This colloquium will examine identity and socio-cultural differences across time and space from an interdisciplinary perspective, mainly focusing on the themes of: 1) Gender, Sexuality, and the Body; 2) Ethnicity, Religion, and Race; 3) Language and Culture. Participants may submit single paper, panel or roundtable proposals. Although French is preferred, papers in English are also accepted. Please submit your abstracts of no more than 250 words by January 31, 2011 to colloquium organizers. Dr. Cristian Berco (cberco@ubishops.ca)or Dr. Sophie Boyer (sboyer@ubishops.ca)

Dr. Gordon Barker has just published the book The Imperfect Revolution: Anthony Burns and the Landscape of Race in Antebellum America with Kent State University Press. Revisiting the Anthony Burns drama in 1854, the last fugitive slave crisis in Boston, The Imperfect Revolution challenges traditional historical interpretations suggesting that the Burns crisis fuelled an antislavery groundswell in the North. It argues that such interpretations mask the confusion, chaos, ethnic and class tensions, and racial division in midcentury Boston and also treat Virginia's most famous fugitive slave as an object rather than the Revolutionary and equal rights advocate he really was.

Congratulations to Dr. Christopher Stonebanks in the School of Education, along with Özlem Sensoy from Simon Fraser University, on having their book Muslim Voices in School: Narratives of Identity and Pluralism selected for the 2010 Phillip C. Chinn Book Award, by the Multicultural Program Awards Committee of the National Association for Multicultural Education (NAME).

The Crossing Borders Cluster held two discussion roundtables open to the public on Tuesday March 23, 2010 during Bishop's Research Week. Cristian Berco, Sophie Boyer, Claude Lacroix, and Michelle Murray examined research on Gender and Deviance, while Syliane Charles, Claude Lacroix, Shawn Malley, and Catherine Tracy provided a discussion on Identity.

Dr. Gordon Barker of the History Department was recently selected the 2010 winner of the William M. E. Rachal Award.  This annual award is designed to recognize the best article appearing in the quarterly journal, Virginia Magazine of History and Biography.  Members of the editorial board select an article that “has best advanced the cause of scholarship in Virginia history.”  William M. E. Rachal was the editor of the Virginia Historical Society’s journal from 1953-1980.

Dr. Barker is the first Canadian to have won this award, since its inception in 1985.  The winning article is entitled:  "Secession and Slavery as a Positive Good: The Impact of the Anthony Burns Drama in Boston on Virginia” which later became a chapter in Barker’s book entitled:  The Imperfect Revolution: Anthony Burns and the Landscape of Race in Antebellum America.  A copy of the abstract can be found at the following link:  www.vahistorical.org/publications/abstract_barker_burns.htm.