FALL SCHEDULE: CRITICAL CONVERSATIONS ON
INDIAN RESIDENTIAL SCHOOLS AND TRUTH AND RECONCILIATION
Please note that this schedule is subject to change. You can get the latest information or sign up
for email alerts at www.chrr.info. Abstracts and suggested readings follow the schedule.
Sept 13
2:30-4
CRITICAL CONVERSATIONS & UM RESPONSES TO THE TRC
 Kiera Ladner (UofM, Political Studies, CRC in Indigenous Politics and
Governance) and Karen Busby (UofM, Law and Centre for Human Rights
Research Initiative) will introduce the series.
 Cheryl Fraelich (UofM, RESOLVE) “RESOLVE Statement Gathering Project:
Partnering with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the
Community”.
LOCATION: 409 Tier Building (Humanities Boardroom)
Sept 20
2:30-4
LESSONS FROM OTHER TRUTH COMMISSIONS
 Joanna Quinn (UWO) Director, Centre for Transitional Justice and PostConflict Reconstruction & Associate Professor of Political Science “What
Can Be Learned from the Experiences of Other Truth Commissions”
LOCATION: 307 Tier Building (Arts Boardroom)
Sept 27
POTLUCK SUPPER (Masters and LLB cohort).
Details to come.
8TH ANNUAL SOL KANEE LECTURE ON PEACE AND JUSTICE
 Dr. Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela (University of Cape Town, former member
of the Human Rights Violation Committee of the South African Truth and
Reconciliation Commission 2010 Sol Kanee lecturer) Narratives of
Dialogue and Healing: Stories of Remorse and Forgiveness in the
Aftermath of Mass Trauma and Violence. Organized by the Mauro Centre
for Peace and Justice.
LOCATION: Manitoba Room 2nd Floor University Centre
Sept 29
1:30-3
Oct 4
2:30-4
RESIDENTIAL SCHOOLS: MEMORIES AND HISTORIES
 Gerry Friesen,(UofM, History) “Residential Schools and Saskatchewan
Cree Collective Memory”
 Tom Nesmith, (UM, History) “Exploring Residential Schools through
Archives”
 Jarvis Brownlie, (UM, History), “Why did residential schools continue for
so long?”
LOCATION: Circle Room Aboriginal Student Centre
Oct 18
BEYOND IRS: CHILD AND FAMILY SERVICES

