No. 513 - January 24, 2024

  • Coming Events:

    - FIMSWrites - Winter Edition
    - Useful & Beautiful: A Roundtable on Creative Techniques in Knowledge Organization Research
    - Sociology of Vibe: Ordinary Blackness and Carceral Intimacies
    - Workshop - Unpacking Anti-Black Racism

  • Important Dates:

    - Friday, January 26, 2024 - Nominations close for faculty and staff membership on Senate
    - Friday, January 26, 2024 - Nominations close for grad student membership on Senate and Board
    - Thursday, February 1, 2024 - Meeting of the Board of Governors (10AM, WIRB)

  • News & Announcements:

    - FIMS Graduate Student Conference - Call for Papers
    - Subscribe to the Graduate Student Research Blog

  • Awards & Accomplishments:

    - Tania Al-jilawi
    - Mingi Chu
    - Brodie Fenlon (MA'99, Journalism)
    - Joy MacDermid
    - Hailey McCullough (MLIS'14)
    - Sarah Smith

    Publications & Presentations:

    - Lucia Cedeira Serantes
    - Alissa Centivany
    - Norma Coates
    - Jumana Labib (BA'23, MIT)
    - Santasil Mallik
    - Kitara Patry (MLIS'23)
    - Anabel Quan-Haase
    - Paige Roman (MLIS'23)
    - Danielle Taschereau Mamers (PhD'17, Media Studies)
    - Gigi Wong

  • In the Media:

    - Alissa Centivany
    - Brodie Fenlon (MA'99, Journalism)
    - Mark Kearney
    - Hailey McCullough (MLIS'14)
    - David McPherson (MA'98, Journalism)
    - Amara Pope (PhD'23, Media Studies)
    - Anabel Quan-Haase

  • Additional Activities of Note:

    - Mark Ambrogio
    - Selma Purac
    - Meghan Voll

  • News from Western Libraries:

    - Research Skills Workshops

  • Next Issue:


Coming Events


FIMSWrites - Winter Edition
Every Wednesday
9:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.
Check your Western email for the Zoom link (or contact Pam McKenzie).
Do you expect to have assignment, story, article, report, thesis, and/or book writing deadlines coming up this term? Does having other people writing around you help keep you on-task? Then join us for FIMSWrites, an informal initiative to provide some solidarity in the sometimes-solitary writing process. What it is: a group of people sitting silently together working on their individual writing projects for 25-minute Pomodoro sessions, with short breaks between and a longer mid-morning coffee, snack, and socializing break (virtual fika). What it's not: a writing tutorial or workshop. Open to FIMS faculty and grad students who have writing to work on.

Useful & Beautiful: A Roundtable on Creative Techniques in Knowledge Organization Research
Wednesday, January 31, 2024
12:00 p.m. - 1:20 p.m.
Attend in person: FNB 4130
Attend online: Register for Zoom link
Presented by Melissa Adler, Alec Mullender, Jack Kausch, Gigi Wong, Mackenzie Jessop and Greg Nightingale.
About: For this seminar series session, we will hold a roundtable on the potential for creative interventions in knowledge organization research. Each presenter will share their contribution to the collective project, Useful+Beautiful, which features the creative work of library, archives, and museum workers, students, and faculty who are also poets, visual artists, playwrights, makers, tinkerers, and fiction writers (read more).

Sociology of Vibe: Ordinary Blackness and Carceral Intimacies
Friday, February 2, 2024
11:00 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.
Attend on Zoom (Zoom ID: 963 1463 3812)
Presented by Professor Corey J. Miles, Tulane University.
About: Is there more to blackness than research would allow me to say? The discipline of sociology has privileged measuring, quantifying, and naming as essential modes of accounting for racism. It is often through racial disparity gaps or overtaxing the suffering black body that the discipline claims to account for the structural experience of blackness. Sociology of Vibe centers unindexed moments, feeling some type of way, and bodily responses as ways of understanding how unequal systems impact the day-to-day experiences of Black people. See poster.

