Dear friends of the UMIH,
As final exam season is going ahead and we look forward to the summer, the UMIH first gently reminds you that there is one week left until the deadline for applications, April 30th, for Research Clusters, Research Affiliates, and Graduate Fellows. Please visit our website, https://umanitoba.ca/arts/institute-humanities for instructions about how to apply.
In addition, the UMIH is glad to announce several presentations that is sponsoring within the framework of two conferences. First, the UMIH is one of the several co-sponsors of the Prairie Conference: Ukrainian Studies in Times of Global Transformations of the Humanities (April 30-May 3), organized by UM in partnership with Södertörn University (Stockholm, Sweden) and hosted by UM's Department of German and Slavic Studies. The finalized conference program will be circulated soon, but for now we want to draw your attention to two keynote addresses (see also attached posters):
-Dr. Svitlana Matviyenko (Simon Fraser University), ""Donetsk Chornobyl": Deep Time of the Elemental Warfare"
Thursday, April 30th, 7-8:30 pm (entry to the library will be available between 6:30 and 7:00 PM)
Archives & Special Collections, Room 330, Elizabeth Dafoe Library
Dr. Matviyenko is an Associate Professor of Critical Media Analysis in the School of Communication of Simon Fraser University. Her research and teaching, informed by science & technology studies and history of science, are focused on information and cyberwar, media and environment, critical infrastructure studies and postcolonial and decolonial theory. Matviyenko's current work on nuclear cultures & heritage investigates the practices of nuclear terror, weaponization of pollution and technogenic catastrophes during the Russian war in Ukraine. Matviyenko is a co-editor of two collections, The Imaginary App (MIT Press, 2014) and Lacan and the Posthuman (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018). She is a co-author of Cyberwar and Revolution: Digital Subterfuge in Global Capitalism (Minnesota UP, 2019).
-Dr. Niigaan Sinclair (University of Manitoba), "Ukrainian People Are My People: From Ukraine to Treaty One"
Saturday, May 2, 2026 , 2:30- 4 pm
Room 307, Tier Building
Dr. Sinclair is Anishinaabe from Peguis First Nation. He is an award-winning writer, editor and professor of Indigenous Studies at the University of Manitoba who was named by Maclean's magazine in 2022 as one of the most influential people in Canada. Niigaan is a multiple nominee of Canadian columnist of the year (winning in 2018) and his commentary appears weekly on multiple platforms across Canada. His first book Wînipêk: Visions of Canada from an Indigenous Centre (McClelland & Stewart, 2024) was a national bestseller that won the 2024 Governor General Award for Non-fiction
Second, the UMIH is sponsoring the plenary talk of the 2026 Conference of the Victorian Studies Association of Western Canada:
-Dr. Sarah Fee (Royal Ontario Museum), "Friendship, Commerce, and Cloth on the Edge of Empire: Ethiopia, Madagascar, Zanzibar"
Friday May 1, 9:30- 10:30am
8th Floor, Alt Hotel, 310 Donald St.
Dr. Fee is Senior Curator of Global Fashion & Textiles at the Royal Ontario Museum. She is the editor of Cloth that Changed the World: The Art and Fashion of Indian Chintz (2020, ROM-Yale University Press).
Jorge A. Nállim
Director, Institute for the Humanities
Acting Head and Professor, Department of History
405 Fletcher Argue Bldg.
University of Manitoba
Winnipeg, MB R3T 5V5
jorge.nallim(a)umanitoba.ca<mailto:jorge.nallim@umanitoba.ca>
https://umanitoba.ca/arts/jorge-nallim
Sanda McGee Deutsch and Jorge A. Nállim (eds.), Antifascism(s) in Latin America and the Caribbean: From the Margins to the Center (Cambridge University Press, 2025). For more information, visit our blog,
https://cambridgeblog.org/2025/08/antifascisms-in-latin-america-and-the-car…