Opening night began with a brief reception that gave the attendees a chance to mingle before we were ushered into the theatre. The John J. Conklin Theatre is a very intimate space, that served perfectly for the show as it relied heavily on audience participation, and the audience delivered.

Jocelyn, as well as all the other student actors executed their roles masterfully. The sound design and lights (led by Shivam Kheni and Savanna Mwaura) were perfectly curated to fit the theme of the night. It felt like we were actually sitting by the town of Sligo in Western Ireland. The set pieces (led by Xueqing Li), prop designs (led by Sam Fergus) and costumes (co-led by Destiny Klassen and Josie Long) all contributed to the full immersion that we experienced with the story.

At intermission, we were ushered to the lobby for a much-needed chance to stretch our legs. As the show clocks in at over 2 hours, this was a nice break which gave all of us a quick chance to make some predictions for how the remainder of the show would play out.

Without delving into too many details (you need to see it, after all), the show delivers its three-act main story along with several additional side plotlines, from tense drama packed with emotion to witty banter among the actors. There is something for everyone from this production. With the audience’s active participation, cheering, laughing, and booing when necessary, which is sometimes led by the actors breaking the fourth wall and instructing us to join in, it elevated the viewing experience and sent the attendees laughing out the door.

This production marks the final chapter for some of the department’s veteran students, who are graduating this year and ending their time at UM in the coming months. I had the chance to grab a few words from some of them after the show.

“If this is the chapter I end on, I’m grateful it’s with a character who changed me and a play that became home. Captain Molineux will stay with me long after the final curtain, and The Shaughraun will forever be the place where my heart learned just how deeply a story can hold you,” said Dola Akintan (Captain Molineux and head of publicity).

“Being able to play Claire Ffolliot in this production has been a privilege and I have loved the process of being able to develop this character. She has a bit of an edge to her and that is why I love her,” added Bronwyn Moll (Claire Ffolliot and costume crew member).

Don’t miss your opportunity to watch this riveting and emotional performance! Tickets for the show can be purchased online through Eventbrite for only $10.00 (plus Eventbrite fees). 

Come see it for yourself! The show runs Thursday (7pm) [SOLD OUT], Friday (7pm), Saturday (2pm and 7pm) and features a packed 2-hour and 15-minute runtime.

They talk The Roses, Superman, I Know What You Did Last Summer, and other remakes—what works, what doesn’t, and whether Hollywood is running out of ideas.

To listen to the entire conversation, please follow the link to CBC Manitoba.

“It’s impulsive, it’s not really all that informed, but it has the potential to do a lot of damage,” said Smith.

“This part came from Canada, this part came from the U.S., this part came from Spain, this part came from France, and we are going to tariff what? Only those parts? Or is there going to be a bar percentage of 30 per cent was shot outside of the U.S., or 30 per cent was in postproduction, it’s impossible to predict.”

To read the entire article, please follow the link to City News Winnipeg. 

Published following personal loss, Wittman captures a journey through a vibrant life shared with a loved one, diagnosis of terminal illness and inevitable death. Not ending there by any means, the journey continues with the process of moving through grief by welcoming memories, making painful little adjustments (even as mundane as updating the loved one’s Starbuck’s account), and the cold practicality of dealing with estate matters. While shared from the author’s unique perspective, the subject matter is extremely relatable to anyone who has likewise loved and lost.

Powerful imagery paints a solid landscape of local spaces including parts of Winnipeg, surrounding prairie, and cottage country. Like hidden gems, Wittman scatters nods to other Canadian literary icons throughout the collection including Sinclair Ross and Robert Kroetsch, while examining her own daring to likewise write poetry (“The poets have said what there is to say / so who am I to think / I can put pen to paper and pickle / thoughts in briny ink.”).

Wittman’s connection to the legal world emerges near the end when she effortlessly plays with the language of law in pieces bluntly titled “Advanced health care directive,” “Judicial interpretation,” “Legal Matters,” and “Final bequest.”

Full of heart, life and passion, the collection is cathartic, facing the hardest thing in the world for any person to do, and emerges as a work full of strength and grace.

Wittman’s first poetry collection, Stone Boat, was also published by Turnstone Press.

