Concordia University

Come hear from two leading African experts talk about the evolution of the City of Kigali since the 1994 Rwanda genocide. How is the city now?

This event brings together scholars and practitioners participating in “Centring Africa: Postcolonial Perspectives on Architecture,” a multidisciplinary research program led by the Canadian Centre for Architecture and funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Each researcher will offer a short proposition that will analyze and historicize the ways in which architecture manifests transformations in post-independence African countries. This series of propositions will discuss how such an African-led understanding of continuity and change can challenge the established methods and disciplinary conventions of architectural and urban studies.

Dr. Angela Mendelovici is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Western University. She works in philosophy of mind, specifically on intentionality, consciousness, and the relationship between the two.

This workshop will provide you with many inside details on parliamentary process and procedures. It will cover the structure of Parliament, how laws are made, and what potential reform could bring. Television might show you fiery exchanges from the most recent Question Period. But what really goes on in Parliament? And how might our legislatures work better? The Honourable Don Boudria comes as a seasoned politician with over 20 years of experience, ready to take you on an insightful journey that explains the workings of Canada’s federal legislature and the ways in which proposed reforms might help or hinder parliament as we know it today.

Social scientists are motivated to understand how various facets of society influence all sorts of behavior. Individual’s perceptions about their significance in a given community can have meaningful effects on the way in which we look to communities to develop and foster democratic values and promote civic engagement. In her workshop, Dr. Anderson will take participants through her interdisciplinary approach to studying communities and political behavior, blending the fields of community psychology, sociology, and political science. She will draw on her research into community identity, focusing specifically on how community comes to influence political behavior and engagement. She will discuss civic engagement from the perspective of being an informed consumer of information. We know from previous research that the context in which an individual interacts influences his/her political behaviors and attitudes. With this in mind, Dr. Anderson will explore the following: - how does sense of community influence political behavior and attitudes? And what impact—if any—does involvement in multiple contexts have on political behavior and attitudes? -how does the information environment influence political behavior specifically civic engagement?

The poor have long been consigned to a group of "included-out" citizens. They are legally living in a place, but they are not afforded the same courtesies, entrusted with the same responsibilities, or respected in parallel processes, as those citizens of greater means and those who behave in manners that are more consistent with "middle class" values. A common sentiment in discussions of poverty and social policy is that decisions made about those living in poverty or near-poverty are illegitimate, inadvisable, and non-responsive to the needs and interests of the poor if the poor themselves are not involved in the decision-making process. In this workshop, Dr. Bryer argues that active citizenship and poverty are indeed inextricably linked. How does poor or low quality public participation of the poor and non-poor contribute to ongoing subsistence poverty across our societies? How are the poor themselves restricted as full participants in democratic life? This workshop delves into these important questions and explores the linkages between engaged citizenship and poverty, drawing on examples from the United States, Canada, parts of Western and Eastern Europe, and South Africa.

Dr. Hanne Jacobs is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Graduate Program at Loyola University Chicago. She has published articles on topics in phenomenology such as personhood, attention, rationality, and phenomenological method. Her current research interest is in theories of knowledge that take our socio-historical embeddedness seriously. While Jacobs has mainly written on Husserl and post-Husserlian phenomenology, she also has an active research interest in moral psychology and social epistemology insofar as these intersect with critical race and feminist theory.

This two-day workshop features seven speakers and seven commentators on the intersection of virtue ethics and political philosophy, and notably on the issue of the relationship between the personal good and the common good.

Dr. Eric Marcus is Professor of Philosophy at Auburn University. His book Rational Causation was published by Harvard University Press in 2012. His second book is tentatively entitled Belief, Inference, and the Self-Conscious Mind.

Micro-phenomenology is a new scientific discipline enabling us to discover ordinary inaccessible dimensions of our lived experience and describe them accurately and reliably. The development of this "psychological microscope" opens vast fields of investigation in the educational, technological, clinical and therapeutic, as well as artistic and contemplative domains.

This workshop is designed to inform analysis and practice in relation to people who have experienced interpersonal and state violence. This approach has been helpful for counsellors, social workers, human service professionals, activists, researchers, legal and medical professionals and anyone supporting people who have been targeted by violence. Aimed towards anyone interested in helping others recover from violence, racism, prejudice and adversity through the reaffirmation of human dignity and creating positive social responses to those who have been harmed.