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A message from outgoing SASAH Director, Aara Suksi |
Dear SASAH Students, Faculty, Alumni, and Friends,
My term as SASAH Director ends this month, and I want to thank you all for the joy of working with you for the past five years. The SASAH community is marvellously wide-ranging and diverse, but united in its appreciation for the immense value of an interdisciplinary and community-engaged program in Arts and Humanities. I am grateful to all of you for your enthusiastic support and engagement. Getting to know so many of you over the past five years, whether in class or beyond, has been an honour, a privilege, and a highlight of my career. I will carry with me countless cherished memories that include my own deep learning in community with you, cherished relationships, and admiration for the intelligence and creativity I have witnessed.
It's hard to leave the Director’s office, but wonderful to be able to announce that Professor Manina Jones will be SASAH’s new leader. An alumna of Western, Manina is a distinguished scholar of Canadian literature, working across a wide range of forms and genres. She brings her deep leadership experience to SASAH, after serving Western’s community in so many ways, most recently as Chair of the Department of English and Writing Studies. I have long aspired to meet the standard of leadership, humanity, and wit set by Manina Jones. SASAH will thrive under her intelligent and careful guidance, and I look forward to seeing the program’s future evolve. Please join me in warmly welcoming Manina as the new SASAH Director. |
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A message from incoming SASAH Director Manina Jones:
Warm greetings, |
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I am honoured to be the incoming SASAH Director and I look forward to meeting and working with students, staff, alumni, board members, and other members of the SASAH community. I follow in some pretty daunting footsteps, most recently Pleva-award-winning director Aara Suksi.
I’m a long-time faculty member in the Department of English and Writing Studies, where I’ve just completed a stretch as Chair. A Canadian literature scholar, I have authored and edited books and articles on Canadian literature ranging from the early 19th century to contemporary writing, including poetry, fiction, drama, collaboration, and autobiography. I also teach and publish in popular culture studies, especially the aesthetic and social dimensions of crime fiction and film.
SASAH’s core values – interdisciplinarity, community engagement, experiential learning, collaboration, and creativity – are near and dear to my heart. SASAH gives students the opportunity to develop critical acuity, reflect deeply, communicate in distinctive ways, connect with and shape the world around them. I can’t wait to join this amazing group on their adventures. |
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Congratulations to our Award Winners! |
It's Graduation Day! And today's Spring Convocation was accompanied by the Graduation Awards Ceremony in Arts and Humanities. Warm congratulations to our students on these well-deserved accolades, and for graduating with such distinction:
Maia Ariel Ross was awarded the Gold Medal for Honours Specialization in Classical Studies.
Asha Grace Saha was awarded the Neen Hodgins Graduating Scholarship.
Zoe Hanna Port was awarded the Gold Medal for Honours Majour in Art History.
Kaylee Jade Dunn was awarded the Gold Medal for Honours Major in Arts and Humanities (SASAH). |
PEGASUS: SASAH 2025 Yearbook is online! |
The constellation Pegasus, located in the Northern sky, is named after the winged horse of Greek mythology. The star, Epsilon Pegasi, also known as Enif, marks the horse's muzzle. The brightest star, it is an orange supergiant that is 12 times larger than the Sun, and around 690 light-years distant from Earth.
Pegasus, the annual SASAH yearbook, takes flight again in 2025! In it you will find our students' creative humanities projects: poetic and social speculations, essays, instruments dedicated to social transformation, and other wonders.
Dear reader-viewer: you probably recall that when you are prompted to imagine or remember something, you often cast your eyes upwards first. Pegasus is prompting you to look directly forwards and into your screen – before you let your eyes turn towards the sky. We've included some spotlights from course projects below, and we'll be sharing statements from our faculty and students over social media in the coming days. |
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First-year student Julia Wilmot, with dedication to Markus Wilmot, created The Fate of a Deciduous Tree, a beautiful and immersive project for Joel Faflak's class, "The Public Intellectual: Resistance, Hope, Love."
Sonder [ son-der ]. The Swedish word for the profound realization that every person you encounter lives a life as deep and meaningful as your own, where they are the protagonist of their own story and everyone else, including yourself, plays a supporting or secondary role.
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Paniz Vedavarz's fourth-year independent research project, Lost and Found Radio, produced during Aara Suksi's Capstone Course. Paniz writes, "Within the contemporary media landscape, the process by which stories—or, in this case, musical works—are preserved and rediscovered has taken on a new urgency." Paniz's radio show, fully archived online, explores incredible voices in music.
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The School for Advanced Studies in the Arts and Humanities (SASAH) offers an enriched undergraduate learning experience that is unique in Canada. Students gain practical experience in many career fields in a range of sectors—including arts and culture, non-profit, for-profit, education, and information technology—and undertake opportunities in the London community and beyond. We are grateful for our community: our students and alumni, our teaching fellows, our valued Advisory Council, our community partners and our supporters.
SASAH acknowledge that Western University is located on the traditional lands of the Anishinaabek, Haudenosaunee, Lūnaapéewak and Chonnonton Nations, on lands connected with the London Township and Sombra Treaties of 1796 and the Dish with One Spoon Covenant Wampum. With this, we respect the longstanding relationships that Indigenous Nations have to this land, as they are the original caretakers. We acknowledge historical and ongoing injustices that Indigenous Peoples (First Nations, Métis and Inuit) endure in Canada, and we accept responsibility as a public institution to contribute toward revealing and correcting miseducation as well as renewing respectful relationships with Indigenous communities through our teaching, research and community service.
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