History News

The Fluoride Debate Continues

History prof looks at water fluoridation, past and present - by Nicole Yada, a U of G student writer with SPARK (Students Promoting Awareness of Research Knowledge)

Sixty-five years after fluoride was first added to municipal water supplies, it continuous to be a contentious issue. University of Guelph history professor Catherine Carstairs is examining why water fluoridation never achieved universal acceptance even though it is proven to reduce dental cavities.
Carstairs began her work on fluoridation unintentionally when researching the history of health food stores. Health food store owners and consumers became some of the leading opponents of fluoride.

Guerilla Grads is looking for faculty and student volunteers to assist with registration and to serve as panel moderators. The interested should please contact Caitlin Holton at cholton@uoguelph.ca by January 1, 2011.

The Tri-University Graduate History Association invites you to attend the first in a four part lecture series about American history on the silver screen. Tuesday, November 30th, University of Waterloo, PAS 1229, please come see three Tri-University historians with show clips and discuss:
"Wall Street" - Oliver Stone's controversial 1987 feature, with Dr. Andrew Hunt
"Heaven's Gate" and "Gangs of New York" - The Heroic White Ethnic: (mis)understanding the immigrants through "Heaven's Gate" and "Gangs of New York", with Paul Brewer
"We Were Soldiers" and "Generation Kill" - Reporters on the Battlefield and "Embedded" Journalism, with Andrew McLaughlin              * get the flyer: .pdf

M.A. Thesis Defense: Christopher Quinn, "The Irish Villages at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition: Constructing, Consuming and Contesting Ireland in Chicago" takes place on December 15, 2010 in Mackinnon Extension 2020 at 11:00 am. All welcome! Get the abstract: .pdf

Matthew Hayday appears in Queen Elizabeth in 3D a film documenting the 1953 Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II and early Canadian experiments in recording the Coronation for Canadian viewers with 3D film technology. The documentary is now online. (Matt appears around the 22 minute mark!) 
     For more on the documentary and it's place in Canadian history visit CBC Documentaries.

Catherine Carstairs says that questioning the health aspects of our diet has been increasingly common since the 1970s, but the roots of these concerns go back at least a few more decades. She’s recently been awarded a Fulbright Scholar grant to travel to the University of California’s (UC) Davis campus, where she’ll explore the lives of two American writers who made the idea of “health food” popular in the mid-1900s... 
          See the rest of this feature article in At Guelph Magazine
 

Beginning October 7
Susan Nance curates "Dumbo: Then and Now" at  In Media Res

This year's Tri-U History Conference takes place in the Arts Lecture Building at the University of Waterloo. Our focus this year, "Cold War Encounters," coincides with the recent creation of the Cold War History Field at the Ph.D. level and spotlights an exciting diversity of a global scholarship.

Jodey Nurse's M.A. thesis defence, "Reaching Rural Ontario: The County of Peel Agriculture Society and teh Peel County Fall Fair, 1853-1883," will take place on September 30 in MacKinnon Extension room 132 from 10:00am-12:00pm. All welcome! Get the abstract: (.pdf)

David Bussell's M.A. thesis defence, "Policy, Advocacy and the Press: Economic Nationalism in Southern Ontario 1968-1974," will take place on September 21 in MacKinnon Extension room 2020 from 1:30 - 3:00pm @ the University of Guelph campus. All welcome! Get the abstract: (.pdf)