“Everywhere today, democracy is in trouble,” asserts Dr. Veronica Strong-Boag. But, she continues, this story is not new. “As historians have good cause to know, democracy has always been an uncertain and incomplete enterprise.”

In the first of three talks in the 2014 Ashley Fellowship Lecture Series, entitled “On the Frontline: Feminist Scholarship and Activism Challenge the Canadian New Right”, Professor Strong-Boag recalled the historic work of early feminists in Canada such as Nellie McClung, and Mary Ann Shadd Cary, and highlighted the inclusivity and broad alliances that marked, and continue to define the feminist movement in Canada offering a corrective to past and current democratic deficits.

One of several events being held throughout the community in the lead-up to International Women’s Day on March 8, the talk struck a chord with the capacity crowd at the March 5 event held at Market Hall in downtown Peterborough.

For Julie Cosgrove, executive director of the Kawartha World Issues Centre, the lecture highlighted a history that is too often overlooked: “The topic was really timely, not only since it is International Women’s Week, but also because it seems that equity and women’s rights movements are under attack in our current political climate,” she said. “I think it was really important for me this evening to be able to reflect back and see the history of these incredible women and the work that they’ve done over the years in shaping our country.”

According to Dr. Joan Sangster, director of the Frost Centre for Canadian Studies and Indigenous Studies at Trent, the Ashley lectures are important because they provide a forum for the exchange of ideas that goes beyond the academy.

“Holding the first lecture at Market Hall is an indication of the University's efforts to create an intellectual space that joins together the community and the university, town and gown,” she observed.

The Ashley Fellowship is funded by a bequest from the late Professor C.A. Ashley, long-time friend of Trent University and an enthusiastic proponent of the role that informal contacts of college life can play in the academic pursuits of the University. The Ashley Fellows are visiting scholars who reside at one of Trent's residential Colleges for part of the year, delivering lectures and meeting with faculty and students.

The lecture series has a proud history of bringing in high-profile speakers and this year is no exception. Credited with being one of the founders of Women’s and Gender History as a field of study, Prof. Strong-Boag, who teaches in the Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice and Department of Educational Studies at UBC, is well known for both her academic work as well as her activism.

“She has literally changed the face of Canadian history, encouraging a subsequent generation of scholars to ask entirely new questions,” Professor Sangster said of Prof. Strong-Boag.

The second lecture in the Ashley Fellowship series with Prof. Strong-Boag, “Wanted Children? Child Welfare and Women’s Reproductive Choice” will be held on Wednesday, March 12, 2014 in the Bata Film Theatre, room 103, at 7:30 p.m. The final lecture, “Tracing a Feminist Genealogy: From Laura Marshall Jamieson (1882-1962) to her Granddaughters”, will be delivered in Bagnani Hall, Traill College, on Wednesday, March 19, 2014 at 7:30 p.m. All lectures are free to attend and open to the public.

Posted on Tuesday, March 11, 2014.