Apply to Present at the Annual EDSS x LIA! Undergraduate Research Symposium!
Theme: Building Worlds
Calling all UTM Students!
EDSS and LIA will be collaborating once again for the annual Undergraduate Research Symposium. Join us on Monday January 27th for academic and creative presentations following this year’s theme: building worlds.
The 2025 EDSS Undergraduate Research Symposium encourages undergraduate students to share their insights regarding how interdisciplinary literature and research can build worlds we want to live in. Join us to recognize how undergraduate writing and research can broaden our knowledge, provide new insights, advance our careers, and construct practical solutions to the challenges confronting our society. We encourage academic projects in all genres and forms. Past submissions have included course papers, personal essays, public-facing works, and creative works.
To apply, please submit a 200-word abstract for your presentation and a 150-word bio to this Google form by January 1, 2025.
No experience? No worries!
We’ll provide an academic presentation skills workshop for all presenters, co-hosted by Prof. Signy Lynch and Dr. Julia Boyd.
Date/Time: Monday January 27, 2025 from 12noon - 4pm
Location: Student Centre Presentation Room
Abstracts: submit a 200-word abstract and 150-word bio by January 1, 2025 to this form.
Submission form url: https://forms.gle/65J7YbgqUvT2866Z9
FREE food! Exciting research! Prizes for all presenters!
Crafternoon and Open Mic! “Literature, Arts & Social Change”
Join us to launch ENG104: Literature and Social Change’s Special Issue of the EDSS Literary Journal
The ENG104 Editorial Team is hosting a launch party for our special issue of the EDSS Literary Journal, featuring:
- Readings of fantastic work from the special issue
- An open mic to perform YOUR work (all genres/forms welcome)
- FREE button making
- FREE coffee, tea, hot chocolate, and snacks!
Readings of critical, creative and social change-inspired work in all genres and forms are welcome! (If you’d like to share your work, you can sign up using the RSVP link!)
All are welcome—we hope to see you there! Please distribute this invitation widely through your UTM communities.
For invitations and more, follow Lit_arts_socialchange + Literature Is ALIVE! on Instagram
Please feel welcome to email Julia Boyd (ja.boyd@mail.utoronto.ca) if there’s anything we can do to make this event more accessible for you.
Location: CDRS (MN3230)
Date/Time: December 4th, 3-5pm
RSVP and submit to our open mic here by November 27th!
https://forms.gle/5qjVSnucKdJPkp5q6
Humanities and STEM
Uniting Disciplines and Building Community
Interested in exploring the relationship between English and STEM programs? Join us on Monday November 25th for a Q&A and author reading with award-winning alumna Mahnoor Khurram, who double-majored in English and Bio for Health Sciences, followed by a reading from 4th year undergraduate and Neuroscience Specialist Avery Hannah Chua, who will present a chapter from her in-progress novel, Songs of Winter.
Let’s come together for conversation and creative work celebrating how English and STEM can support and inform one another, both in school and beyond.
Songs of Winter follows an enthralling narrative plagued with immersive histories, divided loyalties, and divine retributions. At its centre, protagonist Adarah faces ghosts from the past she has desperately tried to rewrite. Soon, she must make a choice - her people’s survival against what she knows to be right.
Date/Time: Monday November 25th from 3-5 pm
Location: CDRS MN325 Small Breakout Room 2
RSVP by Saturday November 23: https://uoft.me/HumsStem
Free light snacks provided!
For more event invitations, follow LIA! on Instagram join our mailing list.
Meet our Speakers!
Mahnoor Khurram graduated from UTM in 2024 with a Bachelor’s of Science, with unique double majors in Biology for Health Sciences and English. She is currently attending the Master’s of Health Science program at the University of Toronto, in the Department of Speech-Language Pathology (SLP), at the Temerty Faculty of Medicine.
During her time at UTM, Mahnoor was heavily involved on campus, from serving as Vice President of the Erindale Biology Society, to President of the Book Discovery Club. Her tireless dedication to furthering the outreach of humanities and Biology has not gone unnoticed. Mahnoor was a humble recipient of the UTM Principal’s Award of Excellence in Student Leadership in 2023, along with several other meritorious accolades across her undergraduate career. Today, Mahnoor continues to volunteer in the community, dive into leadership initiatives, and serves on the UofT SLP Student Council as Co-President, working towards a vibrant career in Speech-Language Pathology."
