News & Events

The Arts and Humanities Colloquium Spring 2011 Series

The presentations take place on Friday mornings from 10:00 to 11:30 and include discussion and refreshments. The location for each event is indicated below.

There is no admission charge and all are welcome, so join us if you can for this intellectually engaging series.

FEBRUARY 4, 2011 (The Boardroom on the fifth floor of the Library - Bldg 305, Room 507)

Dr. Keith Smith, Department of First Nations Studies and Department of History:

"On Black Hawks, Pontiacs, and Crazy Horse Malt Liquor: The Policy and Cultural Relations Implications of Constructed Images"

A hundred years ago, an army of Canada's Department of Indian Affairs employees collected an unprecedented amount of information about those they defined as "Indians." The government used that information to rationalize systematic intervention in the lives of Indigenous peoples. Today, Canada's political and cultural leaders claim the era of assimilationist policies is over; they don northwest coast button blankets, announce the dawn of new relationships, and apologize for historical abuses. All the while, popular perception continues to be informed by images of North American Indigenous people that still largely duplicate the cultural constructions developed a century ago. We are presented daily with mascots for sports teams, logos for a myriad of commercial products, and news stories about camouflaged warriors and broken communities presented with little context and rarely more than superficial understanding.

Dr. Smith's presentation will consider the ways in which both past and present policy decisions and popular perceptions are guided by inaccurate imaginings of Indigenous people.

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VIU History Students Association calendar of events for fall 2010 here