Transphobia. Satanic headlines.

Concordia faculty and researchers are regularly asked to offer expert, informed opinions on many of today's most pressing problems. Read some of the latest news items about Concordians:

• A review in Daily Extra of Mike Payette's English adaptation of the Michel Tremblay play Hosanna quotes Viviane Namaste, professor at the Simone de Beauvoir Institute, from her book Invisible Lives: The Erasure of Transsexual and Transgendered People. In the book, Namaste criticizes Hosanna for reinforcing a transphobic ideology.
• Cimminnee Holt, lecturer in the Department of Religion, is quoted in an article in the Montreal Gazette about a severed pig's head that had been left outside the offices of the union representing Montreal police officers. The head had been placed in the middle of an inverted pentagram, drawn in chalk. Holt is quoted as saying that the display was meant to shock and provoke and was not the work of serious Satanists. The Montreal Gazette article is reprised in The Star Phoenix and theLeader Post. Another story on the incident, appearing on CTV Montreal, features an on-camera interview with Vivek Venkatesh, associate professor of education and associate dean of Academic Programs and Development at the School of Graduate Studies. Venkatesh, described as an expert in symbology, appears at the 1:10 mark of the video file.

 More Expert Commentators