*****

Wondering how a busy partner at a law firm can still immerse themselves in a passion to such a level as to produce a finely-honed published work, Robson Hall reached out to our alum, who was most happy to turn her thoughts to poetry after a long, hard day at the office.

When did you start writing poetry and what compelled you to do so? 

I have been writing poetry since I can remember – I wrote a poem when I was very small – maybe five – and my mother, bless her, typed it out and put it on a piece of paper so I could draw a picture to accompany it. It was called “Draw me a boat”. If I tried very hard, I might be able to remember it.  A simple ditty. What was much more complex was having someone else (in that case my mother) read it, and embrace it, and want to be a part of it.  I read poems all the time, I am occasionally moved to tears by the words of other poets. To be able to write something that touches someone else, that permits them to enter into a private, protected space, with no judgment, that is what compels me. There was no looking back after “Draw me a boat”…

What was your path to study law?

Are you a “Simpsons” fan? There’s a moment when the babysitter’s boyfriend, Jimbo Jones, drops to his knees and cries to the sky “I’m disillusioned. I’m going to law school!!!” It wasn’t quite like that, but the study of English with a view to become a teacher or prof was not for me, and I learned that in my second year at U of M while attempting a double-honours in English and Poli-Sci. First year law school seemed a breeze after that choice. I had heard from many (my mother – there she is again! – being one) that a law degree would provide me with as many choices in life as I wanted. After two years of Philosopher Kings and literary theory, I was ready. 

What was your law school experience at Robson Hall like and to what extent was poetry a part of it? 

I wrote what I believe (a hubris!) to be a most amazing essay for the elective “Law and Literature” in third year that analyzed Robert Kroetsch’s The Puppeteer and obiter dicta. I think I confused the hell out of everyone. The poem “Judicial Interpretations” contains a poem that I wrote during first year Property Law, and read aloud at Beer and Skits. I understand Beer and Skits is no longer, and I understand why, but it wasn’t all bad. Some of it managed to hold up to the best of the term “louche”. I look back very fondly on those years as a time when I came to realize that the creativity I found in writing could be exercised by writing for law, not just poetry and prose. 

How do you achieve space for an artistic outlet like writing when you’re a busy lawyer?

I happened to find a DVD with an interview Wayne (Tefs) gave in the early 2000s, where he called all poets “cranky”. That made me laugh, mostly because that’s probably a fairly apt description. I carve out time by being cranky – by being determined, regardless of who I am with or what I am doing, to crankily preserve time for myself. To persevere. It’s interesting how similar those two words are.

“Law, particularly private practice, will absorb you if you let it. But if you get cranky with it, and set barriers, limits, determined spaces, you can persevere. It’s not easy. I don’t want anyone to think that it is easy.”

I am occasionally filled with resentment at the time it takes to be a good lawyer. But I want to be a good lawyer, so that’s on me. And from what I understand, all poets (and writers and artists and…) find it difficult to find time to do the thing they love, and have passion for, because life intervenes.  The billable hour demands attention, and leaves little room for creativity beyond the creativity required of law (of which there is a lot, in the end). There are many days when, at the end of the day, I ask myself why is it so important to me to write creatively, when I spend my day writing creatively within the law? I don’t have an answer for that, but I know I need to, so I find the time, because I need it. 

What can you advise current law students attending Robson Hall about pursuing their artistic passions while trying to forge legal careers?

Ah, the perennial question for law students. Will the practice consume us? Yes, if you let it. Work hard, keep your head down, ride through it. The first five years are hell. But fun, too – you learn so much in those first five years. And then, and then… if you are able to make it through, and many are, you discover the other side, where you can control your hours, you can be paid (well) for giving advice, you are important to your clients, they need you. And, with determination and discipline (and a whole lot of organizational skills – outlook tools, anyone?) you can carve the time you want for the things you want. When I’m not cranky, I recognize how incredibly lucky I am to be a lawyer in private practice, genuinely helping my clients, and at the same time being able to pursue my own interests, having financial independence, having the freedom to do what I want. In fairness, I love writing, and I’ve now published a grand total of two books of poetry. Law takes up a lot of time – don’t expect too much. But recognize that it will be a great career, and you don’t need to “give up your day job” to do the things you truly love.

The video features Biden reading the verse over a montage of images both of Biden on the campaign trail and scenes from across the U.S. related to the past divisive and charged year characterized by protests and the pandemic.