Avery Hannah Chua is an aspiring physician, scientist, and writer of worlds. She is also a fourth year Neuroscience Specialist at UTM. Much like her approach to science, she crafts stories driven by curiosity and inquiry, meant not only for storytelling but also for exploration of the human experience. Consistent with her experimental background as a scientist, she plays around with trope subversion in her storytelling and worldbuilding to explore and reveal interesting truths about our reality and what it means to be something (e.g., human, morally good, etc.). For her, good stories prompt reflection, generate questions, and introduce new perspectives. Recently, she’s been experimenting with erasure poetry, doomed narratives, and medieval elements to enhance her work’s tone and message. Outside of writing, she loves ice-skating outdoors, hoarding books and neuroscience papers she can’t find the time to read, and buying more yarn for her endless crochet projects.
LIA! Scholarship for Social Change Talk!
Co-Moderated with SAGE (the Student Association for Geography and Environment)
Land Grab Universities and Decolonization
Join U of T professors Brian Gettler and Mariana Valverde for short talks and discussion about their research into the link between settler colonialism and the establishment of McGill and U of T, and what that history means for us today as we work to meaningfully decolonize our classrooms and campuses.
Date/Time: Nov. 8, 2:00-3:30pm MN5128
Location: MN5128
RSVP by Wed. Nov. 6: https://forms.office.com/r/nx2yvnMrLA
Free light snacks provided!
Co-Moderated by Literature Is ALIVE! and SAGE, with generous support from the Department of English & Drama.
For more event invitations, follow LIA! and SAGE on Instagram join our LIA! mailing list.
Brian Gettler
Associate Professor, Department of Historical Studies, UTM Universities in Canada have long been funded in part by Indigenous dispossession. Most, as in the case of the University of Toronto, this funding comes in the form of endowed lands, the sale and rental of which universities have and do manage. This talk focuses on a slightly different case from the nineteenth century, one in which the university in question was financed directly by Indigenous monies. In 1860, McGill College petitioned the governor of the Province of Canada for funds to help with “the payment of the debt and the erection of buildings.” The request formed part of a campaign to address McGill’s financial difficulties that stretched back decades, a campaign grounded in administrators’ belief that the government owed the College an endowment. Following the petition, Canada brokered a loan for the requested amount. It did so from funds belonging to First Nations for which it had only just been appointed trustee. While McGill certainly profited from Indigenous dispossession through this loan, the appropriation of the funds by Canada is the more important story as it underlines local authorities' temptation to plunder First Nations lands and resources.
Mariana Valverde
Professor Emerita, Centre for Criminology and Sociolegal Studies, University of Toronto
LAND BACK? When the predecessor of U of T was founded (King’s College, 1827) the charter issued by the British King for the college was accompanied by a land grant, a quarter of a million acres all over Upper Canada (central and southern Ontario). When the provincial legislature abolished King’s and instead established the University of Toronto (January 1850), the new institution was allowed to keep the quarter of a million acres. This presentation, based mainly on archival research at the U of T archives, will explain the land grant and ask questions about its contemporary implications, in relation to Indigenous claims about ‘land back’.
Location: CDRS (MN3230)
Join us for a 2-part series of Careers in Teaching workshops hosted by LIA! and the UTM Career Centre, with support from TESA!
Date/Time: Oct. 16, 2-4pm
Location: MN3230 (CDRS)
RSVP via clnx.utoronto.ca
Light snacks and great conversation provided!
- Readings of critical and creative work by UTM students (All forms welcome, including music and theatre! If you’d like to share your work, you can sign up using the RSVP link!)
- Inspiring conversations with like-minded peers, faculty, and staff
- Crochet! (with support from the UTM Crochet Club)
Calling all UTM first-years! Join Literature Is ALIVE! and the Department of English & Drama on Monday, September 16 for FREE pizza lunch and a nature walk, exploring our beautiful campus! First-year students will get the chance to hear answers to some of their biggest questions as faculty, staff, and upper-year students share their advice on how to thrive in university.
All are welcome, whether you’re a first-year student or an upper year seeking advice and excited to share your own tips!
