With the conclusion of the Living Archives project in 2015, this blog also wound up. Interested readers should head over to EugenicsArchives.ca to see what’s there. (You can also find the “Thinking in Action Series” entry there to link directly back into our very popular series of thirteen blog posts on talks from the Cognitive Disability Meets Moral Philosophy conference back in 2008, which make for great teaching tools!
Living Archives Website Outage
Living Archives Website Outage
In order to accommodate our newgenics game and because our current host is shutting down, we are moving the Living Archives Website to it’s final hosting place on Friday, March 6th.
The site will be unavailable for a few hours on Friday, and there may be intermittent outages over the next couple of days. In preparation for the move, please do not add or modify anything in a database starting today Wednesday, March 4th and ending on Friday, March 6th.
There will be no change to the URL, but we will be on a faster and more stable hosting platform – and we will be unveiling the newgenics game!
We will send out an email once the move is complete.
Thanks,
the Living Archive Tech Team
Thank you for your patience!
March 1st deadline REMINDER – Scope of Eugenics!
Deadline for submission is this Sunday March 1st! Don’t miss the opportunity to spend time with scholars and community advocates in the Rocky Mountains at the Banff Centre. May 22 – 25th, 2015!
Click here to view the poster as a pdf – Scope of Eugenics p
Scope of Eugenics – Call for Submission – extended until March 1, 2015
The Scope of Eugenics
Call for Submissions
Eugenics Archives (eugenicsarchive.ca) is pleased to announce a four-day workshop at the Banff Centre, May 22nd-25th, 2015, in Banff, Alberta. To acknowledge the significant contributions made by students to the Living Archives on Eugenics in Western Canada project over the past four years, we invite submissions from early career scholars—students and those within three years of completing their doctorates—from any discipline on topics related to eugenics and its contemporary significance.
Submissions should consist of a single document that includes a (i) summary abstract (<150 words), (ii) longer description (<750 words) outlining the presentation and explaining the relevance of the topic to eugenics, (iii) short biographical statement (<100 words), and (iv) CV. Possible topics include, but are in no way restricted to, the following :
Apologies to eugenics survivors Child welfare
Collective memory Human diversity
Nationalism Quality of life
Queer sexuality Roma peoples
Schizophrenia World Health Organization
Whiteness Particular Countries / Geographic Regions
The project director is happy to provide feedback to potential participants on these and other suggestions (e.g., on particular countries or regions of the world). Participants are expected to attend the whole workshop and to contribute a short article to eugenicsarchive.ca, ideally based on their presentation, within one month of the workshop. Articles accessible via the Encyc or Around the World modules at the site indicate the type of article we have in mind.
Accommodation and meals for all workshop participants will be covered by Eugenics Archives. Participants will also be notified upon acceptance if we are able to cover in full, or contribute to in part, additional travel expenses. The workshop will allow for substantial opportunities to enjoy the Banff surrounds and will encourage networking, mentoring, and informal discussion between junior scholars interested in eugenics and Eugenics Archives team members.
Scope of Eugenics Poster with Mountains
Deadline for submissions : February 15th, 2015 EXTENDED to March 1, 2015 Acceptances : March 15th, 2015
Questions and submissions to the project director, Professor Rob Wilson : scopeofeugenics@gmail.com
Website: https://scopeofeugenics.wordpress.com/
Hosted by the Living Archives on Eugenics in Western Canada 
One Thousand Women, One Thousand Stories: Nicola Fairbrother
Thanks to Nicola’s mum for this story about one of the moving forces behind the Living Archives on Eugenics project:
http://www.onethousandwomen.ca/nicola-caroline-fairbrother/
She leaves out that Nicola swears like a trooper and wields her cell phone like it is part of her body, but I guess most everyone already knows that.
Deadline: January 15th
ISHPSSB 2015: deadline for submissions JANUARY 15th, 2015.
The program co-chairs for ISH 2015 would like to remind LAE members and others interested in the philosophy, history, and social study of biology of the pending deadline for submissions for ISHPSSB 2015, which will be held in Montreal, July 5-10th.