Biden had long adopted this famous Heaney quote as a signature piece. He cited it when he first ran in the 2008 presidential primaries, and on occasions when he spoke as vice-president.

“History says, don’t hope
On this side of the grave.
But then, once in a lifetime
The longed-for tidal wave
Of justice can rise up,
And hope and history rhyme.”
– Seamus Heaney pic.twitter.com/7nB1ytYlvm

— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) October 29, 2020

The verse is from The Cure at Troy, Heaney’s 1990 version of Philoctetes, the play by Sophocles about the Greek hero Philoctetes who, during the Trojan war, suffers from a festering foot caused by a snakebite. The chorus in the play, aiming towards social healing, recites the lines that have become part of Biden’s political repertoire.

In drawing on this verse, Biden implicitly pitched himself as the man poised to mediate healing and defend “the soul of America” after caustic wounding. Meanwhile, President Donald Trump clung to the lyrics of “The Snake,” a song popularized by soul singer Al Wilson and written by Oscar Brown Jr., singer-songwriter and civil rights activist. Trump recited the lyrics at numerous rallies as well as this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference, prompting criticism from Brown’s daughter, Africa Brown, who told CBC radio that “what Donald Trump stands for, and what my father stands for, are in such opposition.”

The song tells the cautionary story of a woman who nurses a near-frozen snake back to health in her home, only to have the reptile fatally bite her in recovery. Trump appropriated the song as a not-so-subtle dog whistle to convey an anti-immigration, xenophobic message to his Republican base.

Wounded warrior

Heaney conceived of The Cure at Troy as a drama about reconciliation, about following one’s conscience but also about setting personal feelings aside for the sake of the common good.

In the play, Philoctetes, on his way to fight the Trojan War, has been stranded on a desert island for 10 years, abandoned by Odysseus, whose crew could not bear the noxious smell of his wound.

Now, Odysseus returns with Achilles’ son, Neoptolemus, because it has been prophesized that the Greeks will only prevail over Troy through the use of Hercules’ bow and arrow, now in Philoctetes’ possession.

After Heaney published The Cure at Troy, its resonance with the Troubles in Northern Ireland was immediately recognized, particularly in its lyrical denouement: after Neoptolemus realizes that Odysseus’ advice to trick Philoctetes out of the bow goes against his conscience, he returns to apologize and reconcile with the wounded warrior.

Hope on this side of the grave

Neoptolemus urges Philoctetes similarly to relinquish his past grievances and return to the Greek army, be healed and help conquer Troy:

“Stop just licking your wounds,” urges Neoptolemus, “Start seeing things.”

Philoctetes finally agrees. The play’s chorus recites the lines that Biden has returned to:

“History says, Don’t hope

On this side of the grave.

But then, once in a lifetime

The longed-for tidal wave

Of justice can rise up

And hope and history rhyme.”

A man puts a U.S. flag up near the mural of president-elect Joe Biden, in the town of Ballina, Ireland, where Biden has ancestral roots and some extended family, Nov. 7, 2020. // AP Photo/Peter Morrison

Inspired leaders

The call to renounce vengeful thoughts embodied a national desire for peace and reconciliation in Northern Ireland, so that when Mary Robinson was elected president of Ireland in 1990, she recited Heaney’s prophetic lines in her inauguration speech.

Similarly, when President Bill Clinton visited Northern Ireland in 1995 to commemorate the earlier ceasefire announcement that preceded the eventual Good Friday Agreement of 1998 — what the BBC called “the beginning of the end” of the conflict — he also quoted Heaney.

Biden also recited the lines of the chorus at his speech accepting the nomination at the Democratic National Convention in August.

Significantly, it’s not central characters in this ancient drama who sound this call, but the chorus. The chorus surveys the noble characters and finds them wanting: “Shining with self-regard like polished stones,” or “Licking their wounds / And flashing them around like decorations.”

Biden has cannily pitched himself through this campaign as the political chorus: hating the divisiveness, the pettiness, the selfishness sharing the stage with him.

He calls for healing rather than vengeance, unity rather than division, and portrays himself as the figure that can bring together the “you and the me,” the “it of it” all. He offers himself, through this poetic invocation, as a part of the healing ritual of a country hobbled by a snakebite, tricked, forsaken and left abandoned for years, wounded and bereft.

