York’s Faculty of Education will host its annual Forum on Research tomorrow, where three of the Faculty’s professors will discuss their current research endeavours and interests.
Professor Steve Alsop’s presentation, titled "Feeling the Weight of the World: Journeys from the Heart in Science and Technology Education", will explore the debate surrounding the mind versus body.
Right: Professor Steve Alsop
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Alsop’s recent work focuses on what it means to recover a sense of emotional attachment, compassion and care within the context of the laboratory.
"At the heart of such considerations is the hope of reclaiming a sense of ‘feeling the weight of the world’ and how, through education, teachers, researchers and students can learn from each other, stand together in solidarity, and act in search of justice, in search of personal, social and ecological change," Alsop says.
Alsop’s research interests cover three broad themes including science education and affect, teacher education, and science education for sustainability. He was awarded a Social Science & Humanities Research Council of Canada grant to explore the area of science education and affect.
Professor Mario Di Paolantonio’s talk, "Forging Commemorative Time and Spaces", will look at the practice of creating public, artistic memorials within societies dealing with a traumatic past. It is Di Paolantonio’s contention that commemorative dates and sites are developed and subsequently charged with significance.
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Left: Professor Mario Di Paolantonio
"Drawing on a recent visit to Argentina, my presentation will grapple with various artistic memorial practices that seek to publicly mark and give substance to that country’s unsettled past," he says. "At issue is a particular act of memory that attempts to recover public time and space from its ruination, asking after "who are we" and "who will we become".
Di Paolantonio received his PhD from the University of Toronto and his postdoctoral fellowship at the University of London, UK. He is currently working on a research project exploring the dynamics between art production and justice demands in societies reckoning with past state abuses. He is also an international research associate with the Unit for Global Justice at the University of London.
Professor Jen Gilbert’s lecture, "Fighting over the Children: Gayness and the Fantasy of Origins", delves into lesbian and gay politics and what is wanted and needed from "the child".
Right: Professor Jen Gilbert
"Drawing upon two recent court cases – Chamberlain v. Surrey School District and Nixon v. Vancouver Rape Crisis Centre – I explore how LGBTQ communities use the figure of the child as the ontological origin for adult identity," Gilbert says, "and how these uses bump up against and coalesce with more general and conservative uses of the figure of "the child" in education and politics."
Gilbert’s particular areas of interests include HIV/AIDS and sexuality education; theories of adolescent development; representations of youth in film and literature; and psychoanalytic theories of learning.
Hosted by Paul Axelrod, dean of the Faculty of Education, the forum’s presentations will be followed by a wine and cheese reception. Publications and research projects will also be on display. The forum will be held on Wednesday, Nov. 14, from 3 to 5pm, in the Senior Common Room, 021, Winters College.
For more information or to RSVP, contact Julia Lalande, research officer in the Faculty of Education, at jlalande@edu.yorku.ca.