{"id":39783,"date":"2016-06-23T10:16:53","date_gmt":"2016-06-23T14:16:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/?p=39783"},"modified":"2016-06-23T10:31:46","modified_gmt":"2016-06-23T14:31:46","slug":"grad-student-looking-at-the-role-of-alcohol-in-the-war-of-1812","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/2016\/06\/grad-student-looking-at-the-role-of-alcohol-in-the-war-of-1812\/","title":{"rendered":"Grad student studying conceptualism in Canadian art and literature"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is the third in a five-part\u00a0series profiling\u00a0graduate student recipients of the 2016 Jack Miller Excellence in Research Awards.\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0Jesse Abbott – MA, History; Supervisor: <\/strong>Professor Ren\u00e9e Lafferty-Salhany <\/strong><\/h4>\n

Jesse Abbott\u2019s master\u2019s research presents\u00a0an\u00a0important new avenue for understanding the War of 1812.<\/p>\n

Abbott is investigating the role that alcohol played in regulating relations between the British and their Iroquois allies in the War of 1812. He argues that the commanders\u2019 view of themselves as white, masculine and superior \u2013 which was constructed, in part, and reinforced by their drinking habits \u2013 informed the way they dealt with those they saw as racially, culturally or socially inferior.<\/p>\n

\"Jesse

Jesse Abbot<\/p><\/div>\n

His study is unique, says Abbott\u2019s supervisor in the Faculty of Humanities, Professor Ren\u00e9e Lafferty-Salhany, as a departure from the bulk of historiographical examinations of 1812 that are rooted in tactical and diplomatic studies.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith only a few exceptions, historians of 1812 have shown little interest in the interplay between 19th<\/sup> century conceptions of manliness and the conduct of either officers or soldiers, during the war,\u201d Lafferty-Salhany says. \u201cJesse is correcting the imbalance.\u201d<\/p>\n

As well, she adds, the role of First Nations\u2019 warriors is one of the most understudied \u2013 and consequently least understood \u2013 aspects of the war.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe exchange of alcohol, in social settings, as well as during negotiations for alliances and as barter for native support, has received only the most cursory of notices, despite the fact that it was an essential trade good, and one which inspired enormous anxiety amongst British officers and warriors,\u201d Lafferty-Salhany says.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy examining the fractious relationship between officers and natives through the exchange of alcohol \u2013 both as a commodity and in the rhetoric of intoxication \u2013 Jesse\u2019s project will present a unique insight on this conflict, particularly within the culture of the British officer class.\u201d<\/p>\n

Abbott is delving into a subject matter \u2014 alcohol \u2014 deeply fraught with negative stereotypes, particularly for First Nations people.<\/p>\n

And while Abbott\u2019s research necessarily comes from a British perspective, due to the nature of the available primary sources, his approach nevertheless promises to expose some of the deeper cultural assumptions about native drinking which were so crucial in the construction of political relationships between these two groups, both during and after the war.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>Julia Polyck-O\u2019Neill \u2013 PhD, Interdisciplinary Humanities; Supervisor: Professor Gregory Betts<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Julia Polyck-O\u2019Neill is poised to create a groundbreaking study that will make a significant contribution to the study of Canadian art and literature.<\/p>\n

Polyck-O\u2019Neill\u2019s research project offers a complex analysis of Vancouver\u2019s conceptualist movements in visual arts and literature. She is focusing on four interdisciplinary artists as part of a study into the complex and theoretically infused practice of conceptualism.<\/p>\n

Professor Gregory Betts, who supervises Polyck-O\u2019Neill, says the project is a bold undertaking, one in which \u201cno scholar of Vancouver or Canadian literature has previously attempted to study\u2026 , despite their international influence and prominence.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI can think of no other student who I would encourage to take on such a challenge,\u201d Betts says. \u201cIt requires versatile, informed knowledge of literature, Canadian literature, literary theory, avant-garde practices, visual arts (photography and painting), Canadian visual art, aesthetic theory, and interdisciplinary comparative practices.\u201d<\/p>\n

Betts says there is much for the art world to gain by Polyck-O\u2019Neill\u2019s original and important topic.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe treats the geography of literature and visual art in Vancouver as a portal to a complex web of ideas about the nature of art and language and the limits of representation,\u201d Betts adds.<\/p>\n

\u201cHer study will offer an extremely important overview of approximately 40 years of art production in the city of Vancouver, contextualized by a further half century of international art currents.\u201d<\/p>\n

About the Jack M. Miller Excellence in Research Awards<\/h5>\n

The awards were established as the Excellence in Research Awards by the late Jack Miller when he served as Vice-President Research and Dean of Graduate Studies, from 1999 to 2004.<\/p>\n

As a tribute to Miller, the Faculty of Graduate Studies renamed the awards in his honour in 2013 and, at the same time, increased the number of awards available and the value of each award.<\/p>\n

Since then, as many as 11 graduates students, in research-based programs, are selected annually from within the six academic faculties to receive between $1,000 to $1,500 to support their research and scholarship.<\/p>\n

Other stories in the series:<\/p>\n

Faculty of Applied Health Sciences<\/a><\/p>\n

Goodman School of Business<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jesse Abbott\u2019s master\u2019s research presents an important new avenue for understanding the War of 1812.
\nAbbott is investigating the role that alcohol played in regulating relations between the British and their Iroquois allies in the War of 1812. He argues that the commanders\u2019 view of themselves as white, masculine and superior \u2013 which was constructed, in part, and reinforced by their drinking habits \u2013 informed the way they dealt with those they saw as racially, culturally or socially inferior.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":39802,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3319,4052,188,55,37,1,4],"tags":[384,3330,1999],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39783"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39783"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39783\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39809,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39783\/revisions\/39809"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39802"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}