Confirmed keynote speakers for the conference include Sandra Harding (gender, postcolonialism, and science) and Ford Doolittle (tree of life, microbial genome evolution). You can find the call for abstracts and further details here.
To date, we have accepted 40 organized sessions, and will continue to accept these on a daily basis over the coming weeks. We encourage those of you thinking of adding to this list or organized sessions with a proposal for either a standard formats or a diverse formats session to look to finalize those proposals by the deadline. You can check on the General Bulletin Board to see what sessions others are hoping to submit, as well as post there to solicit interest in a proposal of your own. Or just ask around, or ask us.
For those submitting individual papers and posters, please note that we will move to decisions regarding your submissions as soon as we can, once we schedule the organized sessions.
Please do not hesitate to ask any questions, or let us know if there are ways in which we can help you get your abstracts in by the deadline.
Mark Borrello
Rob Wilson
Program Co-Chairs
ISH 2015
ishpssb2015.submissions@gmail.com
APA awarded $600K for PIKSI
Congratulations to the American Philosophical Association, which has been awarded a $600,000 grant from the Mellon Foundation to support PIKSI and other undergraduate diversity projects. See the full announcement at the link below.
The Scope of Eugenics: Call for Submissions
Eugenics Archives (eugenicsarchive.ca) is pleased to announce a four-day workshop at the Banff Centre, May 22nd-25th, 2015, in Banff, Alberta. To acknowledge the significant contributions made by students to the Living Archives on Eugenics in Western Canada project over the past four years, we invite submissions from early career scholars—students and those within three years of completing their doctorates—from any discipline on topics related to eugenics and its contemporary significance.
Submissions should consist of a single document that includes a (i) summary abstract (<150 words), (ii) longer description (<750 words) outlining the presentation and explaining the relevance of the topic to eugenics, (iii) short biographical statement (<100 words), and (iv) CV. Possible topics include, but are in no way restricted to, the following :
Apologies to eugenics survivors / Child welfare /
Collective memory / Human diversity /
Nationalism / Quality of life /
Queer sexuality / Roma peoples /
Schizophrenia / World Health Organization /
Whiteness / Particular Countries / Geographic Regions
The project director is happy to provide feedback to potential participants on these and other suggestions (e.g., on particular countries or regions of the world). Participants are expected to attend the whole workshop and to contribute a short article to eugenicsarchive.ca, ideally based on their presentation, within one month of the workshop. Articles accessible via the Encyc or Around the World modules at the site indicate the type of article we have in mind.
Accommodation and meals for all workshop participants will be covered by Eugenics Archives. Participants will also be notified upon acceptance if we are able to cover in full, or contribute to in part, additional travel expenses. The workshop will allow for substantial opportunities to enjoy the Banff surrounds and will encourage networking, mentoring, and informal discussion between junior scholars interested in eugenics and Eugenics Archives team members.
Deadline for submissions : February 15th, 2015 Acceptances : March 15th, 2015
Questions and submissions to the project director, Professor Rob Wilson : scopeofeugenics@gmail.com
Less than half of Canadian adults with disabilities have jobs: StatsCan
Less than half of working-age Canadians with physical and mental disabilities have a job, a significantly lower percentage than the general population, according to Statistics Canada.
A data agency report released Wednesday coincides with International Day of Persons with Disabilities, a UN sanctioned day to raise awareness. The report covers data from 2011 and indicates 49 per cent of Canadians between ages 25 and 64 who said they have a disability could find employment. That compares with a 79 per cent employment rate among the general working-age population.
“Canadians with disabilities include those with a physical or mental disability related to seeing, hearing, mobility, flexibility, dexterity, pain, learning, development, psychological/mental disorders or memory,” the agency says.
About two million people across Canada self-identify in that category — about 11 per cent of Canada’s entire population for that age group. Out of those more than two million people, only about a million of them have some sort of job.
Within the group of individuals who consider themselves to have some sort of disability, the agency divides disabilities into four categories, with these job rates:
Mild disability — 68 per cent employment rate.
Moderate disability — 54 per cent.
Severe disability — 42 per cent.
Very severe — 26 per cent.
Generally speaking, the more severe the disability, the less likely an individual will get work.