2:30-4
Marlyn Bennett, ( Director of Research for FNCFCSC, UM PhD Student)
“FNCFCSC Human Rights Complaint: What Are the Issues”
 Fiona MacDonald, (UM Political Studies), “Are Child Welfare Agencies
the New Indian Residential Schools”
LOCATION: Slater Boardroom, Law Library (4th floor Law School)
Oct 1823
Tomson Highway, a Cree writer and musician from northern Manitoba will be a
writer in residence with the Centre for Creative Writing and Oral Culture. He will
be delivering lectures, mentoring students and performing in concert.
Nov1
2:30-4
RECONCILIATION
 Adam Mueller, (UM, English) and Andrew Woolford, (UM, Sociology), “The
Politics of Reconciliation”
LOCATION: 409 Tier Building (Humanities Boardroom)
Nov 8
2:30-4
CULTURAL RESPONSES AND REPRESENTATIONS
 Renate Eigenbrod, (UM, Native Studies) "'To assert our presence in the
face of erasure': Literary Representations of Residential School
Experiences”
 Warren Cariou, (UM, English, CRC in Oral Culture) "Captivity Narratives:
Okanagan stories from 1886 and 1998".
 Sherry Farrell Racette (UM, Native Studies and Women’s Studies),
“Remembering the Injured Child, Painting the Dislocated Self:
Indigenous Artists Confront Residential Schools”
LOCATION: Circle Room Aboriginal Student Centre
Nov 15
4-5pm
Chief Commissioner Murray Sinclair
“Title to be announced”. Organized by the Manitoba Law Students Association
and the Faculty of Law Distinguished Visitors Program.
LOCATION: Moot Court Room, Faculty of Law
Nov 22
2:30-4
PATHWAYS TO JUSTICE
 Donna Miller (UM Duff Roblin Chair, Law and Political Studies & ADM
federal Justice) “Indian Residential Schools Litigation”.
 Katherine Staryzk, (UM, Psychology) "Social and psychological bases of
responses to historical injustices."
LOCATION: Slater Boardroom, Law Library (4th floor Law School)
Nov 29
2:30-4
COHORT RESEARCH PROPOSAL PRESENTATIONS
LOCATION: Slater Boardroom, Law Library (4th floor Law School)
ABSTRACTS & READINGS
SEPTEMBER 13 CRITICAL CONVERSATIONS & UM RESPONSES TO THE TRC
Cheryl Fraelich (UofM, RESOLVE) “RESOLVE Statement Gathering Project: Partnering with the
Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the Community”.
READINGS TBA
SEPTEMBER 20 LESSONS FROM OTHER TRUTH COMMISSIONS
Joanna Quinn (UWO) “What Can Be Learned from the Experiences of Other Truth
Commissions”
Truth commissions are a mechanism used in transitional societies to explore the details of past
crimes. More than 35 such commissions have been convoked in countries around the world
since1974, including the Canadian Indian Residential Schools Truth and Reconciliation
Commission. Over the years, many of these commissions have been beset by a number of
difficulties and setbacks. From these experiences, what has emerged is a series of lessons that
ought to considered and possibly incorporated by current and future truth commissions. Dr.
Quinn explores how these lessons may affect the Indian Residential Schools Truth and
Reconciliation Commission.
READINGS TBA
SEPTEMBER 29 DIALOGUE AND HEALING
Dr. Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela (Univesity of Cape Town, former member of the Human Rights
Violation Committee of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, 2010 Sol Kanee
lecturer) Narratives of Dialogue and Healing: Stories of Remorse and Forgiveness in the
Aftermath of Mass Trauma and Violence.
Dr. Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela describes herself as an engaged global citizen. From 1996–2003
she served on the Human Rights Violation Committee of the South African Truth and
Reconciliation Commission as coordinator of public hearings in the Western Cape. She
facilitated private encounters between perpetrators of gross human rights violations and their
victims. From this experience she focused her research on the role of forgiveness in the
aftermath of mass trauma and violence.
In 2000, she was featured in the award-winning documentary Long Night’s Journey into Day,
which chronicles four post-Apartheid hearings brought before the Truth and Reconciliation
Commission. Her first book A Human Being Died That Night: A Story of Forgiveness (2003)
earned her the Alan Paton Award in 2004 and the Christopher Award for non-fiction in 2004.
She is co-author of Narrating our Healing: Perspectives on Healing Trauma (2007), and co-editor
of Memory, Narrative and Forgiveness: Perspectives on the Unfinished Journeys of the Past
(2009).
Dr. Gobodo-Madikizela is international renowned. She is a recipient of the Dr. Jean Mayer
Global Citizenship Award at Tufts University (2001) for her insights on transitional justice, the
Eleanor Roosevelt Val-Kill Medal Award (2007) for her significant contributions to society, and
honoured among “100 People Who Made a Difference” in the Permanent Exhibit of Hall of
Heroes in the National Freedom Centre in Cincinnati, Ohio (2005). She was nominated for the
Reconciliation Award in South Africa (2004) and the Best Woman of the Year in the education
category in South Africa (2004).
She has been involved in many socially responsible projects and serves on the boards of
national and international non-profit organizations. She travels internationally lecturing on the
relationship between trauma and forgiveness, and her opinion pieces have appeared in
national newspapers, such as The Mail & Guardian, The Cape Times, The New York Times, and
The L.A. Times.
Dr. Gobodo-Madikizela completed her undergraduate degree in social work and honors degree
in psychology at Fort Hare University, her M.A. in clinical psychology at Rhodes University, and
her Ph.D. in psychology at the University of Cape Town. She holds an honourary Doctor of Law
from Holy Cross College in Worcester, Massachusetts, and is currently professor of psychology
at the University of Cape Town.
October 4 RESIDENTIAL SCHOOLS: MEMORIES AND HISTORIES
Gerry Friesen,(UofM, History) “Residential Schools and Saskatchewan Cree Collective
Memory” (Winona Wheeler, University of Saskatchewan, Mary Jane McCallum, University of
Winnipeg, and Jeremy Wiebe, University of Waterloo are co-authors but will not attend the
session.)
What has been the impact of residential schools on perceptions of the past among today’s