Biden appears to want to pick up Heaney’s call for reconciliation and healing while pitching himself as one among the people.

‘Double-take of feeling’

After U.S. media announced that Biden had won Pennsylvania and had enough electoral college votes to become president-elect, the Irish network RTÉ tweeted Biden’s voice reading the lines over a montage of news footage in tribute.

US president-elect @JoeBiden reads the words of Irish poet Seamus Heaney pic.twitter.com/kWADRBFstw

— RTÉ News (@rtenews) November 7, 2020

The lines Biden has highlighted propose a hopeful view that renewed relationships are possible in human life. Biden’s chorus invokes the “miracle self-healing / The utter, self-revealing / Double-take of feeling.”

The “double-take of feeling” suggests an ability to change one’s mind, to change directions, to forgive and reconcile as aspects of the fundamental changeability of human nature. For Biden, such possibilities animate hopes for “miracle” of “self-healing” needed in the country he is about to lead. These lines are short and direct iambic trimeter, a rhyme scheme often utilized by that other great poet of Irish politics, W.B. Yeats. The triple end-rhyme links them together in the reader’s mind.

It is perhaps this layered capacity for empathy and for self-examination, for personal and political change, that would make “hope and history rhyme.”

This article is written by Mark Libin, Associate Professor, Department of English, Theatre, Film & Media, University of Manitoba, first appeared on The Conversation.

As Steve Jobs put it, “It is in Apple’s DNA that technology alone is not enough—it’s technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields us the results that make our heart sing.”

As a student in the Faculty of Arts you are gaining many marketable skills from your degree. If you are interested in both the liberal arts and technology, keep reading to learn about four tech industry occupations filled by Arts graduates.

1. Senior Recruiter – Apple Inc.
   When scrolling through Linkedin and viewing the profiles of people who are employed by Apple, you can see multiple Linkedin members who have earned a Bachelor of Arts, including a Senior Recruiter who majored in Economics.

Learning to code can boost your resume and develop your skills.

2. Technical Writer – Google LLC.
   Google’s online Careers page shows that they also hire Bachelor of Arts graduates with a major in English for the position of Technical Writer. Candidates need to have some knowledge of coding but, it is the English major that is the primary focus.

3. Corporate Affairs Manager – Microsoft Corp.
   Microsoft’s online job postings show that they employ Bachelor of Arts graduates with majors in Economics and Political Studies as Corporate Affairs Managers. These individuals are responsible for creation and management of Microsoft’s Constituency Relations Program working with civic associations and advocacy organizations, with the purpose of supporting underrepresented communities.

4. Language Manager – Google LLC.
   Google’s online career page shows that they hire people with Masters Degrees in Linguistics as Language Managers. One aspect of this position is to develop innovative terminology for features and products that Google is developing.

Hopefully these occupations caught your attention because these jobs are just a sliver of what is out there. Here are three easy ways to learn more about jobs in the tech industry for B.A. graduates:

1. Use Linkedin to view employees who are employed by tech firms. Take note of their education and experiences to get insight into how they developed the necessary competencies to secure that job.
2. Look at job postings for tech companies and scan the knowledge, skills and attributes the organizations are looking for.
3. Check out Career Services’ online job search resources – or attend a Job Search or Linkedin workshop. Register on careerCONNECT to attend workshops.

Think critically about your coursework in Arts and the skills you are developing that apply to jobs within the tech industry. Enhance your classroom learning by getting relevant part-time or summer work, and if available, apply to the Faculty of Arts co-op education program. Joining a student club on campus is another great way to gain experience. Volunteering on campus or in the community can also help you create professional connections and give you a low-risk taste of an occupation you are considering. 

Take time to reflect on your experiences both inside and outside the classroom and what you have learned. Participating in experiential opportunities will not only help you make informed decisions, you will also develop the skills employers are looking for.

If you need help with career planning, exploring your career options or developing a plan to reach your goals, visit Career Services at 474 UMSU University Centre and speak with a Career Consultant. For help in planning a course of study congruent with your goals, visit the Arts Academic Advisors at 134 Fletcher Argue Building.

Faculty of Arts Outstanding Professor Award

The Outstanding Professor Award is given to a professor in the Faculty of Arts who has best demonstrated excellence in teaching, outstanding research and who has an exemplary record of service.