Diane Bergeron is the national director for government relations and advocacy with the CNIB. She says the main problem that people with vision issues face in terms of employability isn’t a lack of skills — it’s a perception and an assumption that they can’t do the job, or that the workplace will have to accommodate them in some onerous way.
“People think ‘if I was to close my eyes, I couldn’t do any of the work I do, like use the computer or read files’ [so they assume a blind person can’t either],” she said in an interview. “But what they don’t think about is there are talking computers — technology has opened up the world to have us participate.”
According to the Statistics Canada report, having a university degree seems to increase the odds of finding employment, for both Canadians with disabilities and without.
Education pays off
Employment rates for university graduates with mild, moderate and severe disabilities weren’t that far off from the rate for those without any disability — the rates for all the categories ranged between 77 and 83 per cent.
But the employment rate of university graduates with a very severe disability was lower, at 59 per cent.
A bias against disabled people with the appropriate level of education is a big problem, Bergeron says, because people with vision issues often face disproportionate difficulties in getting a job, even after they’ve gone out and obtained the necessary level of education.
“Employers always tell me that their ideal employee has skills like strategic thinking, problem solving, drive and passion,” she says. Those are the types of skills that blind people have in abundance, as they need to use them to do countless daily tasked that sighted people — the “retinally dependent,” she quips — aren’t even aware of, such as getting into work in the first place.
“All the skills you want in an employee are abundant in an employee who you have decided isn’t ideal,” Bergeron says.
Statistics Canada’s numbers show education is clearly a factor in employability across all groups, and the numbers suggest that’s especially true for Canadians with disabilities.
Among those with a severe or very severe disability and less than a high school diploma, the employment rate was only 20 per cent. That compares to a 65 per cent employment rate for the population at large of Canadians who didn’t finish high school.
Perhaps most troublingly, people with disabilities often earn far less than other Canadians without a disability — even when doing similar work.
Men with disabilities and who have university degrees and full-year, full-time work earned an average of $69,200 in 2011, compared to $92,700 for men with no disability.
The numbers showed the same trend for women, although the gap was smaller.
Among women university graduates working full time, employment income for those with disabilities averaged $64,500, compared with $68,000 for those without a disability.
It’s a story that Bergeron hears often — the right person for the job is passed over because society has decided they might be “disruptive” to the workplace and not worth the cost of accommodating.
“That’s the perception,” Bergeron says, “that they wouldn’t have the skills.”
R.I.P., Stella Young
Damaged Merchandise Myth in the 21st Century
According to Southern California Public Radio (KPCC 89.3FM), Dr. Stan Katz, acting as an expert witness for the Los Angeles Unified School District in a 2013 trial to determine the amount of damages due to a student who had been repeatedly sexually assaulted, suggested that the victim’s low IQ “acts as a protective factor.” The logic being that because of her disability, victim who was 9 years old when assaulted should receive less compensation.
The attorney for the girl who was assaulted, David Ring, said that the jury was offended by the “protective factor” comment and responded by awarding the victim $1.4 million in damages instead of the $10,000 – $12,500 that the district had requested. The news account also indicates that other experts repudiated the “protective factor” argument. Continue reading
Forced Sterilization of Romani Women
“I decided to come out with my story so that it doesn’t happen to other women, to our children, to our grandchildren. So that they never find themselves in the situation I am in today.”
Elena Gorolova, victim of forced sterilization, interview for Romedia’s I’m a Roma Woman campaign
Between 1971 and 1991 in Czechoslovakia, now Czech Republic and Slovakia, the “reduction of the Roma population” through surgical sterilization, performed without the knowledge of the women themselves, was a widespread governmental practice. The sterilization would be performed on Romani women without their knowledge during Caesarean sections or abortions. Some of the victims claim that they were made to sign documents without understanding their content. By signing these documents, they involuntarily authorized the hospital to sterilize them. In exchange, they sometimes were offered financial compensation or material benefits like furniture from Social Services – though it was not explicitly stated what this compensation was for. The justification for sterilization practices according to the stakeholders was “high, unhealthy” reproduction.
