Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) Fellows Alumni News

Welcome to news from Canadian Studies Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) Fellows of the Center. Our students have gone on to become experts in their fields and to contribute to a greater understanding of Canada in the United States. We hope you enjoy their stories.

 

December 2012
FLAS Fellow in Inuktitut (2005-2008) Edits New Book in Canadian Studies
Beyond the Border: Tensions across the Forty-ninth Parallel in the Great Plains and the Prairies is edited by Kyle Conway and Timothy Pasch. More ...

August 2012
Former FLAS Fellow Wins Award for New Book on Canadian History, Subverting Exclusion
Andrea Geiger's just-published book on Japanese-Canadian history was an outcome of her Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) Fellowship in Japanese from the Center. More ...

July 2012
Former FLAS Fellow Now an Educator of Québec Language & Culture
Cody Case (FLAS Fellow, French 2011), currently teaches at a charter school in Atlanta, Georgia where he is introducing children to Québec Studies. More …

July 2012
FLAS Fellow Reports from l’Université Laval
 Michael Hank, Public Affairs (Summer FLAS 2012) – whose research focuses on human security issues in Canada’s Arctic – spent the summer honing his language skills in Québec City. More …

February 2012
Tim Pasch (Inuktitut 2005-08)
The Government of Canada, through the Research and Academic Relations Office of the Canadian Embassy in Washington D.C., along with the Consulate General of Canada in Minneapolis, MN, has awarded the UND Program in Canadian, Quebec, and North American Francophone Studies a grant totaling CAD $16,000! Read more on page 5.

Canadian Studies Center, December Report, 2012
FLAS Fellow in Inuktitut (2005-2008) Edits New Book in Canadian Studies

Beyond the Border: Tensions across the Forty-ninth Parallel in the Great Plains and the Prairies is edited by Kyle Conway and Timothy Pasch. It is an interdisciplinary look at a neglected region of the Canada-US border. The idea that the American Great Plains and the Canadian Prairies are just "fly-over" country is a mistake. In the post-9/11 era, politicians and policy-makers are paying more attention to the region, especially where border enforcement is concerned. Beyond the Border provides interdisciplinary perspectives on the region's increasing importance.

Drawing inspiration from Habermas's observation that certain modern phenomena - from ecological degradation and organized crime to increased capital mobility - challenge a state's ability to retain sovereignty over a fixed geographical region, contributors to this book question the ontological status of the Canada-US border. They look at how entertainment media represents the border for their viewers, how Canada and the US enforce the line that separates the two countries, and how the border appears from the viewpoint of Native communities where it was imposed through their traditional lands. Under this scrutiny, the border ceases to appear as self-evident, its status more fragile than otherwise imagined.

At a time when the importance of border security is increasingly stressed and the Great Plains and Prairies are becoming more economically and politically prominent, Beyond the Border offers necessary context for understanding decisions by politicians and policy-makers along the forty-ninth parallel.

Contributors include Phil Bellfy (Michigan State University), Christopher Cwynar (University of Wisconsin), Brandon Dimmel (Western University), Zalfa Feghali (University of Nottingham), Joshua Miner (University of Iowa), Paul Moore (Ryerson University), Michelle Morris (University of Waterloo), Paul Sando (Minnesota State University Moorhead), and Serra Tinic (University of Alberta).

Kyle Conway is assistant professor of communication at the University of North Dakota and the author of Everyone Says No: Public Service Broadcasting and the Failure of Translation. 

Timothy Pasch is assistant professor of communication at the University of North Dakota. The title of Timothy's dissertation is, "Inuktitut Online in Nunavik: Mixed Methods Web-Based Strategies for the Preservation of Aboriginal and Minority Languages." Tim is in his fourth year of Inuktitut and has been awarded a FLAS fellowship for the Inuit language each year since 2005. He graduated with his PhD. in Communications in 2008. 

