Hi everyone,
Sharon’s post got me thinking in a bit of new direction. Leaving the issue of funding to the conference participants aside (for the moment), the points about
public history are well worth consideration. We do want to focus at the conference on the ways in which the strike is remembered and marked. When you combine this with an ongoing concern that’s been raised in meetings a few times – that we need a time and
a place to talk about the strike in general – I have a proposal:
What do people think about having this public history panel on the Wednesday night (combined with the reception). This will also allow us to put the strike front
and centre, to talk about what the strike was and its meanings, and so on. Remember that we are thinking of this as an open, public event, so it might gather a few people who would then stay for the conference. And it would help frame the conference in a
particular way.
I think it would have a different tenor than the second keynote idea (which was so readily dropped), and I’ve come to question (to myself) whether we want two
evenings of entertainment; I think Friday night suffices here whether we get Bragg or not (unfortunately this is still not resolved).
Comments?
Jim
James Naylor
Professor
Department of History
Brandon University
270 18th Street
Brandon, MB R7A 6A9
Canada
Office: 204 727 9664
Cell: 204 720 2117
From: 1919-conference-bounces@lists.umanitoba.ca <1919-conference-bounces@lists.umanitoba.ca>
On Behalf Of Sharon Reilly
Sent: Sunday, October 28, 2018 1:35 PM
To: 1919 conference organizing committee <1919-conference@lists.umanitoba.ca>
Subject: Re: [1919-Conference] WGSCC Meeting this Saturday!
Hello all,
Further to yesterday’s discussion, and before any decisions are made, I would like to add a few points regarding
my proposal that we offer to cover expenses for David Frank to attend the conference.
I see now that I did not fully understand the financial, and perhaps status, implications involved when we created
our three categories of conference speakers – the keynote, round table, and panelist speakers.
What we did was to create a hierarchy of participants. We are paying, and covering all expenses for our keynote
speakers; and we are covering most expenses of our roundtable speakers. We are not applying a ‘means’ test to these people, because their sessions are plenaries that we consider to be important, and we want these people to be there.
This implies that in providing a platform for our other speakers we are doing them a favour - rather than that
they doing us a favour by adding valuable content and analysis to our conference. This may hold true for young academics who are trying to advance their careers, but it’s not true of everyone.
This takes me the role we have assigned to public and popular history in the conference. Perhaps I should have
argued for a roundtable session on popular/public interpretations of the strike and its meaning today. Maybe we all should have thought about this. We have said that we want the conference to be meaningful to a broad audience and not just academics, but maybe
we could have done more to structure it that way.
Perhaps because, initially, we had trouble getting people interested in participating in the conference, we did
not really do much in the way of critically appraising the final content of the conference. We had last minute discussions about youth and workers with disabilities.
As David Camfield pointed out, we should be making decisions based on principles rather than personalities, and
think about all our presenters. I would suggest an alternate means test. In the case of the public history session, we can have our three local artists – Danny Schur, Noam Gonick, and Tom Monteyne – speak quite eloquently about their projects. I’m sure they
will all give interesting presentations. If we also want a respected labour historian who has also worked with the labour movement and published in the field of public history to add some analysis to this session, then we should ‘put our money where our mouths
are’ – as Janis’ mother might say!
Thank you for considering these points. All that said, I will accept whatever decision is made.
Best wishes,
Sharon
On Tue, Oct 23, 2018 at 4:29 PM James Naylor <Naylor@brandonu.ca> wrote:
Hi Everyone,
A reminder that the Winnipeg General Strike Centenary Conference Committee is meeting this Saturday, October 27, at 1:30 at 2B23, University of Winnipeg.
I think the main order of business is to develop a timeline to the Conference, think of the tasks that have to be undertaken, and ensure that they are covered by our current committees. Please let me know of any specific items that should be placed on the agenda.
Thanks,
Jim
James Naylor
Professor
Department of History
Brandon University
270 18th Street
Brandon, MB R7A 6A9
Canada
Office: 204 727 9664
Cell: 204 720 2117
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Sharon Reilly
48 Glen Avenue