They sterilized thousands of Roma women in this way. The Czech ombudsman estimated that more than 90,000 women from former Czechoslovakia became infertile as a consequence of such interventions. If the evidence for such treatments performed in the past is not alarming enough, there seems to be proof that this practice was not only common during the Communist era: there are women reporting the same crime in post-Communist times as well, even after Czechoslovakia split into Czech Republic and Slovakia. In what is today Slovakia, 1000 Roma women and girls were sterilized annually in the 1980s. Unfortunately, the practice of forced sterilization in this region of Europe seems to persist to some extent, with cases emerging in other countries as well.
The European Roma Rights Centre pointed at two cases of Romani women who were sterilized in Hungary without their consent. One of them relates back to 2001, when a young woman, A.S. accused a hospital for sterilizing her without her knowledge. Following eight years of intensive lobbying, with several organizations started pressuring the government, in 2009 the Hungarian state compensated A.S. The court acknowledged that the surgery was performed without her knowledge, but it also claimed that the surgery did not harm A.S.’s reproductive capacity as the sterilization was purportedly “reversible”. The second case taken up by ERRC is still in process, as it was rejected in the first instance by the Hungarian Court.[1]
The victims of forced sterilization have begun to speak out against these crimes by creating a movement to stop forced sterilization and bring justice to the victims in the Czech Republic as well. Czech Romani activist Elena Gorolova was one of those who started the movement by founding Group of Women Harmed by Forced Sterilization. She is a victim too, sterilized while having her second child in 1990. Mrs Gorolova, like many other Romani women, was not able to file a civil lawsuit because the deadline for seeking legal action had already expired. Nevertheless, she tried to pursue legal justice with other women, moving her case from the local to the national and international level. They organized demonstrations, such as the one in Ostrava in front of the hospital infamous for sterilizing Romani women in large numbers. Elena is one of the eighty-seven women who sent their complaints to the Czech ombudsman, reporting forced sterilization. In December 2005, in his final statement on the issue, the ombudsman declared that sterilizations performed on Romani women are illegal.[2]
The story of Elena and the others is not the first policy of compulsory sterilization in history. The first was documented in the US in the beginning of the 20th century. African-American women were sterilized against their will, many of them without their knowledge, while they were in a hospital for other reasons or sometimes even while serving a prison sentence. More than 65,000 individuals were sterilized in 33 states in the framework of compulsory sterilization programs. This US policy was followed by several other countries, including Canada, Russia and Germany, that approved compulsory sterilization as a governmental practice.
In the case of the Czech Republic and Slovakia, many lawsuits ended with the victory of the victims of sterilization. However, most of the pursuers kept their identity secret or the outcome of the case was not made public for other reasons. Elena Ferencikova was the first Roma women to sue the Czech Health Authority in 2005 for the damages she suffered when they sterilized her at the age of only nineteen.[3] The court didn’t decide on financial compensation but the hospital where they performed the intervention apologized for sterilizing Elena without her agreement, damaging her future and her harming her status in her community. At the time of the intervention, she was a young bride, with the dream of having a big family.