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FLAS Fellow Wins Awards for New Book, Subverting Exclusion

Geiger found this photo while conducting research in Canada. The cover photo depicts four Japanese coal miners in Cumberland, B.C., circa 1915. (Cumberland Museum and Archives, C140.66. Hayashi/Kitamura/Matsubuchi Studio.) 


Andrea Geiger's just-published book on Japanese-Canadian history was an outcome of her FLAS Fellowship in Japanese from the Center.

Andrea, Assistant Professor, History, Simon Fraser University, was able to conduct some of the research that led to Subverting Exclusion: Transpacific Encounters with Race, Caste, and Borders, 1885-1928 as part of her FLAS Fellowships (1999-2002). “The FLAS Fellowships I received through the Canadian Studies Program, played a big role in making it possible for me to fully develop the U.S.-Canada comparison that is a key element of the book.”

This year Andrea was awarded the Theodore Saloutos Memorial Award from the Immigration and Ethnic History Society for her book. “The Japanese immigrants who arrived in the North American West in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries included people with historical ties to Japan's outcaste communities. In the only English-language book on the subject, Andrea Geiger examines the history of these and other Japanese immigrants in the United States and Canada and their encounters with two separate cultures of exclusion, one based in caste and the other in race” (Yale University Press, retrieved from http://yalepress.yale.edu/book.asp?isbn=9780300169638). The prize committee described Subverting Exclusion as "a major contribution to the study of immigration and ethnic history." (Immigration and Ethnic History Newsletter, May 2012).

Funding for FLAS Fellowships is provided by a Center allocation from International and Foreign Language Education, U.S. Department of Education. Visit our FLAS page: http://jsis.washington.edu/canada/flas/

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Former FLAS Fellow Now an Educator of Québec Language & Culture

Cody’s French club, in Atlanta, marching and carrying Québec flags! (06/12)


Cody Case (FLAS Fellow, French 2011) discovered his love for French and francophone culture through Canada studies FLAS fellowships. The FLAS permitted him to conduct ethnomusicology research on popular music in Montréal, Québec. He is currently teaching French at a K-8 charter school – Dekalb Academy of Technology and Environment – in Atlanta, Georgia where he uses Québécois music and media to teach children French while introducing them to Québec culture.

Cody was a FLAS Fellow in French for the 2006-07 and 2007-08 academic years and for Summer 2007 and 2011. While a graduate student at the University of Washington, he developed a collection for the U.W. Libraries on hip-hop music in Québec – Québec Popular Music – and its connection to identity.

Funding for FLAS Fellowships is provided by a Center allocation from International and Foreign Language Education, U.S. Department of Education.

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FLAS Fellow Reports from l’Université Laval

Michael Hank is one of eight FLAS Fellows in Canadian Studies in 2012-13 all conducting research on Canada-focused topics.

by Michael Hank, Evans School of Public Affairs (FLAS Fellow, Summer 2012)

The University of Laval is considered one of the premier French immersion language schools in Canada. I can understand and completely agree with that statement from my own experience after just three weeks at the intensive Francais Langue Etrangere (FLE).

Time passes quickly here at University of Laval's intensive french program as each morning utilizes four hours of french grammar, vocabulary and language phonetics's each complete with its own specialized and experienced french professor. The afternoons are dedicated to at least two obligatory programs such as film discussions and french conversations. In my case I also have a private french tutor which provides me with an additional five hours per week of french conversation.

The school also offers social activities in the afternoons or evenings like dinners in Old Quebec, rafting and hiking at the Jacques Cartier National Parc, evening canoe trips and much more. These are to provide each student the maximum time and opportunity to have fun as well as learn and understand the culture and regional history of Quebec.

In all, it requires a complete sensory overload in order to acquire a foreign language like French. My FLAS scholarship allowed me to search and choose a program such as this one, and for myself, I am truly grateful to have been selected to attend the University of Laval and become immersed into such a dynamic french language program.

Funding for FLAS Fellowships is provided by a Center allocation from International and Foreign Language Education, U.S. Department of Education.

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