Please RVSP by Sunday September 8th for FREE pizza and a stunning walk on campus with your new peers.
Date/Time: Mon. Sept. 16, 2024, 12-2PM
Location: MN 5th Floor Patio
For more, follow us on IG and join our mailing list (link in IG bio): @utmliteratureisalive
Please feel welcome to contact DM or email us (lit.is.alive.utm@gmail.com) if there is anything we can do to make this event more accessible for you.
In celebration of Earth Day (April 22nd), join the Sustainability Ambassadors, UTM Sustainability Office and the Literature Is ALIVE! team for a park litter clean-up! Take a pause from the end-of-term rush to relax outside, stretch your legs, and help keep our local UTM park clean and healthy.
All members of the UTM community are welcome, including students, faculty, and staff!
Date: Tuesday, April 23
Time: 12:00 noon - 1:00 pm
Location: Meet at the front entrance of RAWC by noon
PLEASE NOTE: Registration is required—please RSVP by Tuesday April 16!
Rain or Shine! Post-Clean-Up refreshments provided!
Careers in English Alumni Panel
Join us for an evening of panel conversation with UTM English and Theatre & Drama Studies alumni! They'll share their career stories, answer your questions, and introduce you to some of the (many) exciting career pathways you can pursue with an English degree.
Panelists will be announced soon—stay tuned and RSVP for updates!
Free pizza and great conversation provided!
Date/Time: Thursday March 21, 5:30-8:00pm (5:30 check-in, 6:00 start time)
Location: MN1190
Please RSVP by Wed. Mar. 13: https://forms.gle/JMnyauwMRt4yxqrdA
For more invitations and updates, follow LIA! on Instagram.
Presented by Literature Is ALIVE!, the Department of English & Drama, the Career Centre, and Alumni Relations.
Why Study Humanities Today? Transdisciplinary Humanities for Social Transformation
LIA! is joining hands with humanities students and clubs across campus for a Lightning Lecture afternoon—and we want YOU to give a Lightning Lecture!
“Why Study Humanities Today?” If you have the inklings of an answer to this crucial question, submit a 100-word summary of a 3-5 minute “lightning talk” on the value, beauty, practical benefits, and transformative force of the humanities. A thriving humanities takes culture both as its subject and object, as a serious realm of study but also a regenerative space for play and creativity and healing.
In that spirit, we welcome lightning talks about any related topic in all forms, ranging from scholarly presentations to creative work, performance, rants, song, or any other form of your choosing. All students, regardless of their major, are welcome to submit for a chance to participate in a vibrant, ongoing conversation about the humanities.
Do you want to present? Please submit a 100-word summary of your proposed Lightning Lecture and 100-word bio to the Google form (link below) by Mar. 1, 2024.
No experience required! We’ll provide a Lightning Lecture skills workshop for all presenters.
Date/Time: Mar. 15, 2024, 2pm-5pm
Location: Student Centre Presentation Room
FREE food! Inspiring Lectures! Great conversation! CCR Recognition for Presenters!
Abstracts due Mar. 1, 2024: https://forms.gle/CwigekmaQ5HF8yiEA
For more invitations and updates, follow LIA! on Instagram.
Please feel welcome to contact us at lit.is.alive.utm@gmail.com if there is anything we can do to make this event more accessible for you. For more updates, follow us on IG at @utmliteratureisalive.
Bringing Your Stories to the World II: A Publishing and Editing Workshop Series with Sarena & Sasha Nanua and Bernice Santos
Do you want to publish your creative writing? Are you passionate about crafting captivating fiction and creative prose? Do you want to learn more about publishing from three successful authors? If you answered “yes!” to any of these questions, then we have the series for you: Bringing Your Stories to the World is back for a second year, with 3 new workshops! Starting Feb. 27, join English and PWC alumni and YA authors Sarena & Sasha Nanua and PWC alumna Bernice Santos for a series of 3 interactive workshops on professional trade publishing, self-publishing, and editing craft. The first two workshops walk you through the practical dimensions of trade and self-publishing, and the third dives into the craft of editing your own creative writing.
Dates: Feb. 27 (1-3pm), Mar. 14 (1-3pm), Mar. 26 (3-5pm)
Location: CDRS (MN3230)
RSVP by Feb. 20: https://forms.gle/iKFNAMFW9yzYQqtq6
Co-Curricular Record (CCR) Recognition for students who attend all three workshops!
