Sign up for our new University of Winnipeg field course:
The Manitoba Food History Truck!
2 weeks. 3 credit hours. No prerequisites.
Registration opens March 2019 — see https://www.uwinnipeg.ca/.
Author: Janis Thiessen
MA Fellowship
Manitoba Food History M.A. Fellowship
Manitoba Food History Project
My latest SSHRC-funded research project is the Manitoba Food History Project. I’m honoured that the Oral History Centre‘s Kimberley Moore and Kent Davies are collaborators on this research. The project’s two key research questions are:
“How has food been produced, sold, and consumed in Manitoba?”
and
“How has this changed over time?”
Interested in learning more? Check out the project’s website, manitobafoodhistory.ca, where you’ll find the Food History Truck, upcoming events, and The Pantry (which holds Story Maps and the project’s podcast series, Preserves).
Food and Oral History at the UW OHC
The Oral History Centre Classroom (2B23, Bryce Hall, University of Winnipeg) was transformed into a functioning kitchen over this summer, thanks to an Experiential Learning Fund grant.
Canadian Social History course, 2017-18
Kim’s Convenience: A Conversation with Ins Choi at the University of Winnipeg
If you love comedy and Canadian immigrant stories, you’ve probably been watching Kim’s Convenience. This great CBC series is based on the award-winning play of the same name by Ins Choi. The play’s script was published by House of Anansi Press; reading it doesn’t do justice to the play, though, as it really comes alive through the interpretation of actor Paul Sun-Hyung Lee, who dramatizes the lead character of Mr. Kim (aka Appa) in the play and now in the TV series.
In March 2014, when the play was being performed at Winnipeg’s Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre, Ins Choi spoke about his experience to a small audience at the University of Winnipeg.
Continue reading “Kim’s Convenience: A Conversation with Ins Choi at the University of Winnipeg”
Interviewees wanted: Descendants of the Winnipeg General Strike
Do you have a grandparent or other relative who was involved in the 1919 Winnipeg General Strike?
Did that person share stories with you about their experiences?
Consider commemorating their participation by sharing those stories in a recorded oral history interview.
Interviews so conducted will used in teaching and research, including publications. For further details (including potential benefits and risks), contact Janis Thiessen, History Department, University of Winnipeg, ja.thiessen@uwinnipeg.ca, 204-786-9947.
Scarborough Fare 2016
“Scarborough Fare: Global Foodways and Local Foods in a Transnational City” was the first joint conference of 3 major food studies organizations: the Association for the Study of Food and Society; the Agriculture, Food, and Human Values Society; the Canadian Association for Food Studies; and the Society for the Anthropology of Food and Nutrition.
The conference was held at the University of Toronto Scarborough, a fitting venue, given the presence of Culinaria on that campus. (I’ve been in awe of their “Mapping Scarborough Chinatown” digital project for some time now.)
Necessary Idealism: A History of Westgate Mennonite Collegiate
Manitoba Mennonites’ ethno-religious identity was transformed in the last half of the 20th century. As a school situated in the heart of the city, Westgate Mennonite Collegiate‘s history offers a unique means of exploring generational and class differences within the Mennonite community. Westgate has been a significant site of contested power and social integration: authorities (government officials, church leaders, and school administrators) struggled with others (parents, students, faculty and staff, church members, neighbourhood residents, and non-Mennonites) to (re)define Mennonitism for the post-Second World War generations.
Continue reading “Necessary Idealism: A History of Westgate Mennonite Collegiate”
Not Talking Union book launch
Hot off the press! Please join me for the launch of Not Talking Union: An Oral History of North American Mennonites and Labour.
The launch will take place at Winnipeg’s McNally Robinson on Wednesday, 18 May 2016 at 7 pm.
The book examines why the majority of North American Mennonites rejected labour unions in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.
