Book Review: Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler

Book Review: Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler

It is a strange experience to be in the midst of reading an excellent dystopic novel when the world around you keeps showing signs that it is coming apart at the seems. Just last week, in real life, we followed the news of children being torn away from their parents and kept in child detention centres in the United States. Meanwhile, I was immersed in Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower, a novel where a young woman struggles through a time of environmental depletion and fatal wealth inequality that is set in …2024. Butler's portrayal of what we could call a future that is too close for comfort rings so true today.

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Reading the #WorldCup | Roxanne Dubois

Football fans across the globe are focused on the World Cup, which started just over a week ago and is hosted in Russia. The tournament takes place every four years, and will be, as always, one of the most watched sporting events of the year. For this non-sports fan, the World Cup is an object of fascination with good timing. In these early days of summer, watching football and getting into the game is a welcome distraction. Here is a short, global, and somewhat political reading list for following the World Cup.

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The case for publicly funded universities | Graham Cox

Defending Student Rights

This article first appeared in the Spring 2018 Issue of the journal Academic Matters. All told, Canadian public universities are massive employers of students, teachers, researchers, librarians, academic and research support technicians, academic support workers (custodians, building services, food services, grounds and building maintenance), apprentices, councillors, utility workers, administrators, clerical workers, bartenders, security guards, and parking staff. Together, all of these workers maintain a space that fosters the advancement and dissemination of knowledge.

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Classique parmi les classiques : Les liaisons dangereuses de Pierre Choderlos de Laclos

Classique parmi les classiques : Les liaisons dangereuses de Pierre Choderlos de Laclos

Il s'agit d'un exploit non négligeable que celui d'écrire un roman épistolaire où la trame narrative se développe entièrement au fil de lettres écrites d'un personnage à l'autre. Sur les quelque 600 pages du livre Les liaisons dangereuses, plus de 175 lettres tracent le portrait de relations troubles entre membres de la bourgeoisie française du 18e siècle. Rusé, malveillant et éperdument délicieux, ce roman occupe une place bien méritée parmi les rangs de la grande littérature française.

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Just Transition: a task force and critique

Just Transition: a task force and critique

Just Transition

Several things have happened in the previous few weeks that make it important to review what we mean about Just Transition for workers affected by major changes to employment. 1) The Liberal government has announced the Task Force: Just Transition for Canadian Coal Power Workers and Communities. 2) Trade Unions for Energy Democracy have released 'Trade Unions and Just Transition: The search for a transformative politics'. The new paper examines the inadequacies of the current policy development processes on Just Transition.

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Lectures d'hiver

Lectures d'hiver

Le printemps tarde à réchauffer ma ville, et j'en profite pour partager mes lectures francophones des derniers mois. Je vous souhaite de trouver ici quelques suggestions pour vos lectures printanières – le beau temps se pointera bien un jour ou l'autre.

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Ontario Liberals do not understand what universities are for | Citizens' Press

Defending Student Rights

The Ontario Liberal's 2018 budget had a few large progressive sounding programs to announce. However, none of these were focused on the university system. Almost all of the budget outside the announcement of large subsidies to private childcare providers and pharma continued to be a standard Liberal fare - progressive sounding, regressive in implementation. The true impact of government spending on the university system will be the implementation of funding reforms not written explicitly into government spending. This is the case for much of the government's policies that seem to be ignored during budget time – even though these policies give the budget its true political framework.

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He Gave His Life in the Labor Struggle: MLK's Forgotten Radical Message for Economic Justice | Democracy Now

'[H]e was a labor man. And union people know this. When he died in '68, workers all over the country walked out. The West Coast got shut down by the longshore workers. The longshore workers in Louisiana and in the Deep South went on strike. There were observances everywhere. King is a labor man. And after he died, Coretta King was arguing for a national holiday. She said it would be the first national holiday for somebody who gave his life in the labor struggle. So she understood that totally.'