This year’s winner, Dr. Warren Cariou, Professor,  Department of English, Theatre, Film & Media, has gone above and beyond in all of these areas. Dr. Cariou is the Director of the Centre for Creative Writing and Oral Culture (CCWOC) in the Faculty of Arts and a former Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Narrative, Community and Indigenous Cultures.

Dr. Cariou is described by his colleagues as an “immensely respected, accomplished, and sought-after literary scholar.” He is a respected member on committees for the Department of English, Theatre, Film & Media and the Department of Native Studies, and participates in the Faculty of Arts Equity and Human Rights Committee and the Steering Committee for CCWOC. In addition to these committees, Dr. Cariou has a role on the Executive of the Canadian Consortium for Performance and Politics in the Americas and is the inaugural President of the Indigenous Literary Studies Association.

Dr. Cariou “excels as a respected scholar, innovative educator and respected and innovative thinker who develops effective courses and builds his department, the Faculty of Arts, and the University of Manitoba as a centre for Indigenous knowledge and practice.”

Faculty of Arts Award in Internationalization

The Award in Internationalization is given to a faculty member who promotes an increase in students’ awareness of international culture, perspective and issues. Examples might include courses integrating international experience, teaching material based on research in other countries and facilitating international student exchange.

This year’s recipient is Andrea Charron, Associate Professor, Department of Political Studies and Director of the Centre for Defence and Security Studies in the Faculty of Arts. Dr. Charron’s field of specialization is International Relations.

She works to enrich her students’ knowledge of international issues and concerns through her teaching materials based on her research in other countries. Her research on NORAD and the Arctic is included in course work, giving students the opportunity to learn about the world from a research perspective.

Dr. Charron regularly recruits guests with international experience to speak to her classes and at student conferences. Speakers with different backgrounds in the field challenge students to think about issues from a global perspective.

Faculty of Arts Teaching Excellence Awards

Professors and instructors in the Faculty of Arts engage in the excitement of learning and motivate students to challenge their current thinking and to develop their abilities for critical thinking and analysis. Following a nomination and selection procedure, the following faculty members received the Excellence in Teaching Awards for 2019.

Established Faculty: Lorna Jakobson, Professor, Department of Psychology

New Faculty: Andrea Charron, Associate Professor, Department of Political Studies

Sessional Instructor: Evan Bowness, Department of Sociology and Criminology

Graduate Student: Renée Hoffart, Department of Sociology and Criminology and Jeremy Strong, Department of English, Theatre, Film & Media

Each year, university students, faculty, staff and alumni are involved with the annual festival. Here’s what U of M community members are up to at this year’s Fringe.

The Open House by Will Eno at Venue 6 is produced by Snakeskin Jacket and The 28th Minute. Directed by George Toles (Distinguished Professor, Department of English, Film, Theatre & Media) with , Jane Walker, Heather Roberts, Kevin Ramberran [BA(Adv)/13, MA/16], and Adam Semchuk [BA/19]. Stage Managed by Kai Suzuki-Smith.

Wakey, Wakey by Will Eno at Venue 6 is directed by Kevin Ramberran [BA(Adv)/13, MA/16] with Ivan Henwood [BA(Hons)/10] and Jen Robinson. Stage managed by RobYn Johnson 

(ART)ist by Daphne Finlayson [BA/17] at Venue 2 is directed by Daphne with Bailey Chin and Ryland Thiessen 

Setting Sail by Anna Gervais at Venue 6 is directed and produced by Gary Jarvis with Manuel Ortega [BA/18], Sam Hodge and Betty Asseiro Poster and handbill design by Monique Gauthier Stage Managed by Nicolette Hauta 

The Cause by Cuinn Joseph [BA/19] at Venue 22 is directed by Cuinn with Ben Krawchuk and Evan Martin. Stage Managed by Monique Gauthier. 

Purge by Ellie Caslake is stage managed by Jonah Wilde [BA/19]. 

Stephen Hopwood is Not Dead at Venue 12 features Leith Clark and Alexis Silver (née Hook) [ BEd and BMus/02].

Jon Scieszka’s Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales at Kid’s Venue. Features Keanna Caguioa and voiceover work by Chris Reid. 

