No. 514 - February 7, 2024

  • Coming Events:

    - FIMSWrites - Winter Edition
    - Workshop - Unpacking Anti-Black Racism
    - Embroidering Absence: War Memories of Salvadoran Civil War
    - Bouncing a few balls - notes on creativity with Nasser Hussain
    - Instapoetics, Poetic Expression and Screen Capitalism

  • Important Dates:

    - Tuesday, February 13, 2024 - Senate and Board Elections: Polls open for Graduate Students
    - Tuesday, February 13, 2024 - Senate and Board Elections: Polls open for Faculty and Staff
    - Thursday, February 15, 2024 - Meeting of the Senate (1:30 PM, via Zoom)
    - Monday, February 19 - Friday, February 23, 2024 - Spring Reading Week (Undergraduate) and MLIS Research Week
    - Monday, February 19, 2024 - Family Day Holiday (FIMS offices closed, no classes)

  • News & Announcements:

    - FIMS Graduate Student Conference - Call for Papers
    - Subscribe to the Graduate Student Research Blog
    - Black History Month - Black Excellence Events

  • Awards & Accomplishments:

    - Martin Bauman (BA'15, MTP)

    Publications & Presentations:

    - Giada Ferrucci
    - Dominique Kelly
    - Victoria Rubin
    - Sarah Smith

  • In the Media:

    - Sophia Ratanshi

  • News from the FIMS Graduate Library:

    - Winter 2024 Hours
    - Reading Week Hours
    - Programming Updates

  • 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.

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).

Embroidering Absence: War Memories of Salvadoran Civil War Refugees
Monday, February 12, 2024
4:00 p.m. - 5:30 p.m.
FNB 4130
Presented by Teresa Cruz, Museum of Word and Image, El Salvador (MUPI).
Description: This talk explores how Salvadoran women, forced into exile during the civil war (1980-1992), harnessed the power of embroidery to confront and heal from absence. Disseminated globally to foster international solidarity, the embroidered pieces encapsulate testimonies of denied massacres, memories of ravaged homes, and ethnographic accounts of exile. Teresa Cruz is a cultural promoter from the Museum of Word and Image in El Salvador (MUPI) and a member of the Surviving Memory in Postwar El Salvador research team (continue reading).

Bouncing a few balls - notes on creativity with Nasser Hussain
Tuesday, February 13, 2024
10:00 a.m. - 11:30 a.m.
FNB Creative Commons
Presented by Nasser Hussain, Lecturer in Creative Writing at Leeds Beckett University, UK, and author of SKY WRI TEI NGS. Everyone is welcome to attend this event, hosted by the Creative Arts and Production program.

Instapoetics, Poetic Expression and Screen-Capitalism
Wednesday, February 28, 2024
12:00 p.m. - 1:20 p.m.
Attend in person: FNB 4130
Attend online: Register for Zoom link
Presented by Assistant Professor Warren Steele and Media Studies PhD candidate Zak Bronson.
Abstract: Instapoetry is a mode of online poetic expression that combines verse and visual imagery, often in the form of hand-drawn pictures or moody black and white photographs. It also tends to be short, inspirational, and relatable to optimize shareability on Instagram. Some Instapoets have parlayed their work into viable careers. Others, like Rupi Kaur for example, have achieved pop stardom (continue reading).
 


Important Dates

- Tuesday, February 13, 2024 - Senate and Board Elections: Polls open for Graduate Students
- Tuesday, February 13, 2024 - Senate and Board Elections: Polls open for Faculty and Staff
- Thursday, February 15, 2024 - Meeting of the Senate (1:30 PM, via Zoom)
- Monday, February 19 - Friday, February 23, 2024 - Spring Reading Week (Undergraduate) and MLIS Research Week
- Monday, February 19, 2024 - Family Day Holiday (FIMS offices closed, no classes)


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.

Black History Month - Black Excellence Events
Join others at Western as they listen, learn and discuss the legacies of Black People in Canada and around the world. For a full listing of events, visit the 2024 events page.


Awards & Accomplishments


Martin Bauman, BA'15 (MTP), won the 2023 Pottersfield Prize for Creative Nonfiction for his book Hell of a Ride. Martin currently works as a journalist for The Coast and his book is a blend of memoir and literary journalism about mental health, trauma, and a 7,000-kilometre bicycle adventure. Hell of a Ride will be available in bookstores on March 15. 