Workshop - Unpacking Anti-Black Racism
Wednesday, February 7, 2024
12:00 p.m. - 1:30 p.m.
Register for Zoom
Hosted by the Office of Equity, Diversity & Inclusion.
About: Anti-Black racism in North America is a legacy of not just colonialism but essentially the transatlantic slave trade and the subsequent mistreatment of Black people following the abolition of slavery. Through this workshop, we hope to facilitate learning about anti-Black racism in North America from a contemporary standpoint (read more).


Important Dates

- Friday, January 26, 2024 - Nominations close for faculty and staff membership on Senate
- Friday, January 26, 2024 - Nominations close for grad student membership on Senate and Board
- Thursday, February 1, 2024 - Meeting of the Board of Governors (10AM, WIRB)


News & Announcements


FIMS Graduate Student Conference - Call for Papers
Attention all FIMS Graduate Students! The call for papers for Generating Community: An Interdisciplinary Grad Conference (April 9-10) is out now. Submissions are due February 10. Faculty, please save the date because we will be inviting you to moderate sessions. For full conference details, please visit the conference website.

Subscribe to the Graduate Student Research Blog
Graduate Students are invited to subscribe to the Graduate Student Research Blog. The blog provides research information for graduate students - scholarship, fellowship, internship and other funding announcements, tips on writing scholarship/funding applications, and other research-related tidbits. 


Awards & Accomplishments


Tania Al-jilawi, Master of Health Information Science candidate, successfully defended their thesis titled "Sex and Gender Differences in Arthritis Health Information" on December 19, 2023.

Mingi Chu, Master of Health Information Science candidate, successfully defended their thesis titled, "Regulation of Health AI Chatbots in Ontario" on December 22, 2023.

Brodie Fenlon (MA'99, Journalism) was named General Manager and Editor in Chief of CBC News in early January following the retirement of Susan Marjetti. Brodie has been Editor in Chief and Executive Director of Programs and Standards for CBC News since 2020.

Health Information Science Graduate Chair, Joy MacDermid, was appointed to the Order of Ontario for 2023. Joy was recognized for her extraordinary contribution to patient-reported outcomes.

Hailey McCullough (MLIS'14) was named the new Library Director for the Grand Prairie Public Library system as of January 1, 2024.

Sarah Smith was promoted from Assistant Professor to Associate Professor. The promotion will take effect as of July 1, 2024.


Publications & Presentations

Assistant professor (LDI) Dr. Lucia Cedeira Serantes and recent MLIS graduates Kitara Patry (MLIS'23) and Paige Roman (MLIS'23) published the following essay review of two comics exhibits as part of an special issues focused on Canadian comics: Comic Sans and THIS IS SERIOUS: Canadian Comics Visibility and Recognition in the American Review of Canadian Studies, 53:3 (2023)

Assistant Professor Alissa Centivany co-authored and article titled, "A clearer right-to-repair picture emerges in Canada, but uncertainties remain," published in Policy Options on December 20.

Associate Professor Norma Coates published an article titled, "A Non-Expert Response," in the Journal of Popular Music Studies in December.

Jumana Labib (BA'23, MIT) wrote an article titled, "International perspective: a desire to broaden my horizons led me to the UK," published in The Times Higher Education on January 8. Jumana is currently a master's student at the University of Manchester, studying Digital Media, Culture and Society.

Media Studies PhD student Santasil Mallik will present a paper titled, "Seeing/Surmising/Surviving: The Decolonial Routes of Midnight Traveler" at the 2024 Annual Graduate Conference at the Cinema Studies Institute, University of Toronto (Feb 2-3).

Professor Anabel Quan-Haase co-authored a chapter titled, "Introduction to the Handbook of Social Media Research Methods: Goals, Challenges and Innovations," published in The SAGE Handbook of Social Media Research Methods.

Danielle Taschereau Mamers (PhD'17, Media Studies) published her first book in December, based on doctoral research she conducted while a student at FIMS. The book is titled, Settler Colonial Ways of Seeing: Documentation, Administration, and the Interventions of Indigenous Art and is available through Fordham University Press.

Media Studies PhD student Gigi Wong published an essay titled "Kiss of the Rabbit God: A Queer Fable" on the Museum of Dreams website on December 15.