Aboriginal people? We will argue, on the basis of the evidence gathered in a survey of 100
Aboriginal people in central Saskatchewan, most of whom are Cree, that these schools have
become a central element in prairie Aboriginal peoples’ perception of their group’s twentiethcentury history. It must be underlined that the survey did not set out to ask about this subject.
Rather, we set out to inquire about citizens’ activities related to the past, from keeping
heirlooms and researching genealogies to visiting historic sites and reading history-related
books. We also asked about the importance of various pasts – family, nation, cultural group,
spiritual tradition -- and about our respondents’ trust in a variety of sources of information
about the past. Our goal was to understand how citizens engage with the past in the
construction of personal and collective identities. From these broader questions, for which we
have national benchmarks derived from interviews with a representative sample of 3119
Canadians, we discovered that residential schools remain a significant concern in the lives of
many Saskatchewan Aboriginal respondents today. Some of these results differ from the
conclusions of a similar American study of the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota.
The interviews, which averaged 23 minutes in length and more than 70 questions, are part of a
national SSHRC-funded project, “Canadians and Their Pasts,” which is investigating how
Canadians engage with the past in their daily lives. This Canadian survey, in turn, is part of an
international investigation (books have appeared in the European Community, the United
States, and Australia, and projects are commencing in Finland and Holland) to better
understand how citizens produce, consume and understand “history” or “the past.”
Tom Nesmith, (UM, History) "Archives, Truth, and Reconciliation"
Although archives have long played an important role in Canadian public life, that role has
become much more significant in recent years in part in response to issues such as the
Residential Schools question. The centrality of archives in the Residential Schools matter is also
evident in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada's mandate to create an archive
that documents the history of the residential schools experience. This use of archives has
required and spurred a new archival literacy, or understanding of how archives are fashioned
and the information in them understood. It has problematized the relationship between
archives and the truths they may convey. The truth we have is now the result as much of a
reading 'against the grain' of the text, as one in accord with its initial intended meaning.
Transforming the text in this way has raised hope for reconciliation around the Residential
Schools matter. To continue to read in these ways in hope of ongoing understanding and
reconciliation, we now need to transform archives themselves as well by seeking greater
participation by Aboriginal people in the archival profession on the staffs of Canadian archives,
greater participation by other Aboriginal people in shaping the work of these institutions, and
further development of archives within Aboriginal communities.
READING:
Legacy of Hope Foundation, Where are the Children? healing the legacy of the residential
schools/Que sont les enfants devenus? l?expérience des pensionnats autochtones (Ottawa,
2003). Available at: http://www.legacyofhope.ca/assets/watc-websize.pdf
Jarvis Brownlie, (UM, History), “Why did residential schools continue for so long?”
The federal government adopted residential schools in the 1880s as the primary tool for
achieving its central Aboriginal policy, the assimilation of First Nations people. Yet before the
century closed, less than two decades later, there was widespread disillusionment with these
institutions. Their academic, physical, emotional, and medical effects on the pupils were highly
unsatisfactory. They were more expensive to run than day schools, but did not turn out
graduates who were better equipped to enter mainstream society. They were perfect breeding
grounds for infectious diseases, especially tuberculosis but also many others. Moreover, John
Milloy argues that the federal government was aware of the physical and sexual abuse that we
now know was rampant in many of the schools. Given all the problems with these schools,
which the federal government recognized, why did it continue to fund them for another six
decades and more?
In an era when the state’s Aboriginal policy continues to fail in important ways, it isworth
inquiring into the factors that contribute to the retention of ineffective and often harmful
policies. Among the factors that helped keep the residential schools in operation for so long, we
can count bureaucratic inertia, rivalry among Christian churches, the lack of alternative ideas,
the persistent adherence to the ideal of assimilation (based on hierarchical thinking about
culture), and the ongoing failure to consult Aboriginal perspectives on ways to ensure a better
future.
READINGS
 J.R. Miller, Shingwauk’s Vision: A History of Native Residential Schools, Ch. 5, “‘Dressing
Up a Dead Branch with Flowers:’ The Expansion and Consolidation of the Residential
School System”
OCTOBER18 BEYOND IRS: CHILD AND FAMILY SERVICES
Marlyn Bennett, (Director of Research for FNCFCSC, UM PhD Student) “FNCFCSC Human
Rights Complaint: What Are the Issues”
Fiona MacDonald, (UM Political Studies), “Are Child Welfare Agencies the New Indian
Residential Schools”
READINGS TBA
November 1 The Politics of Reconciliation
Adam Muller and Andrew Woolford, “The Politics of Reconciliation”.
The notion of “reconciliation” is often under-theorized in studies of transitional justice and
conflict resolution. In this seminar, we examine Charles Taylor’s “Politics of Recognition” so as
to assess its potential to contribute to a viable theory of reconciliation. Based on this analysis,
we will invite seminar participants to consider the politics of recognition (and reconciliation) in
relation to the justice goals of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada.
Readings

