“Comprehending Canada:” Learning from Canadian Studies in the Heart of Europe
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Comprehending Canada Summer Course
The “Comprehending Canada” course was designed to expand upon the aims of the Canadian Studies Centre by sharing its teaching broadly, reaching beyond the university premises. Taught since 2021 over Zoom, the course is offered for free to thirty students each year and is open to students from across the world. In past years, students have mostly come from European universities, yet they represent a very diverse cohort of schools: Regensburg University of Germany, Tartu University in Estonia, the University of Eastern Finland, the University of Porto in Portugal, the University of Vienna in Austria, the University of Sofia in Bulgaria, University of La Laguna in Spain, the University of Warsaw in Poland — as well as Saint Michael’s College in the United States, to name just a few. The students themselves reflect a truly international environment, with many nations represented — Czech, Slovakian, American, Iranian, Spanish, Swedish, German, Estonian, Finnish, Kazakhstani, Portuguese, Austrian, Serbian, Australian, and Italian students have converged to learn about Canada.
To uphold the goals of the Canadian Studies Centre and course alike, the course content is carefully prepared and organised in order to accommodate students of all levels (whether pursuing a BA, MA, or even a PhD) and from diverse areas within the humanities at large. Its intensive, two-week format rigorously attends to providing comprehensive learning outcomes and is divided by week. In the first week of the course, students have access to pre-recorded lectures, required and recommended readings and videos, and discussion forums. Importantly, in this week, they also meet their fellow participants — as well as all five instructors — over Zoom during an hour-long introductory session. In its second week, the course is devoted to intensive, online seminars, with two ninety-minute-long discussion-based sessions every day, each guided by one of the instructors.
Richard Nimijean, from Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada sets the tone for these classes, providing seminars on “National Identity, Diversity, Race and Ethnicity,” followed by Denisa Krásná from Masaryk University, introducing students to “Indigenous Studies, Literature and the Environment”. The week continues at an intensive pace: Jeffrey Ayres from Saint Michael’s College (Burlington, USA) continues with his sessions on “Canada-U.S. Relations, the Border, Refugees,” and Magdalena Fiřtová from Charles University in Prague elaborating on previous topics with her seminars on “Climate Policy, Natural Resources, and Immigration.” Finally, Tomáš Pospíšil from Masaryk University closes the course with two final seminars on “Canadian Feature Film.” Truly intersectional in its scope, the course covers topics from the fields of political science, literary and film studies, economics, international relations, border studies, social sciences, Indigenous studies, and importantly, the environmental humanities.
“I consider the course high quality and it definitely met my expectations. The university where I am studying towards my master’s belongs to the top 105 universities in the world and I can genuinely say that your course belongs to one of the best courses I attended in the spring term. I am very grateful that I was given a chance to be part of it.”
— Anonymous student
Schedule
15:00 and 18:00 CET/ 9:00 am and 12 pm EST
- Introductory meeting: Course opening (12 pm ET, 6 pm CET) - one week before the classes start
- Day 1: National Identity, Diversity, Race, Ethnicity (Nimijean)
- Day 2: Indigenous studies, Literature, the Environment (Krasna)
- Day 3: Canada-US Relations, the Border, Refugees (Ayres)
- Day 4: The Economy, Natural Resources, Immigration (Fiřtová)
- Day 5: Culture and Film (Pospíšil)
Course Format
Students will be able to access recorded lectures, readings, and other resources that must be looked at prior to class meetings in a Moodle site (ELF) hosted by Masaryk University. We will then explore subjects in greater detail in twice-daily 90-minute (maximum) meetings.
Instructors
Jeffrey Ayres
Professor and Chair of the Department of Political Science and International Relations and Director of the Institute for Global Engagement, at Saint Michael’s College in Colchester, Vermont, USA. He teaches courses and conducts research broadly in the areas of comparative and international political economy, regionalism and global governance and Canadian and North American Politics.
Magdalena Fiřtová
An assistant professor at the Institute of International Studies Charles University, Prague. Devoted primarily to Canadian studies, her work focuses on the political economy of North America.
Denisa Krásná
A member of the Department of English and American Studies, Masaryk University, Brno. She specializes in Indigenous studies and literatures and Critical Animal Studies, mostly connecting gendered colonial violence and exploitation of nonhuman animals. Additionally, she researches access to the outdoors and outdoor counternarratives. Her co-edited collection Flow: Outdoor Counternarratives by Women from Rivers, Rock, and Sky is set to be published by the Canadian publisher Rocky Mountain Books.
Richard Nimijean
An Associate Professor (Teaching Stream) in the School of Canadian Studies at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. His teaching and research focus on the Canadian national identity, the politics of branding Canada, Canada as a global actor, and the field of Canadian Studies.
Tomáš Pospíšil
An associate professor at the Department of English and American Studies, Masaryk University, Brno. His research areas include Canadian feature film, African American screen representation, and the reception of American culture in the Czech lands.
