Aurélie Lacassagne

Challenges of Francophone Immigration in Northern Ontario Communities: The Cases of Hearst, Timmins, and Kapuskasing

In 2005, the number of Francophones in Ontario increased for the first time in decades due to immigration. This chapter examines key issues surrounding this development. It begins by considering the implications of Francophone immigration for Canada’s national identity, particularly in Northern Ontario. Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) identified Sudbury as a privileged destination for Francophone immigrants outside of Quebec as part of a strategic plan for the implementation of Section 41 of the official Languages Act. Despite this fact, few resources were allocated by CIC to Francophone service providers to cope with the triple task of attracting, retaining, and integrating these immigrants. In addition, CIC has not granted official recognition to the Contact Interculturel Francophone de Sudbury (CIFS), an organization that has been providing services to Francophone newcomers and promoting the metissage of Franco-Ontarian culture. Instead, CIC has favoured a “bilingual” agency, the Sudbury Multicultural and Folks Arts Association (SMFAA). Franco-Ontarians have consistently opposed “bilingual” institutional arrangements, as they often result in unequal access to services. This chapter provides suggestions to overcome these difficulties.

Cultural policy in France’s overseas: permanence of colonial logics and the potential for creole resistance

Frances overseas territories have received greater political autonomy these past three decades. In the Arts sector, the centralised government as well as local governments have developed many cultural policies. Yet, a close examination, through postcolonial lenses, reveals that these policies are imbued with a colonial logic and that colonial patterns are being maintained. These policies hide and deny processes of creolisation that represent a potential for resistance and emancipation.

Review of "Mediating Memory in the Museum: Trauma, Empathy, Nostalgia," by Silke Arnold-de Simine

each pathwill uniquely lead. Using differentmeditative techniques, individuals that are led through these practices are seeking to reach an elevated state of understanding. The author begins to introduce art and spiritual art using imagery as a method of concentration to reach amore enlightened state. Art can also be used as an explanation of what an individual experiences, althoughmany say that there is noway to put intowords or any other form the experience that is achieved through this process. Lander discusses Schafer-Simmern’s work on art education, “Art making is neither ‘creative self expression,’ nor the mere application of ‘rational’ skills like craftsmanship, but involves a deep connection with intuitive thought process” (Lander 2014, p. 185). This explorative sensibility is a way to use spiritual practices within a classroom; allowing students to better know themselves will ultimately show up in their artwork. This work is a valuable resource for individuals looking to become more aware of spirituality and how it relates to contemporary art, while also providing a background for individuals looking for more information on the history of the chosen spiritual practices. This work presents a unique perspective on using something abstract and applies it in a very concrete manner. Although the cases that are made are relevant and worthwhile, there could be a stronger representation of art education and spirituality and how spirituality can specifically offer a unique sensibility towards art education.

War and peace in the Harry Potter series

The Harry Potter series functions as an allegory of 20th century world history and the war against Nazism. In this literary work, one finds several interrelated discourses on peace and violence, affect and emotions, as well as civilising and decivilising processes that mirror our ‘muggle’ real world. All of these themes constitute the foundation of Norbert Elias’s sociology. Therefore, this article develops an Eliasian interpretation of the thematic discourses of Harry Potter and defends the position that literary works can and should be taken seriously as sociological accounts. The first part deals with violence: How is violence alternately exercised and eschewed? Why do some people employ violence easily and delight in inflicting harm on others? The second part looks at discourses on peace and war and how they reflect discourses of good and evil: How does obtaining, maintaining or refusing power affect the totality of social relations? How are discourses of inclusion and exclusion related to conditions of war and conditions of peace?

Through the Looking Glass: Shrek in Perspective

This book began to lead a life of its own well before it appeared in print. The plan for the book was hatched one memorable evening in a basement where we had once again taken refuge from the harsh realities of a Northern Ontario winter. At one point, the conversation turned to our growing interest in the relationship between popular culture, power, identity, and social theory. Since two of us have small children who adore Shrek and had in consequence been exposed to repeated viewings of the original three movies in the franchise, the green ogre quite naturally became the focal point of our discussion. Idle musings at first, our reflections on the significance of Shrek soon led one of us to suggest that we seriously consider a book-length study on the subject.

Representing Political Regimes in the Shrek Trilogy

The trilogy Shrek has been among the most successful animated movies at the box office in the history of cinema. DreamWorks, the production company, decided to make the green ogre a worldwide cultural product, by designing hundreds of products related to the monster. The profits of the franchise are estimated at 1.4 billion dollars (“Interview,” 2007). Just the first movie, Shrek, made a total box office of 479.2 million dollars (Hopkins, 2004: p. 33). This fact could clearly lead to insights pertaining to the political economy of film. This chapter, however, will focus on the narratives of the movies. We are interested in these narratives (in our case visual representations) and their interplay with power politics, especially race and gender conflicts. Insofar as movies constitute partly social reality, how can we interpret these visual texts? Our contention is that popular culture, including children’s movies, constitutes and represents the social world. Therefore, proposing an interpretation of these movies as texts also offers an interpretation and a representation of the world. Children (and in our case adults also) are more than just socialized by movies; the films as texts directly affect their representation of the world and participate in the constitution of the social world. As the early writers on cultural studies, such as Hall (1997), showed, popular culture is a site of struggles between the hegemonic discourse and resistance to it.