Footprints Series – serie

Judith Nasby, founding director and curator of the Macdonald Stewart Art Centre, animates the story of the gallery from its humble beginnings in the hallways of a university campus in 1916 to its latest incarnation as the internationally recognized Art Gallery of Guelph.The book is beautifully illustrated with eighty images of artworks in the permanent collection, beginning with the gallery's first acquisition, Tom Thomson's 1917 masterpiece The Drive, the last large canvas he painted before his tragic death. As curator, Nasby oversaw the creation of one of the most comprehensive sculpture parks in Canada and the amassing of a permanent collection of some nine thousand artworks. In The Making of a Museum Nasby reveals how the museum developed its internationally recognized collection of contemporary Inuit drawings and wall hangings that toured four continents. She discusses the development of the collection's specializations in contemporary works by Canadian silversmiths; historical European etchings; Woodland and Northeastern Indigenous beadwork; and others that arose from curatorial collaborations, such as molas by Kuna women artists from Panama and contemporary paintings and indigenous woodcuts from Chongqing, China.Nasby recounts her long career as founding director and curator, peppering the hundred-year history of cultural development on the University of Guelph campus and in the city with humorous anecdotes and personal insights to reveal how arts institutions can be created through dedication, serendipity, and perseverance.

When Anne Innis saw her first giraffe at the age of three, she was smitten. She knew she had to learn more about this marvellous animal. Twenty years later, now a trained zoologist, she set off alone to Africa to study the behaviour of giraffe in the wild. Subsequently, Jane Goodall and Dian Fossey would be driven by a similar devotion to study the behaviour of wild apes.In Smitten by Giraffe the noted feminist reflects on her scientific work as well as the leading role she has played in numerous activist campaigns. On returning home to Canada, Anne married physicist Ian Dagg, had three children, published a number of scientific papers, taught at several local universities, and in 1967 earned her PhD in biology at the University of Waterloo. Dagg was continually frustrated in her efforts to secure a position as a tenured professor despite her many publications and exemplary teaching record. Finally she opted instead to pursue her research as an independent "citizen scientist," while working part-time as an academic advisor. Dagg would spend many years fighting against the marginalization of women in the arts and sciences.Boldly documenting widespread sexism in universities while also discussing Dagg's involvement with important zoological topics such as homosexuality, infanticide, sociobiology, and taxonomy, Smitten by Giraffe offers an inside perspective on the workings of scientific research and debate, the history of academia, and the rise of second-wave feminism. A new preface relates Dagg's experience as the subject of the documentary The Woman Who Loves Giraffes.

Growing up on St Lawrence Boulevard, Phil Gold never aspired to be a doctor. But working as an encyclopedia salesman, a bottle washer at Molson, and a fur-coat schlepper in textile factories helped him realize and embrace his parents’ desire for him to follow that path.Looking back at his short wander from the Main to nearby McGill University and the Montreal General Hospital, Gold coins a new word, fortunome, to evoke his sense of a lucky life: “Our genome comes from our parents; our environment or epigenome shapes the expression of who we are; but without a good fortunome, life’s odds turn against us.” A born storyteller, Gold recounts the sights and sounds of a bygone era – horse-drawn milk carts, Yiddish neighbourhoods full of Holocaust survivors, furniture chopped up to keep the home fires burning, sacks of grain lugged off ships in the harbour, antisemitism and ethnic street-fighting, the padlocked doors of the Red Scare, his father’s first car. Gold tells the story of dating and marrying the love of his life, Evelyn, studying under the brilliant Sir Arnold Burgen, and his discovery of CEA (carcinoembryonic antigen) in a clear, fast-moving narrative that grips and fascinates. Gold’s Rounds also includes unforgettable stories from six decades of treating patients at the General, scenes from the founding of the famous Goodman Cancer Institute, and reflections on the physician's role and the meaning of a good death. By turns funny, wise, and heartrending, Gold’s memoir of a life well lived will be cherished by both medical professionals and general readers.

