Media releases

• Local MPs to announce Brock funding to prevent gender-based and family violence

  Tuesday, February 11, 2020 | By Brock University

  MEDIA RELEASE: 11 February 2020 – R0028

  Members of the media and the Niagara community are invited to Brock University on Wednesday, Feb. 12 at 10 a.m. for an announcement about the Government of Canada’s support of the Shape Your Life (SYL) boxing program for youth affected by family violence in two Canadian cities.

  On behalf of the Honourable Patty Hajdu, Federal Minister of Health, Member of Parliament for St. Catharines Chris Bittle and Niagara Centre Member of Parliament Vance Badawey will announce federal support for the program aimed at helping to prevent gender-based and family violence.

  Shape Your Life, which has worked with more than 1,800 female-identified survivors of violence in Toronto since its inception in 2007, will extend its support services to youth aged 13 to 18 affected by family violence in both the Niagara region and in Edmonton, Alta. thanks to funding from the Public Health Agency of Canada.

  The Brock-based team overseeing and implementing this project includes Professor of Kinesiology and SYL co-founder Cathy van Ingen and Associate Professor of Kinesiology Kimberley Gammage.

   

  What: Public Health Agency of Canada, Health Canada Funding Announcement

  Who: St. Catharines MP Chris Bittle and Niagara Centre MP Vance Badawey

  When: Wednesday, Feb. 12, 10 to 10:30 a.m.

  Where: Scotiabank Atrium, Roy and Lois Cairns Health and Bioscience Research Complex, Brock University

  For more information or for assistance arranging interviews: 

  * Dan Dakin, Manager Communications and Media Relations, Brock University ddakin@brocku.ca, 905-688-5550 x5353 or 905-347-1970

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  Categories: Media releases

• Classics prof reflects on legacy of Spartacus

  Monday, February 10, 2020 | By Brock University

  MEDIA RELEASE: 10 February 2020 – R0027

  Of all the films he appeared in, Kirk Douglas, who passed away last week at the age of 103, was perhaps best known for his starring role in the 1960 film Spartacus.

  Although Douglas was a controversial figure — including serious sexual misconduct allegations that came to light later in his life — Spartacus is seen as an important film that dealt with significant contemporary issues.

  “The film was pivotal to 20th century history of confronting injustice and oppression,” says Katharine von Stackelberg, Associate Professor with the Department of Classics at Brock. “People keep thinking slavery is just something that belongs to the past, but as I emphasize in the slavery module of my introduction to Roman civilization course, slavery is very much a present and ongoing issue.”

  The study of Classics and ancient history encourages students to engage with current social justice issues, she says.

  A 2017 UN report on slavery estimates that 40 million people worldwide are commodified and trafficked as forced labour and forced sex workers.

  Spartacus is based on real historical events. The Third Servile War was the last in a series of slave revolts in the Roman Republic. Begun in 73 BCE by a group of seventy escaped slave gladiators, the revolt swelled to 120,000 men, women and children over two years. After it was crushed by Roman military forces under Crassus in 71 BC, more than 6,000 of the slaves were crucified along the Appian Way, leading from Rome to southern Italy.

  Howard Fast wrote the novel on which the film is based while in jail for refusing to testify before the House Unamerican Activities Committee (HUAC). The film parallels American history and the civil rights movement, including the fight to end segregation and promoting the equality of African-Americans.

  “Spartacus was an enormously controversial film,” says von Stackelberg. “The book on which it was based was banned during the McCarthy era because the resistance of slaves to masters was understood to promote Communism.”

  The movie’s climatic scene, where each recaptured slave claims to be Spartacus and thereby share his fate, dramatized the solidarity of those who were blacklisted as Communist sympathizers because they refused to implicate others.

  “The film protested against HUAC censorship and oppression by employing artists, writers, actors and technicians who had been blacklisted for many years,” says von Stackelberg. “It was credited with effectively ending the Hollywood blacklist and has been recognized as providing social commentary on the Civil Rights Movement in its treatment of women, African-Americans, and same-sex relationships. “The actual Spartacan uprising was also followed by a period of increasingly progressive legislation in the Roman Empire, so Ancient History is closer to the present than we think,” says von Stackelberg.

  Katharine von Stackelberg, Associate Professor with the Department of Classics at Brock University, is available for interviews.

  For more information or for assistance arranging interviews:

  * Dan Dakin, Manager Communications and Media Relations, Brock University ddakin@brocku.ca, 905-688-5550 x5353 or 905-347-1970

  Brock University Marketing and Communications has a full-service studio where we can provide high definition video and broadcast-quality audio. 

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  Categories: Media releases