Play fighting is very common in young children and research suggests there might even be benefits to play fighting for early child development. Even though play fighting resembles real fighting and its roughness is often perceived by adults as problematic, … Lire / Read
Love, Embittered: review of Louis A Pérez Jr.’s On Becoming Cuban: Identity, Nationality, and Culture
In On Becoming Cuban (1), Louis A. Pérez Jr. attempts to provide an encompassing account of the relationship between Cuba and North America and the resulting trends in the formation and development of Cuban national identity. Like many previous events, … Lire / Read
The Question of Aboriginal Harvesting in Canada’s National Parks
Aboriginal people have harvested throughout North America for thousands of years. National parks, which have long been places of refuge for stressed ecosystems, have normally prohibited such traditional practices. Concurrent developments in Aboriginal rights and ecological thinking have put pressure … Lire / Read
No Child’s Play: Omar Khadr’s Detention and Its Consequences
Omar Khadr’s detention at Guantanamo Bay raises a number of issues. Whether or not he is guilty of the charges he stands accused of, the circumstances and legality of his detainment shake the very foundations of justice that are allegedly … Lire / Read
Still Mad After All These Years
‘Mad,’ ‘Psychiatric Survivor,’ ‘Crazy,’ ‘Lunatic,’ and ‘Inmate’ are terms being (re)claimed by those who are a part of a human rights movement resisting ‘normal’ culture and reformulating what it means to be a person who has been labeled and treated … Lire / Read
Chemicals from a bottle: Bisphenol-A
Bisphenol-A (BPA) made headlines late in 2007 when Mountain Equipment Co-op (MEC) suspended sales of bottles made using the chemical. MEC cited growing consumer concern that BPA may leach from polycarbonate bottles (1). In the last six months retailers such … Lire / Read
Fictions of memory / Memories of fiction
Terrorism has ruined the fiction market, according to publishers. The book-buying public descends on titles like The Post-American World and Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, and fiction is cast once again as something pleasant and childish … Lire / Read
Hunting for Planets in the Starry Wild
How many planets are there in our solar system? This would be a relatively easy question, were we to forget the demotion of Pluto to minor planet status in 2006. What about the planets outside of our solar system? Could … Lire / Read
Imagining the Future
Stories have a role to play in environmental debates and problem-solving because they help to engage a wide range of voices and perspectives. Literary writing in particular provides a means of exploring the nuances and complexities of environmental issues. In … Lire / Read
Residential Schools in Canada: Is Justice and Reconciliation Possible?
The campaign to expose the hidden history of genocide in Canada opened a new front recently, when hereditary Squamish Chief Kiapilano ordered the churches that directed the horrific Indian residential schools off his territory, and his followers began a series … Lire / Read