A biographer is, in a sense, the ghostwriter of someone else’s life, trying to keep out of the way but inevitably leaving an imprint and being changed in the enterprise. In her memoir Judith Adamson, a professional biographer, tells the ghost’s side of the story.Adamson reveals the questions she asked herself as she researched and wrote, as well as the personal challenges she faced in producing a lively sense of the figure she was recreating on the page, drawing an unbreakable connection between the personal and the professional. Crossing paths with literary luminaries of the twentieth century, she went on to collaborate with Graham Greene on Reflections, the last of his books published in his lifetime. She recounts how she was entrusted with the publication of Leonard Woolf and Trekkie Ritchie’s love letters; how she found a way to hunt down Charlotte Haldane, one of the first women on Fleet Street; and how she came to write the biography of Max Reinhardt, the man behind the finest English publishing house of the mid-twentieth century.A sharply observant and self-effacing narrator, Adamson brings vividly to life an anglophone upbringing in mid-century Montreal, the London literary scene, and the struggles faced by the women intellectuals of her time. Ghost Stories is a tale of good luck and the hard sleuthing of biographical work before the digital age.

Win the votes, buy the votes, steal the votes, invalidate the votes! There is a lot that can go right – and so much that can go wrong – in a Ukrainian election. From the opening of the campaign through to the final decision on the results, it is a rollercoaster ride for the candidates, the election workers, and the international observers who have travelled from afar to see it all.In What Ukrainian Elections Taught Me about Democracy long-time election observer Jane Cooper recounts her experience monitoring a municipal election in the mid-sized city of Kirovohrad in 2015. Offering a practical framework for exploring the many things that can go right or wrong during an election, at the core of this story is the inspirational struggle of the poll workers at the bottom of the electoral pyramid to keep the election honest. Cooper describes how election results can be manipulated or falsified and how attempts to do so can be frustrated, providing lessons for citizens of every democratic country. The first work written from the perspective of a Canadian international election observer, the book is an accessible and entertaining story that will appeal to election specialists and the ordinary Canadians who work at the polls on election day, as well as readers who want to learn more about the democratic process in present-day Ukraine.The war in Ukraine has shown us just how endangered democracy is. What Ukrainian Elections Taught Me about Democracy is an insider's view of election monitoring that sheds light on Canada's support for international democracy.

Grossly unsanitary living conditions, cruel and abusive treatment by camp officials, the withholding of medical treatment - these were common experiences for refugees imprisoned at internment camps in Britain and Canada. Walter Igersheimer's memoir exposes this bleak period in the British and Canadian war record.After escaping from Nazi Germany with his family, Igersheimer was completing his medical studies when he was caught in the panic that led to the internment of 30,000 German citizens living in Britain. They were placed behind barbed wire and treated as enemies. Many of the Jewish refugees were then sent to prisons in Canada, but the internees did not let the authorities crush their creativity or desire for an education: they started a free university, mounted plays, and wrote musicals.Laced with black humour, Blatant Injustice is a story of resilience and determination.This title is available in ePUB, ePDF, and audiobook (Audible and Rakuten Kobo).

In the late 1980s Sirous Houshmand found himself in the confines of Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison, a political prisoner facing a future where survival seemed unlikely. Thousands were killed in mass executions in 1988, including many of Houshmand’s closest prison friends. These memories would shape his life for years to come.The Darkest Night Brings Longer Days is Houshmand’s eyewitness testimony of tumultuous times and of living in two dissimilar countries. Born in Iran, Houshmand grew up in the United States. Following graduate studies and partly driven by the political fervour of the 1960s – the war in Vietnam, the Kent State shootings, the drift towards a consumerist society and conformist pressures – he returned home. There he was a follower of the revolution, worked as a medical aide in the Iran–Iraq War, and was eventually imprisoned in a widespread assault against the opposition. Houshmand shares the brutal realities of incarceration, prompting reflection on today’s political prisoners and asylum seekers while offering insight into the differences and similarities between the United States and Iran, enhancing our understanding of their complex relationship today.After the horrific executions of his friends, Houshmand vowed to honour their sacrifice. In The Darkest Night Brings Longer Days he brings their passionate aspirations for social and economic justice to the fore, reminding us that hope is a powerful force.