In the Media


Assistant Professor Alissa Centivany was quoted in an article titled, "Some manufacturers are intentionally making appliances and electronics more expensive to repair - here's why that might be about to change," published in the Toronto Star on Dec 22.

Professor Centivany was then interviewed for a Global News video segment titled, "Consumer Matters: Advocates push for household appliance repair," aired on January 22.

Brodie Fenlon (MA'99, Journalism) was announced as the new general manager and editor in chief of CBC News in an article titled, "Susan Marjetti retires as GM at CBC News, Brodie Fenlon steps into the role," published in Media in Canada on January 3.

Lecturer Mark Kearney appeared in a number of news items discussing his recent book titled, Al Christie: Hollywood's Forgotten Film Pioneer. On December 13 his book was included in Western News' "10 winter reads from the Western community." Following that on December 27, he was interviewed on AM800 The Morning Drive for a segment titled "Forgotten Film Pioneer's Canadian Connection," and then on January 3 he was interviewed for a London Free Press article titled, "Biographer hopes to gain recognition for forgotten London film pioneer" (republished by Yahoo News). Lastly, Kearney was interviewed about his book on CBC Radio One - Fresh Air on January 6.

Hailey McCullough (MLIS'14) was featured in an article titled, "Grande Prairie Public Library hires new library Director," published on REACH FM on January 4.

David McPherson (MA'98, Journalism) joined CBC Afternoon Drive as a guest on December 20 in a segment titled "Western University's Winter reads list highlights alumnus music writer."

Amara Pope (PhD'23, Media Studies) appeared in a number of news sources in December and January to discuss her research related to Drake, Justin Bieber and Jesse Reyez. On December 13 she appeared in an article titled, "Trinidadian-Canadian Spotlights on Hidden History of Canadian R&B In Dissertation," published by News Americas Now, and on December 20 she was interviewed for a Billboard Canada story titled "An Interview with Canadian R&B Scholar Amara Pope on Drake, Justin Bieber and Jessie Reyez". NowToronto published an article featuring Amara on December 27 titled, "A PhD student's dissertation looked at the missing history of Canadian R&B and how the country's newest artists are redefining it," and lastly, Amara appeared on CTV's This Hour with Angie Seth on January 14 in a segment titled, "Canadians redefining R&B."

Professor Anabel Quan-Haase joined Shaye Ganam on 630 CHED and 770 CHQR to discuss Canadian companies pausing or pulling ads from X/Twitter following a CBC investigation that found ads appearing on extremist accounts. The segment, titled "Canadian brands pulling ads from X" aired on Dec 13.


Additional Activities of Note


Mark Ambrogio, LIS PhD student, and Meghan Voll, Media Studies PhD student, will be guests on GradCast Live on February 1 to discuss the benefits of Western Libraries and other public libraries more generally. The show will air on Radio Western at 11:00 a.m..

Assistant Professor Selma Purac was a special guest at the Horror at the Hyland event at Hyland Theatre on January 12. In celebration of Interview with the Vampire's 30th anniversary, the Hyland screened the film on 35mm and then followed with a Q&A featuring professor Purac.


News from Western Libraries


You're invited to join us for the upcoming Research Skills Workshops, hosted by Western Libraries. From data collection to publishing, get expert help at all stages of the research cycle with free workshops.

Jan. 31 - Finding Statistical Data Resources
Jan. 31 - Diversifying Citations (and Perspectives)
Feb. 1 - Basic Data Handling in Excel
Feb. 7 - Locating and Analyzing News Sources
Feb. 8 - Introduction to Qualitative Analysis with Nvivo
Feb. 8 - Data Sources at Western Libraries
Feb. 14 - Getting Started Analyzing Data in SPSS
Feb. 21 - Sharing and Archiving Data with Borealis

All workshops listed above our online via Zoom.

To find more upcoming Western Library events and workshops visit the Western Library Events page. If you have questions about the workshops, please email rsclib@uwo.ca.


Next Issue


The FIMS Bulletin is your source for news, announcements, and events pertaining to FIMS graduate programs. Submissions from the FIMS community are always welcome and may be sent via e-mail to fims-communications@uwo.ca .

The next issue of the FIMS Bulletin will be published on February 7, 2024. The deadline to submit content is Tuesday, February 6 at noon.