We are all Métis!

One of the best things about academic life is the opportunity to hear some fascinating speakers, and last week proved to be no exception.  Tuesday evening it was James Opp’s “CU in the City” talk on the “Cold War” photography of Yousuf Karsh, followed the next night by Ian Manion’s Pickering Centre lecture on youth depression and suicide.  I learned hugely from both, and I must say that both speakers also know how to engage a public audience.  But I hope they will forgive me if I say that the prize for the most challenging talk of the week goes to John Ralston Saul, who on Saturday afternoon addressed the AGM of the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences.  I was attending wearing my “hat” of representative from the Canadian Society of Medievalists.

Annual general meetings tend to be dull affairs, with lots of legally-required “administrivia”, motions to accept auditors’ reports, and so on; but this one perked up significantly in the afternoon … just about the time that my mental energy normally begins to fade.  First we had one of my favorite bloggers, Alex Usher, addressing the issue of “metrics” in the assessment of research achievement in the humanities.  Those who subscribe to his (free and often provocative) “One Thought To Start Your Day” will know that the analysis of data related to post-secondary education constitutes his consuming passion, so it was something of a shock to hear him state that no accurate comparative assessments of humanities research currently exist, primarily because such research is globally “fractured”.  In other words, while subjects like mathematics or chemistry are arguably universal, in the sense that there is a “global conversation” (his phrase) in which faculty members from many countries participate, subjects like history are not … for the simple reason that few outside Canada will be reading research on Canadian history, and few in Canada are working on, say, Australian history.  These conversations are usually national, or at best regional, but rarely engage the entire planet … and the same is true for many fields or sub-fields of the humanities, with a few obvious exceptions such as Greek and Roman Studies.  But perhaps more interestingly, he then lobbed what he himself deemed a “grenade”.  Given that it is a case of comparing apples to oranges, why would we ever bother to invest time and energy in collecting such data for the humanities in the first place?  What possible difference does it make, other than for institutional prestige?  And given that no one has yet found a way to do so accurately, at what cost?  Are you listening, HEQCO?

And so the table was set for John Ralston Saul, president of PEN International and arguably one of Canada’s foremost “public intellectuals”, who spoke for more than an hour, without notes and without ever once losing my attention even for a millisecond … a feat that precious few have ever managed.  I have had the pleasure of hearing Saul speak on a number of occasions, both formal and informal, including a memorable dinner party during Congress 2009, and I admire him primarily for the manner in which he can weave an intellectual narrative as he talks.  He shifts effortlessly between fascinating historical nuggets – (Q: Why do we place our napkins to the left of our plates? A: Because Queen Victoria was left-handed) – and deep reflections on the unique nature of our country.  It is always a sort of “master class” on how to engage and capture an audience.  And of course it doesn’t hurt that I usually concur completely with what he says.

His address covered many topics, but the one which resonated the most for me was what he called the unique “intercultural” (as opposed to “multicultural”) nature of Canada.  We are a country that follows neither the ‘Westphalian nation state” model of Europe, in which identity depends primarily on blood, nor the “melting pot” model of our neighbour to the south.  Furthermore, we are not “pods living side by side”, which is how Europeans understand the concept of multiculturalism, but rather “citizens with overlapping and multiple identities”.  All Canadians share the plethora of rich cultural legacies to be found on our soil.

I remember having a similar discussion, albeit on a much more prosaic level, with Italian colleagues who were puzzled why Canadians would have any possible interest in studying early medieval Italy.  I then attempted to explain to them that this was our heritage also; but they never really seemed to understand how this could be possible.  However, it is certainly true.  By blood I may be English (my family name is Anglo-Norman), but my understanding of who I am, my sense of identity, has numerous other components, including Italian, French, Québécois, and Aboriginal … to name but four.  Like Tennyson’s Ulysses, I am part of all that I have met.  Or as Saul put it, “We are all Métis!”