Until the most recent past, over 87 Romani women filed an official complaint against the Czech health authority The first action on the government’s behalf was an apology in 2009 during a press conference, followed by the report from the Czech Ombudsman about the illegality of the practice in 2005.[4]
Among the individual cases which ended in favor of the victims is that of Iveta Červeňáková who sued the Czech Republic for sterilizing her about fourteen years ago. Her case was in front of the Ostrava Regional Court for one million Czech crowns compensation, since she never requested the surgery. After losing the case, the hospital appealed to the High Court in Olomouc, claiming that her right for financial compensation expired and she can only win an apology. But their statement was not accepted and the Czech Supreme Court decided that Ms Červeňáková still has the right for financial compensation. The case was concluded with an out of court settlement between the hospital and the victim. The details are confidential between the two parties. [5]
The above case seems to be rather typical: the content of out of court settlements is not made public and the reason that women gained mere apologies from the hospitals is usually due to an allegedly expired right for financial compensation. On the other hand, there are cases whose outcome was made public, like one from 2012: the court made the decision that the government was at fault and the woman in question should receive a compensation of EUR 10,000.[6]
Looking at several cases of forced sterilization, a serious infringement of human rights is what should be emphasized, as reflected also by the recommendations from the NGOs’ side, the ERRC and the Czech Government Human Rights Commissioner Monika Šimůnková, who all stress the need for developing a compensation mechanism for all victims of sterilization. A well-functioning mechanism is needed since not all victims are literate enough, have the financial sources, or the knowledge to ask for justice in court. Majority of Czech ministers agreed and a mechanism should be developed by the end of 2013, as part of the already existing legal framework. However, there is a concern that many of the affected women will still be excluded from the opportunity to gain justice.[7]
To add a personal perspective on the issues at stake, I see many reasons justify the need for the government to develop a compensation mechanism. For instance, trends show they are losing cases on the international level. Developing such a mechanism would mean that the cases would remain on the local or national level. Another reason could be financial: whatever compensation mechanism the government develops, the amount of compensation is not equivalent to the cases decided by the European Court of Human Rights. The third reason could be that authorities are trying to escape the negative backlash caused by not assuming responsibility and not criminalizing this governmental practice. In conclusion, the development of a compensation mechanism could keep “embarrassing” cases from reaching international publicity, which could lead to public ignorance if no one realizes how many actual victims there are and in what circumstances these crimes happened.
Of course, one could also argue that after years of injustice affecting hundreds of women, the fact that some women will receive justice might pave the way for others. Still, the question must be asked: is this enough? Is compensation enough? I am concerned that whatever compensation they eventually receive, the truly important development would be if governments themselves are seriously pushed to criminalize forced sterilization: only this could prevent these horrible stories from repeating themselves.
While human rights can be violated by individuals or by institutions, they can only be defended by institutions. The European Court of Human Rights does not deal with single individuals who have committed crimes. Rather, it focuses on why the government in question could not take action against what happened. But where are the doctors, politicians and all the people who personally contributed to or carried out such surgeries, and when they are going to take responsibility for their actions? In order to take action against this human rights violation, blaming the Communist regime is not enough. The practice continues today and forcibly sterilized Romani women are still a long way from receiving true justice.
Written by: Galya Stoyanova, Romani intern at Romedia Foundation
[1] Albert, Gwendolyn. “Forced Sterilization and Romani Women’s Resistance in Central Europe.” Forced Sterilization and Romani Women’s Resistance in Central Europe. N.p., 2011. <http://popdev.hampshire.edu/sites/popdev/files/uploads/u1149/DT_71_Albert.pdf>.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Holt, Ed. Roma women reveal that forced sterilization remains. N.p., 12 Mar. 2005. Web. <http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(05)71063-1/fulltext>.
[4] Decade of Roma Inclusion . Czech Prime Minister Apologizes to Victims of Coercive Sterilization. N.p., n.d. Web. 1 Feb. 2013. <http://www.romadecade.org/czech_prime_minister_apologizes_to_victims_of_coercive_sterilization>.
[5] Stop Torture in Healthcare. <http://www.stoptortureinhealthcare.org/news-and-resources/forced-sterilization/czech-hospital-pays-romani-woman-forcibly-sterilized-14-year>
[6] ROMEA. Czech Gov. compensates another woman over illegal sterilization. N.p., 11 Dec. 2012. Web. 1 Feb. 2013. <http://www.romea.cz/en/news/czech/czech-govt-compensates-another-woman-over-illegal-sterilization#>.
[7] Open Society Foundations. Against her will – Forced and coerced sterilization of women worldwide.
<http://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/sites/default/files/against-her-will-20111003.pdf>
India sterilization program leaves 12 women dead
83 surgeries conducted within 6 hours, says state chief medical officer Dr. S.K. Mandal
At least 12 Indian women are dead and 20 others seriously ill Wednesday after undergoing free sterilization operations, highlighting the risks women face in reproductive health in a country struggling with high population growth and widespread poverty.
A total of 83 women, all villagers under the age of 32, had the operations Saturday as part of the free sterilization campaign and were sent home that evening. But dozens later became ill and were rushed in ambulances to private hospitals in Bilaspur, a city in central Chhattisgarh state.