Louis J. Robichaud, the first elected Acadian premier of New Brunswick, transformed an inward-looking province with an ingrained aversion to change into a vibrant modern society now home to strong political, administrative, and educational institutions. Donald Savoie draws a portrait of adroit political leadership and of a man who, recognizing his province’s need for modernization, rose unwaveringly to the demands of office and ushered in profound and enduring change for Acadians and for all New Brunswickers.In a timely biography informed by a long friendship between fellow Acadians, Savoie contrasts the challenges of governing New Brunswick in the 1960s with those faced by governments and political leaders today to better understand the magnitude of Robichaud’s accomplishments over a ten-year span. Leading a province with a long history of intolerance towards minority groups, notably Acadians, Robichaud’s Liberal government confronted the dominant Anglo-Protestant political class and introduced reforms that included the Official Languages Act, broader access to education for francophones, the establishment of the Université de Moncton, and initiatives in regional and natural resource development, health care, and equitable public services across the province’s disparately funded urban and rural counties. Seismic changes at the time, these reforms are now woven into the social fabric of New Brunswick.Informative and lively, Louis J. Robichaud argues convincingly that while the premier’s achievements can be viewed as specific to his era, his political fortitude and vision are a model for politicians, legislators, and civil servants today.

Louis J. Robichaud, le premier Acadien élu premier ministre du Nouveau-Brunswick, a transformé sa province repliée sur elle-même et réfractaire au changement, en une société moderne et dynamique maintenant dotée de solides institutions politiques et administratives et d’établissements d’enseignement. Donald J. Savoie trace le portrait d’un leadership politique adroit et d’un homme qui, reconnaissant la nécessité de moderniser la province, s’est consacré sans relâche à l’exercice de sa charge et a insufflé un changement profond et durable dans la communauté acadienne et toute la population du Nouveau-Brunswick.Éclairée par une longue amitié entre confrères acadiens, cette biographie qui tombe à point met en contraste les défis de diriger le Nouveau-Brunswick dans les années 1960 et ceux auxquels les gouvernements et les dirigeants politiques font face aujourd’hui, afin de bien saisir toute la magnitude de ce que Robichaud a accompli en une décennie. Dirigeant une province marquée par une longue histoire d’intolérance envers les groupes minoritaires, notamment les Acadiens, le gouvernement libéral de Robichaud a tenu tête à la classe politique anglo-protestante dominante et adopté des réformes qui comprenaient la Loi sur les langues officielles, un accès élargi à l’éducation pour les Acadiens, la création de l’Université de Moncton et des initiatives liées au développement régional, à l’exploitation des ressources naturelles, aux soins de santé et à l’équité des services publics dans tous les comtés ruraux et urbains de la province, au financement très inégal. Ces réformes, véritables changements sismiques à l’époque, forment maintenant la trame du tissu social du Nouveau-Brunswick.Informative et vivante, cette biographie de Robichaud fait valoir avec éloquence que si les réalisations du premier ministre peuvent être considérées comme particulières à son époque, son courage politique et sa vision sont un modèle pour les politiciens, les législateurs et les fonctionnaires actuels.

“Now, don’t you ever leave Newfoundland,” Premier Joey Smallwood told seventeen-year-old Sandra Djwa in 1956. But leave she did – only to return decades later as a pathbreaking literary scholar and one of Canada’s most influential female academics, carrying with her a remarkable legacy of intellectual nation-building.Part memoir and part literary history, Ground to Stand On traces a life in letters that was often ahead of its time. In a voice by turns quizzical, amused, and indignant, Djwa offers an immersive account of the struggles and achievements of the first generations of women professors in a male-dominated academy while charting the emergence of Canadian literature as a respected field of study. Along the way, she sketches incisive portraits of Margaret Atwood, Leonard Cohen, Michael Crummey, Northrop Frye, and Pierre Trudeau. Revisiting her acclaimed biographies of F.R. Scott, Roy Daniells, and P.K. Page, Djwa enriches them with fresh reflections on the art and challenges of literary biography.Scholarship on Canadian poetry and criticism does more than record: it shapes cultural belonging. Ground to Stand On is a meditation on selfhood, memory, and place, culminating in Djwa’s reckoning with ancestry and her Newfoundland sense of belonging.