Concordia Journal Home > Archives > March 5, 2009 issue >

Accolades 

Professors in the Department of Religion have been distinguishing themselves around the world. Leslie Orr was co-director of a Dec. 2008 workshop in Paris at the Ecole française d'extreme-orient, “Éloges chola, sanskrits et tamouls: lectures d’éloges à la gloire du monarque chola Rajendra I (XIe siècle).”

Meanwhile, Michel Despland attended a peace conference at the Jamia Milia Islamia University where the Dalai Lama was the keynote speaker. Despland read a paper on religion and human rights. His book Bastide on Religion, where he analyses the works of a pioneer in acculturation studies, will soon be published by London’s Equinox Press.

Finally, Donald Boisvert has been contracted by Praeger Publishers to co-edit a special two-volume collection entitled Queer Religion. He organized and presented at a panel on Who's Afraid of Gay Theology? at the meeting of the American Academy of Religion in November. Boisvert continues to work on his SSHRC-funded project examining Catholic adolescent saints, with a book tentatively entitled Teenage Saints, Tamed Bodies: The Making of the Catholic Adolescent, 1900-1960.

Amie Wright (BA 08) just found out that an article drawn from her honours thesis, supervised by Nora Jaffary, won a prize as best graduate student essay at the Canadian Journal of History. Her essay, "'La Bebida Nacional': Pulque and Mexicanidad, 1920-46" will appear in the Spring/Summer 2009 issue of the publication.

David G. Mumby (Centre for Studies in Behavioural Neurobiology) was awarded “Top Reviewer 2007” by the Elsevier journal Behavioural Processes.

Electrical and Computer Engineering Professor Robert Paknys was interviewed on the Jan. 21, 6 p.m. CBC TV news report in reaction to concerns about higher-than-acceptable levels of electromagnetic radiation due to electric heating, everyday appliances etc. raised by the consumer protection magazine Protegez-Vous. “The only place in everyday life where an electromagnetic field could present a potential health hazard is near a defective and leaking microwave oven or near a television or radio station transmitter antennas,” he said.

Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies (MIGS) Director Frank Chalk was quoted in a recent article in La Presse on the current Cambodian trials. He says that the trials will serve to break the silence surrounding those traumatic events and, he hopes, open up a dialogue between different generations of Cambodians.

Alumnus Nino Ricci's novel The Origin of Species has been nominated for the 2009 Commonwealth Writers' Prize, in the Canada/Caribbean category. In Oct. 2008, the novel was nominated for the Governor-General’s prize. The novel is about a student in Montreal in the 1980s pondering relationships and the work of Charles Darwin. The four regional Commonwealth award winners will be announced on March 11, then will compete for the overall award.

The current issue of Today’s Parent quotes two Concordians as experts on parent education and raising children. Cited are Rosemary Reilly, Assistant Professor in the Department of Applied Human Sciences, and Domenica Pulcini, who obtained a certificate and a BA in the program in the 1990s.