By Wednesday morning, at least 12 women had died, District Magistrate Siddharth Komal Pardeshi told Press Trust of India.
The apparent cause of death was either blood poisoning or hemorrhagic shock, which occurs when a person has lost too much blood, state deputy health director Amar Singh said, though the preliminary results from autopsies were expected to be released Wednesday.
About 20 others were in critical care, and the central government was rushing a team of doctors to Bilaspur to help with their treatment.
“Their condition is very serious. Blood pressure is low,” said Dr. Ramesh Murty at CIMS hospital, one of the facilities where the sick women were taken. “We are now concentrating on treating them, not on what caused this.”
India’s government — long concerned about pervasive poverty among its rapidly growing 1.3 billion population— performs millions of free sterilizations to both women and men who want to avoid the risk and cost of having a baby. The vast majority of patients, however, are poor women — paid a one-time incentive fee to undergo the surgery of about $10-$20 US, or the equivalent of about a week’s pay for a poor person in India. About 180 million people in the country still live on less than $1.25 a day.
India has one of the world’s highest rates of sterilization among women, with about 37 per cent undergoing such operations compared with 29 per cent in China, according to 2006 statistics reported by the United Nations. During 2011-12, the government said 4.6 million Indian women were sterilized.
Incentive payments, sterilization quotas criticized
Activists blame the incentive payments, as well as sterilization quotas set by the government, for leading health authorities to pressure patients into surgery rather than advising them on other forms of contraception.
“These women have become victims because of the target-based approach to population control,” said Brinda Karat of the All India Democratic Women’s Association, who has demanded that the state’s health minister resign.
India has one of the world’s worst records on maternal health care, with 200 women dying during pregnancy or childbirth for every 100,000 patients, compared with China’s 37 deaths for every 100,000 women who give birth. Its infant mortality rate — 63 of every 1,000 newborns die — also makes it one of the worst places on Earth to be born. By comparison, China records about 15 infant deaths for every 1,000 births.
The women who underwent surgery on Saturday were each paid about $10, and all 83 surgeries were performed within six hours, the state’s chief medical officer, Dr. S.K. Mandal, told the Associated Press by telephone.
“That is not usual,” he said, but declined to comment further until the autopsies had determined exactly what went wrong.
The state suspended four government doctors, including the surgeon who oversaw the operations and the district’s chief medical officer.
“It appears the incident occurred due to negligence” by doctors, Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh said, before urging patience for the autopsy results. He also said the victims’ families would each receive a compensation payment of about $6,600.
Vasectomies rare in India
Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in Myanmar, where he was on an official visit, that he had spoken with Singh and urged a thorough investigation.
Meanwhile, the state’s surgeons held an emergency meeting Tuesday night to discuss whether to continue with the state’s sterilization schedule, with a target of 180,000 for the year ending in March set by the central government, Mandal said. They also were discussing surgery practices and guidelines, he said.
The World Health Organization advises that a patient be monitored for 48 hours after undergoing laparoscopic, or “keyhole,” sterilization surgeries like those conducted in Bilaspur. The procedure is one of the most commonly performed, minimally invasive surgeries, and is usually done under local anasthetic.
A spokeswoman for the federal Health Ministry declined to confirm whether the central government was setting sterilization quotas. India’s central government had said it stopped setting targets for sterilizing women in the 1990s.
India was one of the first countries to introduce family planning as a government program in the 1960s, when the country’s population was less than half what it is today at about 450 million. But outrage erupted in the 1970s after Prime Minister Indira Gandhi imposed a policy of forcibly sterilizing men who had already fathered two children. Opponents at the time said the program also targeted unmarried and poor men, with doctors given bonuses for operating on low-income patients. Since then, vasectomies have been relatively unpopular in India, with only about 1 per cent of men opting for the procedure.
© The Associated Press, 2014The Canadian Press
Alberta Primetime: TONIGHT!
Leilani Muir & Rob Wilson will be on CTV 2 in Edmonton on Wednesday night at 6pm and 11pm MST talking with Shawna Randolph about Leilani’s book *A Whisper Past: Childless in Alberta after Eugenic Sterilization* & about the launch of the Eugenics Archives (eugenicsarchive.ca) multimedia site. Check out http://albertaprimetime.com/ and answer their question there: In your words, why is it so important to remember Alberta’s eugenics policy?
