A combat surgeon and English professor emeritus are among several Western-connected Canadians to be celebrated with top national and provincial honours.
English and Writing Studies
Words 2020 lives on as virtual festival
Words 2020 – London’s literary and creative arts festival – launched on Nov. 6 and it’s 100-per-cent virtual as the world stays safe amidst the global pandemic.
Writer-in-residence coaches others to find their voices
Western’s writer-in-residence Alicia Elliott writes to bring about change. “I write with the hope my truth will enlighten others about not only my own truth, but their own.”
Pandemic inspires Summer Shakespeare
Summer Shakespeare enters its 40thyear with a production of Pandemic Julius Caesar inspired by North America’s own Ides of March.
Experiential Learning grants brew innovative courses
Four active-learning projects will be developed, with and for students, in the début year of the Experiential Learning Innovation Scholars Program.
BLM movement finds new urgency, allies because of COVID-19
COVID-19 has exacerbated the problems of racial injustice, isolation, frustration and stagnation and caused higher unemployment, which provides the time to air these grievances. When coupled with mixed messages from elites, the spark lit a fire that continues to burn.
Grad embraces collision of two worlds
Stefanie Tom came to Western keen on drawing as much as possible from the experience – and on giving back as much as she could to the school that welcomed her for five years.
Grad finds comfort in the unknown on way to degree
Erin Anderson is becoming more comfortable with uncertainty. Often meticulous about planning her life decisions, she’s learning to roll with the punches.
Queen’s pantry offers window into coronavirus crisis
When we read recipes closely, we can often get a glimpse of historical conditions and responses to challenges such as food insecurity, war and other types of political and cultural upheaval.
Course announces that ‘the plague’s the thing’
Romeo’s friend Mercutio, stabbed and dying, curses the Capulets and mutters against the Montagues: “A plague o’ both your houses!”
Read. Watch. Listen. with Manina Jones
Seek solace by immersing yourself in other-worlds when English & Writing Studies professor Manina Jones takes a turn on Read. Watch. Listen.
Pandemic poetry books lighten load, raise funds
As March arrived with the leonine claws of COVID-19, Aaron Schneider thought it was clearly time to let poetry do what it does best – offer challenge, comfort and shared experience.
Students join global effort to solve PPE shortage
Witnessing shortages of personal protective equipment (PPE) across the country, a pair of Western students have become matchmakers in an attempt to address the need.
Scholar pens memoir of lifelong bond with ‘Ulysses’
For most of us, James Joyce’s ‘Ulysses’ is a daunting 600-page modernist novel that meanderingly chronicles the adventures of Leopold Bloom over the course of a single day, June 16, 1904, in Dublin, Ireland. But for Michael Groden, Ulysses has been his life.
Black history’s Great Lakes connections on display
The slave life of the boy who renamed himself Jermain Wesley Loguen was filled with deprivation and abuse. His escape to Canada was equally harrowing. His hopes for finding a new life here – in what he’d believed would be freedom’s promised land – were thwarted by a society determined to keep him from success.
Poetry anthology looks to inspire climate action
When the planet is on fire, it takes words – and then more than words – to inspire and mobilize Canadians to do battle for the planet. That’s the idea behind a new online poetry and prose anthology, dedicated to the climate crisis and edited by English professor Kathryn Mockler.
Alumnae named among Canada’s Most Powerful
Eleven Western alumnae have been named recipients of the 2019 Canada’s Most Powerful Women: Top 100 Award, the Women’s Executive Network recently announced.
Alumna puts sting back in classic Marvel character
For her latest adventure, Sam Maggs, BA’10, is proving as ‘Unstoppable’ as the character she is about to pen, when the bestselling alumna releases a YA novel featuring Wasp, one of Marvel’s smallest superheroes in terms of size but certainly not in stature.
Class encourages student ‘travel’ across London
As a travel journalist and writing instructor, I wanted to create an assignment that encouraged students to break through the Western Bubble – a travel guidebook of London, Ont.
Alumna’s memoir explores race, city and self
A novel would have offered anonymity through embellishment. A play would have muddied things in actor interpretation. But with a memoir, Eternity Martis’ life is out there for all to see. “A novel. A play. They didn’t feel true,” Martis said. “Why fictionalize it when...