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Welcome Back to SASAH for 2024-2025 |
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Dr. Aara Suksi, Director
SASAH community, how good it is to be connecting with you again after the summer! Welcome to those of you who are new to SASAH, especially our first-year students, and welcome to all of you who are rejoining us for a new academic year.
Our guiding touchstone for this year will be “CONNECTION”, as we celebrate all the ways that SASAH connects people, disciplines, ideas, and communities. Making connections is essential to processes of thinking, feeling, and growing. In recent years, our ability to connect has been disrupted and challenged. Connecting is not always easy. We hope this year to assist with creating new connections, and nurturing those that already exist.
We are delighted to share the news that our new Community Outreach and Engagement Coordinator, Dr. Ruth Skinner, is here to help build connections, as are the other members of the fabulous SASAH team, Jennifer Tramble (Program Coordinator) and Dr. Barbara Bruce (Experiential Learning Coordinator). Expect to hear from Ruth, Jen, Barb, and me about all the events and activities we will be planning for you this year.
This year’s SASAH Fellows, the instructors who will be teaching our program courses, have a diverse and interdisciplinary curriculum in store for our students, exploring the connections between art, critical thought, community, and humanity.
SASAH is fortunate to have so many partners on campus and beyond. Our alumni, our Advisory Council members, our donors, and our collaborators continue to be essential connections for us as they support our mission of excellence and the celebration of Arts and Humanities as a source of profound and complex responses to all the questions the world is presenting to us.
What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you think about connection? Is it family? Is it community? Is it the blaze of an idea? Does it reach across time? Is it a relationship with yourself? With your art? Is it the sweet and wounded land? A faith? A book? A shared belief? A friend?
What new forms of connection would you like to make? How can we help you sustain current connections and establish new ones? Please let us know what connections are most important to you, and which ones you’d like SASAH to explore. |
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Course Spotlight: ARTHUM 1020E, "The Public Intellectual: Resistance, Hope, Love"
What kind of intellectual do you want to be? Do we need to critique the whole notion of being an intellectual and what intellectualism means in the first place? These are this course’s fundamental questions.
We may think that we live in an anti-intellectual age. Certainly there are various people who distrust intellectuals and what they apparently stand for. There’ll be plenty of time to name them in this course. But hasn’t society always mistrusted intellectuals? Ever since Emile Zola, a novelist, stepped forward to speak truth to power in “J’Accuse . . . !” the idea of the modern public intellectual was born. But before him, remember what they did to Socrates in 399BCE in ancient Greece, supposedly the birthplace of democracy. As Carl Jung once said, “Thinking is difficult; that’s why most people judge.”
The first half of ARTHUM 1020E, “The Public Intellectual: Resistance, Hope, Love,” will thus also ask what it means to be an intellectual in 2024 -- but also what it has meant to be smart, informed, critical, and non-judgemental throughout history. We will ask this specifically of you as students studying in the Humanities. What’s so dangerous about the Humanities or about individuals who emerge from studying the Humanities with smart, informed, critical, and non-judgemental brains and points of view?
You will spend the next four years gaining a knowledge, first of yourself and secondly, and more importantly, of others. What will you do with that knowledge? What kind of intellectual do you want to be after you leave university? I don’t mean “being smart” as a sign of some status in society, though I do mean “being smart” as a privilege we should never take for granted. Above all, I mean being smart as the capacity to move forward with Hope for the future and Love for yourself and others.
I was also the Inaugural Director of SASAH from 2012-2018. After that I stepped aside to pass the baton to two incredible successors: Dr. Patrick Mahon and the current SASAH Director, Dr. Aara Suksi. Recently it’s been my great privilege to return to SASAH to teach part of its Year One SASAH foundations course. I look forward to meeting all the incoming SASAH students, and to welcoming back all of you continuing in the program! |
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Course Spotlight: ARTHUM 2291F, "Cultures of Advocacy"
SASAH’s second-year cohort will enroll in ARTHUM2291F - “Cultures of Advocacy” this fall. Advocacy is defined as generating support for a particular cause in the public sphere, and it can be an important space where political purpose and civic engagement meet and foster change for the better. As a citizen, what is your current relationship with advocacy? Have you ever felt compelled (or even forced) to advocate for yourself, for a friend or family member, or for a group?
