to make life a little more just for people there, supporting communities that needed a bit more help.

But it wasn’t until I came to university that everything came together. I started to see who I am and what I wanted to do – the kind of change and impact I’d be able to create.

You’re the winner of a student leadership award and you’ve improved the student experience at your college and beyond. What initiatives did you participate in?

I first got involved with the Association of Political Science Students. That led me to get involved with the undergraduate chapter of Black Future Lawyers, where I was vice-president of finance and helped the founder recruit the rest of the board.

But where things really took off for me was when I became a student mentor at Innis College at the tail end of my second year. I helped with training and offered support. I met a lot of good people and found I was able to empower others, especially first-year students. From there, I started building relationships and worked on the Innovation Hub to help redefine the student experience.

All these experiences gave me the confidence and the courage to go after things I wanted, or even just to voice my opinion. One of my ideas was to create an identity matching system for mentors: aligning students with mentors who matched their backgrounds and interests. I was also one of the first two Black orientation coordinators and was on the working group of the Black Student Experience at Innis, making a point of ensuring that the group would be sustainable after its founders had graduated.

You seem to have a real focus on empathy, identity and the empowerment of individuals, whether at school, work or elsewhere.

I think that comes from my own experience of feeling undervalued – showing up to the workplace in a way where I’m not bringing my true self. There’s a lot of overlap between my working world and my academic world – it’s just different language.

As a young teenager growing up in my neighbourhood, I saw how power dynamics could negatively affect my friends. Now that I’ve gone through university, I’ve been able to better articulate and visualize ideas in order to find solutions.

Why have you decided to pursue a future in politics?

My senior thesis really changed me. I chose to research political career structures – in particular, how identity conditions people’s lived experiences and careers. Working on that gave me the clarity to proceed with where I’m going next.

We’re in an era of political mistrust and multiple truths – and that’s a barrier for those who might consider a career in politics. But if you really want to effect change, the political arena is the best place to do that. We elect people to represent us, and those are the people making the decisions. Why wouldn’t I want to have a seat at the table, especially to act for those who haven’t been represented?

Opening myself up to criticism will be difficult – but that’s okay, because I’m coming at public service from a space of truth and care and support. And I want to use my experiences – as a mentor, as a team lead, as a facilitator of discussions around identity – to help empower others and give them a voice. And this is the way I know how to do it.

After a harrowing escape from Sudan, ��ϲ�� scholar Nisrin Elamin calls on the world to pay attention

siddiq22 — Wed, 14 Jun 2023 18:07:17 +0000

After a harrowing escape from Sudan, ��ϲ�� scholar Nisrin Elamin calls on the world to pay attention

siddiq22 Wed, 06/14/2023 - 14:07

Cutline

Nisrin Elamin, an assistant professor of archeology and African Studies in ��ϲ��'s Faculty of Arts & Science, recently fled Sudan, which is in the midst of an armed conflict between rival factions of the military government (photo courtesy of Nisrin Elamin)

Topic

Faculty of Arts & Science

Global

International

New College

Subheadline

Elamin, an assistant professor of archeology and African Studies, says more needs to be done to support the country's pro-democracy movement

Why aren’t there more eyes on Sudan – the site of a humanitarian crisis which has seen more than one million people driven from their homes in the space of two months, with many others killed or injured?

Nisrin Elamin asks herself that question every day. The assistant professor in the department of anthropology and the African Studies program in the Faculty of Arts & Science recently escaped from Sudan, where she had been visiting family.

After a dangerous, difficult journey from the capital city of Khartoum to Port Sudan on the Red Sea, Elamin was evacuated at the end of April, along with her parents and three-year-old daughter.

Now, she thinks about her many close relatives who remain sheltering in place in and around Khartoum – and about the millions of other Sudanese people still living there and in other parts of the country in desperate conditions.

Entire villages have been burned to the ground, with many citizens deprived of access to food, water, medicine and fuel during the ongoing conflict between rival factions of the military government.

“It’s a terrible situation,” Elamin says. “And the international humanitarian response has been ‘too little, too late’ in the sense that when we evacuated, the aid community evacuated with us.”

During a temporary ceasefire, several international aid organizations have been able to resume assistance to Sudan. But aid agency operations often report obstructions, and Elamin says the Sudanese people themselves have sometimes proven most effective at helping their fellow citizens.

“People have been relying on resistance committees and civilian volunteer networks,” she says.

“These are grassroots democratic forces that have been the backbone of Sudan’s popular uprising against the current regime since 2018. They’ve been the ones distributing food and water – and they have actually been arrested for doing this work.”

