The annual Avie Bennett Historica Lecture was held on September 28 with distinguished Professor of History and Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of Manitoba, Adele Perry. Professor Perry is also Director of the Centre for Human Rights Research, a graduate of York’s PhD program in history and a past president of the Canadian Historical Association.
Professor Perry’s lecture titled “A difficult history of the Hudson Bay Company” looked at how historians might examine Canada’s fur trade and its powerful corporate entities as a chapter in a global history of colonialism and dispossession.
“My intention was to map out some of the ways that historians might unsettle and sharpen our understandings of fur-trade colonialism, the particular mode of colonial economy and rule that dominated large parts of northern North America,” said Perry.
The Avie Bennett Historica Chair was established at York University in 2004 by the Historica Foundation of Canada, endowed by York Chancellor Emeritus Avie Bennett. Its purpose is to promote the study of Canada’s heritage and ensure the academic vitality of the discipline. Each year, an esteemed lecturer is invited to share their research with historians, students, faculty and the public.