Advocacy movements take myriad forms, and actions may be directed toward advocating for the self, toward advocating for others, or toward advocating for total systems change at the local, national, and cultural levels. Advocacy encompasses movements for climate justice, food security, political participation, labour rights, human rights, cultural awareness, legal justice, medical advocacy, and so much more.
In this course, we’ll focus locally to explore histories of advocacy within London and the surrounding region. Students will let their own personal advocacy concerns guide them in exploring local archives of advocacy. You’ll also be challenged to bridge the past and the present by bringing case study research into contact with current advocacy movements, collaboratively interviewing advocacy leaders and publishing your conversations. We’ll meet many local advocates who work in varied ways and on the ground to better our civic lives and our communities. Throughout the semester, we'll be developing a language for advocacy: thinking through the kinds of advocacy we can do in our own lives, examining important critiques of advocacy movements, and engaging challenges for advocating critically and effectively in the digital present.
My name is Ruth Skinner, and I'm SASAH’s incoming Community Engagement and Outreach Coordinator. I work as an arts organizer, publisher, and educator in London, and was previously the Executive Director of Forest City Gallery, London's longstanding artist-run centre. I'm thrilled to be working in this new capacity while continuing to teach SASAH's second-year cohort, and I can't wait to meet (and reconnect) with you all. |
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The SASAH community is saddened to learn of the passing of David Cruickshank, who was a valued member of our Advisory Council. David was generous with his support, guidance, and mentoring of our students. His presence on the Advisory Council was marked by his characteristic warmth and astuteness. We will miss him dearly and we offer our heartfelt condolences to his family. |
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Send us your content! Our Teaching Fellows have shared their course themes for the coming year. Which ones are already resonating with you?
We're preparing a public programming series at SATELLiTE Project Space for September 16-29. To activate the gallery, we're seeking your images and video for a series of public projections. Upload your photos, video and artwork here, and stay tuned for more details. Deadline for uploading is September 14. |
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R&Art: Silkscreening a Tote with Soft Flirt on Wednesday, September 11 12:00p.m. - 4:00p.m. at McIntosh Gallery. Join this hands-on printmaking activity at the gallery! All welcome, no registration required. Learn more. |
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SASAH Kick Off Bonfire September 12, 7-10PM 17 Yale Street, London
Zoe Port, who represents SASAH on your Arts & Humanities Student Council, is hosting a bonfire event to welcome students back to campus!
Please feel free to drop by any time in between 7-10. All are welcome! Click through for more details and a map for easy public transit directions to Yale Street. This will be a dry event.🥤
Bring your friends, your enthusiasm, and a readiness to enjoy a cozy evening under the stars. We’ll have s'mores, snacks, music, and lots of great conversation. Learn more! |
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More Local Community Events with SASAH Colleagues for your Calendar
Forest City Gallery, Thursday, September 5, 5-7PM
McIntosh Gallery, Friday, September 6, 5-7PM
Good Sport Gallery, September 6th, 6-8pm
Wednesday, September 11, 12-1PM
Thames Art Gallery (Chatham), Saturday, September 14
London Central Library, Saturday, September 14, 12-4PM
Department of Visual Arts, Thursday, September 19, 6-9PM
Friday, September 20, 8AM - 12PM
Michael Gibson Gallery, Saturday, September 21, 2-4
Bikes, Film, Art! FCG, London Cycle Link and MEC are partnering on a day of bikes, art, and a free outdoor screening. September 21st at Boyle Park.
Concrete Beach, September 23, 10-11 AM (wear an orange shirt!)
September 28, Dundas Place, 11-4PM
Weldon Library Community Room, September 30, 2-5PM
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