Workshops designed and taught by Sarena & Sasha Nanua and Bernice Santos with support from Literature Is ALIVE! and the Department of English & Drama, UTM
For more invitations and updates, follow LIA! on Instagram.
Workshop schedule:
· Tues. Feb. 27, 1-3pm: Trade Publishing Fundamentals (with Sarena & Sasha)
· Thurs. Mar. 14, 1-3pm: Self-Publishing Fundamentals (with Bernice)
· Tues. Mar. 26, 3-5pm: Editing Craft Fundamentals (with Sarena & Sasha
Thurs. Nov. 2, 11:00am-12:00noon: The Influence of Black History and Culture on Contemporary Spoken Word Poetry
Host: Prof. Andrea Thompson
Location: meet on the MN fifth floor terrace (straight down the hall from the elevators), time TBA.
Walking Route: Principal’s Road and the UTM Nature Trail
Join spoken word artist and poetry professor Andrea Thompson in an exploration of the influence of Black history and culture on contemporary Spoken Word - from the slave spirituals of the Old South to the coffee houses of the Harlem Renaissance to today's slam stages and rap battles.
All are welcome, whatever your major—students, faculty, and staff included. We look forward to seeing you there!
Please feel welcome to email Julia Boyd (ja.boyd@mail.utoronto.ca) and Sarah Star (sarah.star@utoronto.ca) with any questions or thoughts, or if there is anything we can do to make Prof Walks more accessible for you.
Wed. Oct. 25, 1-2pm: Literature and Social Justice
Host: Postdoc Julia Boyd
Location: meet on the MN fifth floor terrace (straight down the hall from the elevators) at 1:00pm.
Walking Route: Principal’s Road and the UTM Nature Trail
Join Postdoc Julia Boyd for a walk on the UTM nature trail to discuss Literature and Social Justice. How can literature inspire justice and societal transformation? Why does literature matter to our collective work building justice, inclusive communities—and a just world? What place should social justice have in English classrooms? Let’s investigate these questions and more as we explore how literature shapes, informs, and inspires positive social change.
Calling all students in English courses, especially first years! On October 4, join Literature Is ALIVE! and the Department of English & Drama for a FREE pizza lunch and sight-seeing walk to welcome first-year students. We'll start with pizza and a panel discussion with faculty, staff, and upper-year students sharing their tips for thriving in university, followed by a relaxing Fall nature photography walk on our beautiful campus.
All are welcome, whether you are a first-year student or an upper-year with tips to share!
Please RSVP by Tuesday September 26 for FREE pizza and a beautiful fall walk on campus with your peers!
RSVP link: https://forms.gle/7rcsceF3PHwBdz7L6
Date/Time: Wed. Oct. 4, 12:00-2:00pm
Location: MN 5th Floor Patio (straight down the hall from the elevators)
For more about Literature Is ALIVE!, including event invitations and how to get involved, follow LIA! on Instagram and join our mailing list: https://www.instagram.com/utmliteratureisalive/
Please feel welcome to contact us at lit.is.alive.utm@gmail.com if there is anything we can do to make this event more accessible for you.
The Department of English and Drama is thrilled to invite you to the upcoming Student Program Planning Interactive Exhibition (SPPIE). This one-day event is open to all students, especially those who are in their first year or those preparing to enroll in their subject POSt at the end of this semester!
At SPPIE you can navigate through different interactive stations related to discovering your personal interests and goals, exploring relevant programs and career options, and accessing specific POSt enrollment supports. You will also have plenty of opportunities to connect directly with advisors from the Office of the Registrar, Career Centre, several academic departments, and former UTM alumni to help you with program planning!
Students who participate in SPPIE are also eligible to receive a notation on their Co-Curricular Record and have a chance to win a $50 gift card for the UTM Bookstore!
Interested? Register today!
- DATE: Friday, March 10th, 2023
- TIME: 10:30 AM to 2:30 PM.
- LOCATION: GYM A/B · RSVP: To register, please click here.
If you have any additional questions, please reach out to SPPIE’s coordinator
Tiara De Koning (tiara.dekoning@utoronto.ca).
