Arts Celebration of Research

2015 Celebration of Research

Improvisation, Speculation
Tuesday, April 21, 2015

Timms Centre for the Arts
3:30 p.m. Program
4:30 p.m. Reception

This year's event will feature fast-paced, three minute presentations from some of the most exciting researchers in the Faculty of Arts. We’ve asked them to consider how research in the social sciences, humanities and fine arts responds to a changing world, and how our best minds look to the future to reveal both opportunity and risk.

The presentations will be followed by an improvisational performance of “Cap It!” by Professor of Music Scott Smallwood.

Come discover with us, through chance and design, what makes our work invaluable to the present day, and to the next moment.

List of this years presenters

"Anticipation in a world of becoming"

Mark Nuttall is Professor and Henry Marshall Tory Chair in the Department of Anthropology. Among his current projects, he is co-PI of the EU-funded ICE-ARC (Ice, Climate and Economics--the Arctic Region in Change). His latest book is The Scramble for the Poles, co-authored with Klaus Dodds and to be published by Polity later this year.

Temitope Oriola
"#Bringbackourgirls: Boko Haram's fatua on Nigeria"

Temitope Oriola is Assistant Professor (criminology and socio-legal studies) in the Department of Sociology. A recipient of the Governor General of Canada Academic Gold Medal, Oriola’s works appear in leading journals such as Sociology, the British Journal of Criminology, Critical Studies on Terrorism, and African Security, among others. He is author of Criminal Resistance? The Politics of Kidnapping Oil Workers.

Yasmeen Abu-Laban
"Encounters with the Duck-Rabbit and the Role of Improvisation and Speculation"

Yasmeen Abu-Laban is Professor in the Department of Political Science. She has published widely on issues relating to the Canadian and comparative dimensions of gender and racialization processes, border and migration policies and surveillance, as well as citizenship theory. Her current research includes a SSHRC-funded project dealing with the United Nations and World Conferences Against Racism, a book project on human rights in Canada supported by a McCalla professorship, as well as a book project addressing Canadian immigration policy trends since 2000.

Chloë Taylor
"Furry Food: Ethico-ontological speculations on what we eat"

Chloë Taylor is Assistant Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies and Philosophy. She has a PhD in Philosophy from the University of Toronto and was a Tomlinson postdoctoral fellow in Philosophy at McGill University. Her research interests include 20th century French philosophy, philosophy of sexuality, feminist philosophy and animal ethics.

Juhani Järvikivi
"Who wants to hear a fairytale in the evening?"

Juhani Järvikivi is an Associate Professor of Linguistics, Director of the Centre for Comparative Psycholinguistics and the founding Director of STEP Spring Training in Experimental Psycholinguistics. His research examines the influence of linguistic and non-linguistic context on real-time language processing, especially how these influence the development of children’s language comprehension.

Maureen Engel
"Visualizing Homelessness"

Maureen Engel is Assistant Professor of Humanities Computing, Director of the Canadian Institute for Research Computing in Arts (CIRCA) and co-investigator on the Edmonton Pipelines | Narrating Digital Urbanisms project -- a collaborative research cell that aims to technologically intervene in our notions of what urban space is, and how we constitute and are constituted by it. Her background is in cultural studies, queer theory and feminist theory.

Jan Selman
"Improvisation, Speculation: Democratizing the Room with Participatory Theatre"

Jan Selman’s creation and research focus is using theatre to animate community issues. Projects include Old Stories in New Ways, which adapts traditional resonant stories for contemporary times; Story House by Tanzanian-Canadian writer/performer Tololwa Mollel; and Are We There Yet? -- a Community-University Research Alliance which adapted and assessed the impact of a participatory play and sex ed program in urban, rural and Aboriginal communities.

Scott Smallwood
"Sonic Discovery through Listening, Phonography, and Improvisation"

Scott Smallwood is a composer, improviser and sound artist whose work deals with discovered textures and forms through a practice of field recording and deep listening. He works extensively with technology, designing software and hardware instruments and devices, as well as traditional acoustic instruments. He teaches music composition and technology at the U of A, where he also serves as the Director of Humanities Computing.