The Day I Met an Astrophysicist

“As a specialist in literature, what does the black hole represent to you?”

This was one of the questions that Dr. Sharon Morsink asked me when I met her for the first time on a not-so-chilly afternoon in December of 2017. We sat in SUB, talking about black holes, or at least, what I knew of them (which is to say, other than common knowledge of the subject, not very much). She told me about an exciting online introductory course that she and her team were developing at the time called ASTRO 101: Black Holes. The online course was launched recently, and anyone can register for it here for free! Having taught a course on sci-fi, I was invited to participate in an interview to discuss the representation of black holes in science fiction and popular culture--I was thrilled! The topic of black holes was something new and exciting for me that I ended up reading and watching quite a bit. Considering that black holes are a common trope in sci-fi stories, films, anime and even video games, I was surprised that little critical attention has been paid to this topic. If I had the time and funds to do another PhD, this is an area that I would love to further explore! In the videos featured here, I give my two cents on fictional depictions of black holes and why I think it matters. Hope you find them interesting! (〃ω〃)

DID YOU KNOW...

the U of A has its own observatory?! Public viewing are currently scheduled on Thursday from 12 to 1:00 pm. The day and time change with the seasons, so don’t forget to stay updated! I love viewing the moon in the fall/winter semesters!

Click here to connect to the Department of Physics Astronomical Observatory homepage. Learn more about the online course, ASTRO 101 here. See what other experts have to say about black holes here.  Videos by https://onlea.org/

“Avengers Prime, Assemble!” The Dream Team Panel at CSSC!

The 5th Canadian Society for the Study of Comics conference was held this year from May 10th-11th at the Bloor Yorkville Marriott and the Toronto Reference Library! Thank you to the conference organizers for another great conference. For the past five years, the CSSC has been held in collaboration with the Toronto Comic Art Festival (TCAF) and it’s an exciting time for academics, creators, and fans to meet and share their work.

One of the things that I really like about this conference is the people. It’s my third time presenting at this conference and it was nice to meet new and familiar faces. It’s definitely a place where I feel safe and encouraged to test my ideas, which I use to develop into an article for publication, or incorporate as part of my thesis. This year was particularly meaningful as I got to present on a panel that I organized, but it couldn’t have happened without the contribution of Dr. Ben Whaley and PhD Candidate, Jonathan Chau.

I’ve always wanted to propose a panel on manga since while there are many fascinating discussions on Canadian and American comics (mostly in the Anglophone tradition), there are fewer presentations that address manga seriously. As a result, and by no means is this anyone’s fault, but presentations on manga tend to be grouped in the miscellaneous panel by default. Finding the right team took some time, but with the support of my allies we proposed a panel titled “Breaking the Mold: Manga & the Politics of Identity” which was accepted! For a full read of our abstracts click here.

In a nutshell, our panel examined manga (and its cultural variations) as a powerful and creative force for social and political critique. Ben began the show with Tezuka Osamu’s Gringo, exploring how the manga grapples with questions of Japanese-ness and identity. I followed with a critical discussion on the impact of the economic crisis on the formation of middle-class youth identities in Japan as a means to explore the formation of the boy criminal/detective in Ohba Tsugumi’s Death Note. Jonathan Chau shifted  the discussion to matters of genre politics, investigating Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas’s Red: A Haida Manga, which fuses narrative traditions and forms in developing a culturally relevant and distinct product, or as Jonathan might say, the meaning is “all in the gutter.”

What was really great about this panel presentation was the discussion that followed in the Q & A session and this can be credited to us "Avengers Prime" (I call dibs on Thor) for having interesting and strong papers! But all jokes aside, I’m grateful for my colleagues. 

I look forward to the next conference, whether it continues to be held in collaboration with TCAF, or with Congress.

Stay tuned for our next CSSC conference by clicking here

If you’d like to be a member of CCSC see here

2018 Graduate Teaching Awards Celebration!

“Education never ends, Watson. It is a series of lessons with the greatest for the last."

Bonus points to those who know where this quote comes from!

Thank you to my research supervisor, Dr. Geoffrey Rockwell for his guidance and support in all aspects of my professional and teaching career. 

Yesterday, the 3rd annual Graduate Student Teaching Award event was held in the Donadeo Innovation Centre for Engineering (and what a view of the city you get from up there!). I was really honored to have been one of the recipients of this year’s award, and I couldn’t have achieved it without the support of my students and my teaching mentors. First and foremost, to the students who nominated me, my heartfelt thanks. Thank you for motivating me and teaching me how to be a better instructor. To my mentors who have provided me with an incredible support network, your openness has had an invaluable impact on my own teaching philosophy, and I hope that I can continue to emulate your level of success. For the list of 2018 award recipients see here.

 

How can you be nominated for this award?

Each department has its own process, I believe, so I can only speak from my own experience as a student in Modern Languages & Cultural Studies. Also, check out the outlines & procedures posted on the FGSR website.

1. Usually, in the fall semester, there is a call for nominations. The MLCS awards committee will send you a link for you to share with students. At this stage, all you can do is to request students, whom you have taught, to consider nominating you. The more students you can reach out to, the better. They are asked to fill out a short survey (which you don’t have access to, obviously) and then you play the waiting game.

2. About a month or so later, you will receive an email from the MLCS awards committee. If you were successfully nominated, then, you will be asked to submit a teaching dossier as part of your application. For tips on how to put together a dossier, see these links (scroll to the bottom of the page). After all this, sip on a glass of wine and start working on your other projects because you won’t find out the results until the end of February of the following year.

Some tips:

It’s never too late to get started! In other words, at whatever stage you are at in your graduate program, start thinking about how you can put together a teaching dossier and how you can develop a strong CV.  

1. The FGSR offers workshops as well as the Graduate Teaching & Learning Program, which are designed to provide you with practical tools and knowledge about teaching.

2. A dossier takes time to put together, so start early. Work on it bit by bit. Don’t be afraid to ask your colleagues, professors and/or mentors  to help you. Seek their professional advice in order to build a stronger dossier (some of them are tenured for a reason…). Luckily, I belong to a department that is supportive of their grad students, so I had no problem asking for help.

3. At the end of the day,  be your own advocate!! Get as many teaching opportunities as you can. If you can’t get teaching gigs, do a series of guest lectures and always ask for students’ feedback (either online or in hard copy) and include them in your dossier. Join teaching circles at your university. If your institution doesn’t have one, then create one. Take initiative to demonstrate that you geniunely care about & are critically thinking about teaching.

4. Find a teaching mentor and meet with her/him once a month or so to discuss your progress, challenges and etc. Having a teaching mentor is important because they not only provide you with words of wisdom, but can support your role as an instructor in so many different ways.

I hope some of these tips will set you up for greater success!