Living Archives Interactive Website World Wide Release
The Living Archives on Eugenics in Western Canada has launched the ‘long awaited’ website on Friday Oct 24, 2014. You can explore the website now by typing in this URL: http://eugenicsarchive.ca/
BIG thanks to the technical team, Natasha Nunn (Tech team lead), Ben McMahen, and Colette Leung! Numerous Living Archives team members have contributed to the content.
In the weeks to come the site will be filled with more content as articles are still being returned from reviews and a few section are stil be worked on.
Please share the website and watch for new additions to come!
When Racism was a Science
Alberta Eugenics Awareness Week (AEAW) 2014 ~ Oct 17 – Oct 26, 2014
This year, the final AEAW, the calendar of events includes 14 opportunities to participate – Join us!
Alberta Eugenics Awareness Week (AEAW) 2014 ~ Oct 17 – Oct 26, 2014
Friday Oct 17 – Team Meeting, Living Archives on Eugenics in Western Canada. 2-02A Assiniboia Hall (9:00 am – 11:30 am) then continues from 2:30 pm – 4:30 pm.
Friday Oct 17 – Persons’ Day Panel: Eugenic Survivors Share their Stories. Panelists: Leilani Muir, Judy Lytton, Glenn Sinclair. Noon – 1:00 pm. Henderson Hall, Rutherford South. Free & Wheelchair accessible.
Friday Oct 17 – Disintegration by CRIPSiE (Colloboravtive Radically Integrated Performers Society in Edmonton) performances by people with disabilities at PCL Theatre 10330 – 84 Ave, tickets at the door ($15 or what you can pay) 8:00 pm
Saturday Oct 18 – Team Meeting, Living Archives on Eugenics in Western Canada, 2-02A Assiniboia Hall (9:00 am – 2:00 pm). Lunch provided RSVP to moyra@ualberta.ca by Noon Oct 15.
Saturday Oct 18 – Disintegration by CRIPSiE (Colloboravtive Radically Integrated Performers Society in Edmonton) performances by people with disabilities at PCL Theatre 10330 – 84 Ave, tickets at the door ($15 or what you can pay) 8:00 pm
Monday Oct 20 – Surviving Eugenics in the 21st Century: Our Stories Told. Daytime showing for students and those who can not attend the evening. (doors at 11:15 am/film at 12:00 pm ) followed by a short discussion by people featured in the film. Metro Cinema at the Garneau, 8712 – 109 Street NW, Edmonton. Trailer: http://youtu.be/ysys-1bQQ9g; closed captioned. ASL interpretation available – contact Moyra; wheelchair access through the alley entrance. FREE!
Monday Oct 20 – Surviving Eugenics in the 21st Century: Our Stories Told Evening Show, with Q&A and a reception, (doors at 6:15 pm/film at 7 pm) Metro Cinema at the Garneau, 8712 – 109 Street NW, Edmonton. Trailer: http://youtu.be/ysys-1bQQ9g; closed captioned. ASL interpretation available – contact Moyra; wheelchair access through the alley entrance. FREE!
Tuesday Oct 21 – Across Communities Together (ACT) 2014: A Workshop for Connections & Change (9:00 am – 4:00 pm) By invitation. Co-sponsored with the Self Advocacy Federation (SAF).
Wednesday Oct 22 – Rob Wilson, The Role of Oral History in Surviving a Eugenic Past (12:00 pm – 1:00 pm) Tory Breezeway 2, Co-sponsored with the Department of History & Classics, University of Alberta. Free & Accessible.
Thursday Oct 23 – Colloquium, Eugenics and Philosophy, Panelists: Rob Wilson, University of Alberta, Josh St. Pierre, University of Alberta, (3:30 pm – 5:00 pm) 2-02A Assiniboia Hall. Free & Accessible.
Friday Oct 24 – Living Archives Interactive Website Release, 331 CAB (12:00 pm– 1:00 pm). Technical Team Lead Natasha Nunn along with Ben McMahon, Colette Leung, and Rob Wilson will demonstrate the website features and highlight the interactive aspects of the website. Participants can follow along and explore the site at computers throughout the demonstration. Free & Accessible.
