TRU’s third Canada Research Chair has only been on campus since summer, but he’s already created the Centre for Innovation in Culture and the Arts, which is already mounting its first event: More than just colour: a panel on South Asian critical and cultural production.
The panel will feature Ashok Mathur, TRU’s Canada Research Chair in Cultural and Artistic Inquiry, along with CBC journalist and film reviewer Lisha Hassanali and graduate student and poet Sharanpal Ruprai.
The public is invited to participate in the discussion at noon on Monday, November 7th, when the three assemble in the Panorama Room of TRU’s International Building to present work on race, culture, and globalization in an arts and culture context.
Lisha Hassanali is a CBC Radio journalist with the Eyeopener (Calgary) where she develops story ideas, writes/produces radio documentaries, and has a regular film column. Hassanali is actively involved in the South Asian arts community and is also on the Board of Directors for the Calgary International Film Festival. She has received the Queen’s Golden Jubilee Award for community service and was recently named one of Calgary’s Top 40 under 40 by Calgary Inc. magazine for 2005. Hassanali started her career at the University of Calgary student newspaper, the Gauntlet, then went on to freelance as a film reviewer and producer of short video and film projects. Her talk at TRU, “More than just colour: minorities in the media” will be addressing race/minority issues in various contexts of cultural production.
Sharanpal Ruprai is a poet and cultural organizer, currently in the M.A. program at the University of Calgary where she is investigating Sikh motifs in South Asian Canadian women’s fiction. Ruprai is also working with a research team at TRU on a project exploring racialization at major arts training institutions in Canada. She will be presenting a critical performance of her poetry, including Bollywood Basement Porn Party, particularly in the context of Sikh women’s lives.
Ashok Mathur is the Canada Research Chair for Cultural and Artistic Inquiry at TRU. He is a novelist, educator, and cultural organizer who focusses on critical race theory, postcolonialism, and literary and artistic production in the milieu of multiculturalism and its various critiques. This work includes the publication of novels and articles, international lecture and reading tours, and the development of national and international research networks, plus the creation of the Centre for Innovation in Culture and the Arts in Canada (CICAC) at TRU. His presentation, “Transnational Border Shopping: Virtual Purchases, Body and Nation” is a performance and sound paper exploring questions of race, migration, and globalization in a contemporary political milieu.
For more information, please contact Ashok Mathur at 604-790-4910 or by email.