Publications & Presentations

Giada Ferrucci, Media Studies PhD candidate, published the following article:

Ferrucci, G. (2023). Facing repression: Garífuna activism and ancestral memory against dispossession and displacement in Honduras. Criticas y Resistencias. Revista de conflictos sociales latinoamericanos, (17), 26-52.

Associate Professor Victoria Rubin and Media Studies PhD student Dominique Kelly published an article titled "Identifying Dark Patterns in User Account Disabling Interfaces: Content Analysis Results," in Social Media + Society.

Associate Professor Sarah Smith is sharing research in the Memory, Materiality and Affect Research Group at the Radboud Institute for Culture and History, with a presentation titled "Hearing Conflicts: Unpacking Decolonization in the Canadian Museum for Human Rights via an Audio Paper." Professor Smith is currently in the Netherlands conducting field research, and her work is part of the HEARCON project with Dr. Friederike Landau-Donnelly, funded by the Radboud-Western Collaboration Fund.


In the Media


Third-year MIT student Sophia Ratanshi was featured in a Western Gazette article titled "Meet your 2024 faculty, association president candidates," published on January 31.


News from the FIMS Graduate Library


Winter 2024 Hours

Regular Hours

Monday – Thursday, 10am - 7pm (Daily)
Fridays, 10am - 4pm
Saturdays, 12 - 4pm*
Sundays, CLOSED

*Closed Saturdays that immediately follow or precede statutory holidays.

Reading Week Hours

Saturday, February 17th – Monday, February 19th, CLOSED (Family Day)
Tuesday, February 20th – Friday, February 23rd, 10am - 4pm (Daily)
Saturday, February 24th – Sunday, February 25th, CLOSED

*Regular hours for the Winter 2024 term resume Monday, February 26th, 2024.

Programming Updates

Black History Month

The FIMS Graduate Library will be acknowledging Black History Month in February by featuring the work of Black researchers, scholars, practitioners, and community leaders who are active in the areas of LIS, Journalism, Media Studies, and Health Information Science. Pop by the library and follow-us on Instagram (@fimsgradlib) for featured content and library collections throughout the month.

If you know or would like to recommend a Black student, scholar, practitioner, or community leader doing great work across the areas that comprise our Faculty, let us know so that we recognize and celebrate their contributions this month, and further, consider adding their work to the library’s collection. Email your suggestions at: fimslib@uwo.ca.

Freedom to Read

We will be celebrating Freedom to Read all month long in the FGL by featuring materials from our very own Freedom to Read collection (both in-person and online), accompanied by opportunities for our user community to interact with and share their experiences reading established and emerging ‘banned’ materials that are often the subject of individual and organized censorship campaigns. We will even have book and merch giveaways, so pop in!

Make of the Month (Lunar New Year, Button-Making)

Lunar New Year festivities continue in the FGL through until February 10th. The FIMS community is invited to celebrate the Year of the Dragon by making a card, a paper lantern, or a special red envelope with technology, tools, and supplies from our in-house Makerspace. No previous experience in making is required. FGL staff are on-hand and ready to provide guidance.

February is also button-making month in the library. From now until the end of the month, you can create and produce buttons -- for fun, for advocacy campaigns, or for a community project or event. We have pulled iconography from this year’s Freedom to Read campaign and have supplies ready for those who want to learn and experience button-making this month.

Community-Led Library Programming in March, Call for Participation

For the final, full month of the Winter 2024 term, we are trying something new. We are inviting you, members of the FIMS graduate community, to help us decide what programming to offer during the month of March. Students, faculty, and staff are invited to suggest topics for programming that can be hosted by the library. Community talks, hands-on workshops, academic skills development, social events: all ideas are warmly invited.

In addition, we are inviting interested members of our community to participate directly in program development and delivery. Do you have your yoga certification? Come host a yoga class (yes, we have mats)! Want to share your crafting skills or expertise in harnessing social media, share your knowledge and know-how with others looking to grow their knowledge. Suggestions for programming topics, as well as proposals to host or deliver programming are welcome. We want this to be a truly collaborative and community-driven initiative.

Share your ideas with us through email (fimslib@uwo.ca) on or before February 16th and then watch for news and announcements about the FGL’s March 2024 programming schedule by the end of the month.


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.

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 are 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 21, 2024. The deadline to submit content is Tuesday, February 20 at noon.