Women carrying belongings walk down a street in Omdurman, Sudan, the twin city of the country's capital, Khartoum (photo by AFP via Getty Images)

Since Sudan gained independence from colonial rule in 1956, the country has spent the majority of those years riven by internal conflict. In 2021, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, head of Sudan’s army, and Lt. General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (known as Hemedti), paramilitary chief of the Rapid Support Forces, collaborated to topple the regime of Omar al-Bashir – a leader who had been indicted by the International Criminal Court in 2009 for directing a campaign of mass killing in the Darfur region and was subsequently imprisoned on corruption charges.

Yet the generals are themselves steadfast enemies of democracy – together, they have been responsible for human rights violations, including al-Burhan’s direction of the Khartoum Massacre of 2019 and Hemedti’s brutal leadership of the Janjaweed militia in Darfur beginning in 2003. And now they are at war with each other.

“The Rapid Support Forces were supposed to be integrated into the armed forces based on a political agreement that would eventually lead to democratic elections,” Elamin says.

“But these two generals, who are known war criminals, are now struggling for political and economic control. And everybody else is in the middle of this.”

Even prior to the fighting that gave rise to this catastrophe, Sudan – Africa's third-largest country – was dealing with a refugee crisis and severe food insecurity. The United Nations estimates that 25 million people in the country currently need aid and protection.

Elamin is an American citizen who recently completed her first year as a scholar at ��ϲ��. She is currently writing a book based on 15 months of fieldwork in Sudan, and her recent trip there was taken with the intention of conducting follow-up research while also introducing her young daughter to her Sudanese family.

“My work focuses on large-scale land investments – what many call ‘land grabs’ in central Sudan, where I’m originally from,” she says.

“I’ve been tracing the impacts of Gulf Arab corporate and domestic investments on local communities and researching the various forms of resistance to these investments. Just to give you an idea, the Saudis and Emiratis have invested about $27 billion in real estate infrastructure over the last two decades – all while the country was governed by a brutal military regime.

“Such investments have also impacted local food sovereignty – these shifts in land ownership undermine people’s access to subsistence food, and they’re relying on imports now more than ever.”

Elamin notes that despite the various crises affecting them, the people of Sudan remain unbowed. Soon after the shelling and explosions began, “only 16 per cent of hospitals in Khartoum were operating at capacity. The Sudanese Doctors’ Union has set up field hospitals on the outskirts of the city to treat the injured, deliver babies and do whatever is needed, though even getting there is dangerous.”

Since her return from Sudan, Elamin has been tireless in her efforts to inform the public about what is happening in her family’s homeland, appearing on international radio and television programs. She points out that while the news cycle invariably moves on, Sudan’s problems do not.

Still, Elamin affirms that much is being done.

“For example, the Sudanese Students Union at ��ϲ�� recently held an event to inform the community about what’s happening. It was also a fundraiser for the Sudanese Doctors’ Union – that’s an important initiative to support, because money goes directly to the support the lifesaving work doctors are doing there.”

Elamin also calls on governments around the world to lend help where they can. Much more assistance is needed at the borders of the seven countries bordering Sudan, which are all processing refugees at a painfully slow rate in the punishing desert climate.

She notes Canada could provide expedited travel visas, such as those offered to refugees from Ukraine.

“But probably the most important thing is for Canadians to assist the international community – specifically efforts on the African continent led by regional actors such as the African Union and the Intergovernmental Authority for Development – with their effort to broker a sustainable peace," Elamin says.

"This requires, in my view, putting these two generals on trial instead of putting them at the negotiating table – and really starting a transitional kind of process: one that centres the pro-democracy forces that have been sidelined.”

Once a teenage refugee, new graduate Omer Malikyar is now a powerful voice for the world’s displaced

siddiq22 — Fri, 02 Jun 2023 19:15:03 +0000

Once a teenage refugee, new graduate Omer Malikyar is now a powerful voice for the world’s displaced

siddiq22 Fri, 06/02/2023 - 15:15

Cutline

While on a ��ϲ�� Summer Abroad program, student Omer Malikyar attended talks on migration and the accommodation of refugees at the European Commission (all photos courtesy Omer Malikyar)

Topic

Faculty of Arts & Science

Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy

Political Science

Woodsworth College

Subheadline

After escaping Afghanistan, Malikyar set his sights on a post-secondary education at ��ϲ��

��ϲ�� student Omer Malikyar will never take education for granted.

On the road to his graduation with a degree in political science and Canadian studies from the Faculty of Arts & Science, Malikyar has had to summon courage and perseverance that is almost difficult to imagine.

He was born and raised in Ghazni, a trading and transit hub in southeastern Afghanistan. His father, a school principal, has spent the past 25 years operating a school for girls. Under the country’s extremist regime, the students are forbidden from pursuing formal learning past the Grade 6 level.