I Married the King of the Underworld and My Mom Freaked written by Sara Kreindler [BA(Hons)/99] at Venue 2. Stage Managed by Connor Duff [BA/19]. 

 I Lost on Jeopardy by George Buri, Instructor in the History Department, at Venue 7.

Production and administrative staff for the fringe include Chuck McEwan, Executive Producer; Eric Bosse[BesA/98] and Karen Schellenberg [BEd/97], venue techs; Tim Webster [BA/91], Kids Fringe; Delton Kreller, Outdoor Stage; Garrett Rusnak [BA/13], Site Tech; and Ray Strachan [BRMCD/09], outdoor site.

Do you know someone with a University of Manitoba connection involved with the Winnipeg Fringe Theatre Festival? Email the show name and connection to umtoday [at] umanitoba [dot] ca and we will add it to the list!

For all show listings, visit the Winnipeg Fringe website.

Joo lived in many different places as a child, but it was the time that she spent in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and the time that she spent in libraries – “learning English and becoming a bookworm” – that most impacted how she sees the world and her research agenda.

“Being Asian and attending public schools in a southern city with its legacies of slavery and segregation, gave me a distinct position to think about where I fit into this scheme of Black-white relations. I learned at an early age how Asians are both subjected to racism in the U.S. and benefit from anti-Black racism.” Joo says.

That thinking and questioning, combined with an impassioned reading of Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved when she was 12-years-old, led Joo to an undergrad degree in French and English literature from Louisiana State University and then a PhD in comparative literature from the University of Oregon.

Joo is an English, theatre, film and media professor in the Faculty of Arts, teaching and researching ethnic American literature and speculative, science and disaster fiction, as well as critical race studies and queer studies. Much of Joos’ research focuses on how people of colour navigate the structural and historical workings of white supremacy and colonialism through literature and the arts.

116 Sherbrook Street by Real Fresh Canvas Co (Trevor Peters & Annaliza Toledo).

“I look at how writers and artists of colour imagine the world in their texts, and I am interested in how imagination can be an incredibly powerful and necessary tool of resistance, solace and political transformation,” she explains.

“When the state does not recognize you,” Joo continues, “culture becomes a crucial site to express who you are. It’s a different understanding of culture. For people of colour, culture is the site of struggle and existence.”

116 Sherbrook Street by Real Fresh Canvas Co (Trevor Peters & Annaliza Toledo) with Hee-Jung Serenity Joo.

126 Sherbrook Street by Nereo Eugenio. (Nereo II)

Like many humanities scholars, Joo is committed to the idea that the pursuit of knowledge is never complete. Although she disseminates her research in all the conventional ways, including via peer-reviewed articles, book chapters and book reviews, she does not distinguish between her research and her teaching. Her classroom – whether she is teaching a survey course on American literature or a queer theory based course on racial futurities-is also a place of research. Her research, teaching and academic service are all connected and all equally vital to her ongoing pursuit of knowledge.

Joo also considers everything that she reads to be research.

“Popular culture is often dismissed as superficial, but it holds immense power. Everything I read and consume, on Instagram, in newspapers, on Netflix, in ads on buses, and on the back of a cereal box, is a potential site of analysis and research,” she says.

“Cultural narratives are everywhere around us, and it’s important that I teach my students the skills of cultural literacy so that they can better understand not only literary texts, but also the world they live in.”

Although Joo is never at a loss for topics to study, much of her recent attention has been taken up by science and disaster fiction.

“Science fiction historically was a genre of colonialism,” she explains. “It was about the discovery of new worlds and new people and conquest and exploration, and so I am really interested when artists of colour reclaim science fiction and do new things with it.”

Whereas African Americans and Indigenous peoples are generally denied any role at all in traditional science fiction outside of being discovered or impeding conquest, Joo continues, Asian Americans are often typically represented in the genre as robots or techies.

That, she explains, is known as the model minority myth. It is based on the idea that Asians are the good racial minority and that other racial minorities should attempt to emulate them.

“This is a classic tactic of colonialism, to divide and conquer,” Joo continues, “as this supposedly positive image of Asians is promoted to keep other minorities down. At the same time, model minority Asians are presented as aberrant—they are freakishly good at mundane tasks and multiple-choice exams, and there are ‘too many’ of them in university, in the neighbourhood, on the planet. All of this together helps to secure whiteness as the norm.”