Glen Coulthard. 2007. “Subjects of Empire: Indigenous Peoples and the ‘Politics of
Recognition’ in Canada.” Contemporary Political Theory 6 (4): 437-460.

Lisa Schirch. 2001. “Ritual Reconciliation: Transforming Identity/Reframing Conflict” in
M. Abu-Nimer (ed.). Reconciliation, Justice, and Coexistence. Lanham, MD: Lexington
Books. (pp. 145-161)

Charles Taylor. 1992. “The Politics of Recognition” in A. Gutmann (ed.). Multiculturalism
and the Politics of Recognition. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP. (pp. 25-75)

Richard A. Wilson. 2001. The Politics of Truth and Reconciliation in South Africa:
Legitimizing the Post-Apartheid State. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge UP. (Chapters 1 and 4)
November 8 CULTURAL RESPONSES AND REPRESENTATIONS

Renate Eigenbrod, (UM, Native Studies) "'To assert our presence in the face of
erasure': Literary Representations of Residential School Experiences”
More than one hundred years of residential schools in Canada attempted an erasure of
Indigenous cultures, languages and worldviews in the name of assimilation, often enforced by
physical and sexual abuse. Presently, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission is in the process
of collecting stories from all involved at the schools in order to document fully a history of a
human rights violation that had genocidal consequences for Aboriginal peoples of Canada. But
there has already been some other form of “documentation.” Starting in the 1970’ies, survivors
from various schools have written about their experiences in poems, short stories, memoirs and
(autobiographical) novels. Surprisingly, in spite of the schools’ “cataclysmic impact” (FarrellRacette) on Aboriginal communities, these works do speak to cultural continuity asserting an
Aboriginal voice in the face of erasure. In this paper I will argue that memory in texts by Rita
Joe, Shirley Sterling and prairie writers like Maria Campbell, Tomson Highway and Louise Halfe
works both ways, as response to trauma but also as cultural memory so that Residential School
Literature may therefore be understood as an expression of “survivance” (Gerald Vizenor) –
survival, resistance and continuance - rather than victimization.
Warren Cariou, (UM, English, CRC in Oral Culture) "Captivity Narratives: Okanagan stories
from 1886 and 1998".
Sherry Farrell Racette (UM, Native Studies and Women’s Studies), “Remembering the Injured
Child, Painting the Dislocated Self: Indigenous Artists Confront Residential Schools”
Decades before public acknowledgement of the impacts of residential schools, artists were at
the forefront of community efforts for recognition. In 1990, Jim Logan began visiting former
students of the Kamloops Residential School. Sitting around kitchen tables, he listened and
shared in their stories of resilience and pain, alternately crying and laughing with them. He
painted their stories and exhibited A Requium for Our Children, first in the halls of the
abandoned school, and later in other venues across the country. In the five-part Ways of
Telling: Sandy Bay (1998-1999), Robert Houle combined archival photographs, text and
abstraction to remember the residential school his family attended. Destroyed by arson,
Houle’s visual narrative has layers of truth-telling, reconstructing the school that looms
ominously in the works. Logan and Houle are among a group of artists who remind us that
residential schools were a continental experience. In both Canada and the United States, artists
offer visual testimony of the power of art to remember, express anger and explore the
potential of healing.
READINGS
 “The truth will set you free: - art exhibition organized by Radio Dialogue”
http://www.sokwanele.com/thisiszimbabwe/archives/5758 [this is talking about
Zimbabwe]

Lee-Ann Martin, The burden of authorship: Narratives of First Nations artists in the
context of Indigena, Third Text 6:21 (Winter 1992): 83-94. ]
November 22 PATHWAYS TO JUSTICE
Donna Miller (UM Duff Roblin Chair, Law and Political Studies) “Indian Residential Schools
Litigation”.
Katherine Staryzk, (UM, Psychology) "Social and psychological bases of responses to historical
injustices."
READINGS
 Starzyk, K. B., Blatz, C. W., & Ross, M. (2009). Addressing and acknowledging historical
injustices. In J. T. Jost, A. C. Kay, & H. Thorisdottir (Eds.), Social and psychological bases
of ideology and system justification. Boston, MA: Blackwell.