Friday Oct 24 – Difference & Diversity: An Evening of Performances, featuring local artists, and performers. Education North 4-104. Doors at6:30 pm, performances at 7:00 pm. Free & Accessible. ASL interpretation available – contact Moyra.
Saturday Oct 25 – Sins Invalid, a film. Witness a performance project that incubates & celebrates artists with disabilities. CCIS 1 140 (Doors at 2:30, film at 3:00 pm) followed by a Q&A with Patty Berne via Skype. Co-sponsored with the John Dossetor Health Ethics Centre. Free & Wheelchair accessible, ASL Interpretation available – contact Moyra
Sunday Oct 26 – Writing the Wrongs: Alberta Authors Tell Our Eugenic Story – Three local writers: Leilani Muir, A Whisper Past (non-fiction); Theresa Shea, The Unfinished Child (fiction); David Cheoros, The Invisible Child (drama). Readings and reception (1:00 pm – 3:30 pm) Location TBA – contact Moyra. Free & Accessible.
ASL Interpretation can be arranged for any event by contacting moyra@ualberta.ca (780-248-1211) prior to the event.
Events are OPEN TO THE PUBLIC!
Introducing the “Did I Stutter?” blog
Earlier this year, Josh St. Pierre and Zach Richter started the very cool website and blog “Did I Stutter?”. For and about people who stutter, and run by two savvy PWSs, the blog should get some attention from those reading Living Archives / What sorts posts. With the most recent post, “Eugenics and the Cure for Stuttering”, Josh makes some of the connections here more overt:
Being from Alberta and knowing about our shameful eugenic history colours the search for a stuttering cure for me. As well intentioned as it may seem, a “cure” for stuttering cannot be separated from the idea and practise of eugenics that assumes the world would be a better place without disability, without us. We already screen for Down Syndrome since we have decided some lives are more valuable than others. In 20 years might we screen foetuses for stuttering?
You can read the whole post here .
Out from Under: Now a New Home
Great news that the awesome exhibit, Out From Under, will now be a permanent feature of the New Canadian Museum for Human Rights. I visited the exhibit with the curators in 2008 at the ROM in Toronto, and it was a great experience. Congratulations, Catherine, Melanie, and Kathryn.
Professor Erika Dyck to be awarded – THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA WELCOMES THE INAUGURAL COHORT OF “THE COLLEGE”
The RSC has named the inaugural 91 members of The College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists. Those named to the College have been nominated by 51 Canadian universities and the National Research Council, and they represent the emerging generation of scholarly, scientific and artistic leadership in Canada.
Together, the members of the College will address issues of particular concern to new scholars, artists and scientists, for the advancement of understanding and the benefit of society, taking advantage of the interdisciplinary approaches fostered by the establishment of the College.
“This is an important moment in the history of the Royal Society of Canada,” said RSC President Graham Bell. “The College is Canada’s first national system of multidisciplinary recognition for the emerging generation of leaders.” Dr. Bell added, “Together, the members of the College will be in a position to provide guidance on issues of importance to Canadians, and to promote Canadian achievements in the arts, humanities and sciences around the world.”
The Presentation for this first cohort will take place on Friday, November 21 at Fairmont Le Château Frontenac in Quebec City, with a banquet to follow. These landmark events are proudly supported by Concordia University. To register for these events, please visit the Society’s website at http://www.rsc-src.ca
A complete list of the inaugural cohort of the College and their nomination citations is available here
Congratulations to Dr. Erika Dyck, the newest inaugural member of The Royal Society of Canada!
DYCK, Erika – Department of History, University of Saskatchewan
Erika Dyck (CRC) has earned a reputation as one of the world’s most active and thorough scholars studying the history of medicine. Her research has exposed many controversial medical research trends, particularly relating to eugenics and the use of psychedelic drugs in psychiatry. Several renowned scholars have described Dr. Dyck’s work as ground-breaking, and her research has given a voice to many marginalized communities that have been historically suppressed.
Living Archives on Eugenics Blog 
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