Viger Square redux. Parliament divided. Mireille Paquet. Blood moon. Syria Campaign. Niqab. Tanya Tree. Slide into despotism. Online blunders. Trans literature.

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:

• Clarence Epstein, senior director of urban and cultural affairs, was interviewed last Friday for CBC Montreal radio's "Homerun", about the City of Montreal's updated plans to redesign and renovate Viger Square.(No link available).
• Political science professor Guy Lachapelle offers his perspective in an article in Le Devoir about the prospect of an Italian-style parliament in Ottawa after the October 19 election.
• Celeb Café opens an article about the federal Liberal party's immigration policy platform with a quote from Mireille Paquet, assistant professor in the Department of Political Science. Paquet is quoted again in an article in the Bulletin Leader.
• Lorenzo DiTommaso, professor in the Department of Religion, is quoted in an article in Live Science, reprised by Yahoo! News,  MSN News and The Christian Science Monitor , about the "blood moon doomsday prophecy", related to last night's "supermoon" eclipse. The article embeds a link to a Live Science article published in May, 2011, in which DiTommaso is quoted about what he termed the "apocalyptic worldview".
• Kyle Matthews, senior deputy director of the Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies (MIGS), is quoted in an article in the Ottawa Citizen about the Syria Campaign, a citizens' peace initiative that is calling on Canada to lead the way toward the establishment of a no-fly zone over Syria, where that country's aerial bombing runs are blamed in the civilian deaths that are driving the Syrian refugee crisis. The article states that MIGS is a leading Canadian supporter of the Syria Campaign.
• CBC.ca, writing about the emergence of the wearing of the Muslim face-veil, the Niqab, as a critical issue in the ongoing federal election campaign, quotes Lynda Clarke, associate professor in and interim chair of the Department of Religion, about the extent to which the Niqab is worn in this country. The article, reprised byMSN News, includes a link to Clarke's 2013 study of the Niqab in Canada. 
• Matthew Hays, part-time instructor in the Department of Cinema and the Department of Communication Studies, writes in The Walrus about the legacy of documentary filmmaker Tanya Tree.
• Andras Göllner, professor emeritus in the Department of Political Science, writes a letter to the editor of theNational Post. It is Göllner's response to Bálint Ódor, Hungary's ambassador to Canada, who had taken exception to Göllner's earlier letter warning of what he had termed Hungary's "slow slide into despotism". The new Göllner letter is reprised by the Hungarian Free Press.
• CBC.ca quotes Fenwick McKelvey, assistant professor in the Department of Communication Studies, in an article about a satirical website, The True North Times, that has been compiling controversial social media messages that have been posted by certain federal election candidates. The article is reprised by Yahoo! News.
• Vivian Namaste, professor at the Simone de Beauvoir Institute,  is mentioned in an article in Pop Matters about the emergency of trans literature as a separate genre.

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