As part of this research, Joo is currently writing a paper on representations of Asians as robots and cyborgs. She is also in the midst of researching the racial politics of disaster, thinking through what gets classified as a disaster and by whom, and also thinking about the colonialist timelines of global warming and climate change as mass disasters. And then there’s her research cluster on collecting, citing and curating; her collaboration on a local grant on the rights of incarcerated people; and her intention to offer U of M courses on the inside at the Women’s Correctional Institute in Headingly, Man. where she currently volunteers.

As a literary scholar who cares deeply about culture, racial politics and the future of humanity, Joo views the entire world as her laboratory. And in that laboratory, the quest for knowledge is never ending.

Humanities hub

Somehow, in spite of the research she’s pursuing, the papers she’s writing, the courses she’s preparing, the graduate students she’s supervising and the countless books and tweets and other media that she is reading, Hee-Jung Serenity Joo finds time to dedicate to the U of M’s Institute for the Humanities (UMIH). Joo began a three-year term as the institute’s director last summer.

The UMIH was created almost 30 years ago to promote cross-disciplinary research in the humanities and allied social sciences, and sponsor public programs, lectures, workshops, colloquia and conferences to highlight that research.

“We function as a hub for scholars in the humanities to come and share their work,” Joo explains.

“We provide resources and support to help researchers do what they are already doing, better, and help link people with others who may be interested in similar ideas and research.”

Currently, that research is concentrated in two main clusters. One of those clusters is connecting humanists to health sciences scholars. The other cluster – one which Serenity co-organized long before being named institute director – is focused on collecting, citing and curating, and brings together academics, archivists and artists of colour.

“I love that I get to work with visual artists,” Joo says, “as my work is bending toward the visual arts more and more as a medium that can express certain problems in ways that narrative often can’t.”

The institute also sponsors affiliates who, at the present time, are delving into topics as diverse as hyper-empathy in Romantic era literature and the contemporary obsession with psychopaths.

“The best part about being director is I get to attend talks on a wide range of topics,” Joo says. “It stretches my brain in so many directions [and is] incredibly stimulating.”

This story originally appeared in the Summer 2019 issue of ResearchLIFE. 

The release of Avengers: Endgame is a culmination, of a kind, for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and therefore also for a phenomenon that both draws upon past cinematic forms while also being something new, whose long-term impact remains to be seen. Sequels and franchises have been with us since the silent era, as has serialized storytelling in film.

Avengers Endgame logo

In the MCU we can see traces of the film serial of old, only now, instead of modestly budgeted 20-minute cliffhanger episodes released one per week, we have 200-million-dollar, 2-hour-plus episodes coming out over the course of 11 years. The other big difference, of course, is that the MCU models the comic book medium by being composed of several interlocking series, and that really is new.

What I have been wondering, as the MCU grows in complexity, is whether there will come a point where audiences tune out because the films, which already verge on being feature-length trailers for the next instalment, will demand too much prior knowledge. Clearly, that has not happened yet, and if Endgame really does mark a point where audiences are given something of a new start with subsequent films, then Marvel may have found a solution to that looming problem.

Avengers Endgame poster

As to whether the film will satisfy audiences, we will have to see. The sheer number of characters involved in the Avengers films (and related movies like Winter Soldier) makes it a towering challenge to create a film that is coherent, let alone one that delivers all things to all viewers, a challenge that the Big Event films do not always meet.

Nevertheless, the success of the MCU rests on more than savvy marketing and connected films. With the exception of the “Conjuring Universe,” all other attempts to create a cinematic universe have foundered. The MCU films have, overall, a consistency of look and tone, and blend of quip and pathos. If, with the partial exceptions of Thor: Ragnarok and Black Panther, this has tended to smooth over the differences between directorial styles (the MCU is not an auteurist venture), it has also meant that audiences can rely on getting a lot of what they have come to expect and enjoy in a superhero film.

And so we come to Endgame, which, following the model of so many comic books in the past, presents itself as that paradoxical thing: a spectacular conclusion embedded in a narrative that can never end. However satisfying or disappointing the film turns out to be, we can be sure the discussions around it are only just beginning, and there can be no denying that it represents the climax of a translation from comics to film on a scale that few of us could have imagined possible when Iron Man was first released.