“Education has always been really important to my family,” Malikyar says. “Back home, we children spent most of our time studying and I did really well. So when I came to Canada, it was always a dream to attend a good school.”

Escaping to the West, while difficult, was an absolute necessity for Malikyar. During his high school years, he was involved in activities that unfortunately caught the eye of Islamic extremists.

“My friends and I created a summer camp where we taught girls and guys about their rights – how women can contribute to society, about gender equality and that sort of thing. It was [considered] scandalous, and we received threats. It became really scary for me after that. We were told that we were promoting Western values in an Islamic country.”

So in 2018, Malikyar made his way to New York state, enrolling in a summer camp for international students. But summer ended quickly.

“By that time, Ghazni had been taken over by the extremists, and all I was hearing was bad news,” he says.

As the Trump administration began enacting stricter policies toward undocumented immigrants, the teenager knew that neither his new home nor his old one would be open to him. He managed to cross into Canada at Roxham Road, a well-known entry point on the Quebec border that was used by many refugees until its closing in March of this year.

Finally, after an arduous and solitary journey to Toronto, Malikyar set his sights on post-secondary study.

“I found out about ��ϲ�� and really wanted to study here. I went to UTSC and took a campus tour – I wished I could enroll, but it wasn’t that easy because I didn’t have the requirements.”

Malikyar was frustrated – he had been an excellent student at home, and had already completed a year at Kabul University, one of the most prestigious in the country. But he did what he had to, returning to high school and completing his Grade 12 year. After entering Woodsworth College through the Diploma to Degree program, he was finally able to realize his dream: enrolling at ��ϲ��.

With his educational path set, he next turned his energies toward helping others.

As a volunteer with Children Without Borders, he has helped children in Afghanistan receive educational opportunities. With the Afghan Youth Development and Engagement Initiative, he currently mentors young refugees as they navigate new lives in Canada.

And while at ��ϲ��, Malikyar managed to realize yet another ambition.

“I wanted to re-establish the Afghan Students Association at the ��ϲ��, and I was so happy that we were able to create it as a charter student club this year,” he says with pride.

Omer Malikyar is set to graduate from the Faculty of Arts & Science this month and will begin graduate studies at the Munk School in the fall

This spring, the club convened students from a variety of different cultures to celebrate Eid al-Fitr, the holiday marking the end of Ramadan.

“Most of the students in our club were born and raised in Toronto,” Malikyar says. “It’s been really great to share my experience with them, and to learn from them as well.”

In addition to his activities at ��ϲ��, Malikyar has taken advantage of travel opportunities to further his interests in refugee issues and the politics of forced migration. He took part in the ��ϲ�� Summer Abroad program in Germany, taking extra time to meet and speak with Afghan refugees in Europe; he also attended talks at the European Union commission in Brussels to learn about that organization’s approach to migration and refugee accommodation.

For his academic and extracurricular efforts, Malikyar was recently selected as a McCall MacBain Regional Award recipient. He also received the Master of Global Affairs Fellowship Award from the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy, where he will be pursuing graduate studies in the fall.

“My goal is to work with an organization such as the United Nations, or with the government of Canada,” he says.

His internship last year with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, where he raised funds for refugees from Ukraine and Afghanistan, was a stepping stone to building such a career.

But although Malikyar’s future in Canada is secure, he will always have an eye on those seeking escape from his home country, as well as those languishing in refugee camps in Iran or Pakistan. He notes that even before the extremists’ return to power in 2021, they retained a stranglehold on activities in the cities and towns outside Kabul.

Right now, there is no end in sight – in particular, Malikyar underscores the plight of women and girls in Afghanistan today.

“Girls cannot go to secondary school. They don’t have any rights,” he says. “They cannot walk outside without male company.”

Prior to the regime’s ban on higher education for girls, his sister studied math at university in Ghazni.

“She is still teaching,” he says. “But I’m really concerned about what would happen to her if they banned all school for women and girls.”

Education is a basic human right, but in many places it is one that is far from guaranteed. Omer Malikyar’s long and difficult journey to convocation is a powerful reminder that learning is a precious resource – and one well worth fighting for.

Cynthia Macdonald

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After a harrowing escape from Sudan, ������ϲ����� scholar Nisrin Elamin calls on the world to pay attention

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��ϲ�� science historian's research on woolly mammoths comes alive in children's play

Using smartphones, ��ϲ�� PhD candidate works with Nigerian women to protect communities

After a harrowing escape from Sudan, ��ϲ�� scholar Nisrin Elamin calls on the world to pay attention