{"id":44162,"date":"2017-03-22T16:15:33","date_gmt":"2017-03-22T20:15:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/?p=44162"},"modified":"2017-03-22T16:32:21","modified_gmt":"2017-03-22T20:32:21","slug":"new-course-looks-at-fraternalism-throughout-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/2017\/03\/new-course-looks-at-fraternalism-throughout-history\/","title":{"rendered":"New course looks at fraternalism throughout history"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/b>A long-running Brock University lecture series has inspired a new history course focused on fraternalism and the Freemasons.<\/span><\/p>\n

The third-year offering, which launched in January, is closely linked to the Dr. Charles A. Sankey Lecture Series hosted by the University every spring. The lecture, focused on the history of the Freemasons, this year takes place Sunday, March 26 in Sean O\u2019Sullivan Theatre.<\/span><\/p>\n

After years of helping to organize the annual lecture, Associate Professor Ren\u00e9e Lafferty-Salhany was inspired to create a course that examines the concept of fraternalism throughout history.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI started noticing ways the language of fraternalism, not just Masonic fraternalism, was everywhere in the things I was researching,\u201d Lafferty-Salhany said. \u201cThe lecture series had me identifying fraternalism as something that at various points in time has had a real presence in many communities.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Lafferty-Salhany has used the knowledge she\u2019s gained through her experience with the Sankey Lecture to help shape the new third-year course, which has been in the works for several years.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt allows us the opportunity to get students up into the archives working with the Sankey Collection,\u201d she said. Charles Sankey, a Freemason and historian of Freemasonry, donated his personal library to Brock. The collection was used by the Grand Lodge of Canada in the Province of Ontario as the basis for a larger historic collection.<\/span><\/p>\n

The new course is an opportunity to highlight the collection, which Lafferty-Salhany described as the \u201ccrown jewel of the History department.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Students were provided insight into the types of Masonic records available in Brock\u2019s Special Collections and Archives and were encouraged to access them.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe had students pulling documents out of the Sankey collection and encouraging their classmates to read them. That exposure was pretty amazing,\u201d she said.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s all about getting students to recognize what they have access to. It\u2019s so special to have those archives.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

In addition to the Freemasons, students in the class have spent time researching fraternalism in the military, the Napoleonic and Vietnam wars and in North Korea.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve talked about everything from conspiracy theories to Masonic history. It\u2019s been a far more diverse course than I had expected,\u201d Lafferty-Salhany said.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re covering everything from the KKK to the Orange Order to the Knights of Labor. There\u2019s just an amazing variety of topics.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

More information on the Charles A. Sankey Lecture is available in a recent Brock News story<\/b><\/a>.<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A long-running Brock University lecture series has inspired a new history course focused on fraternalism and the Freemasons.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":44163,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[37,1,4],"tags":[5080,506,5085,5082,5081,138],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44162"}],"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\/38"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44162"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44162\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}