Affecting Change in a Globalized World: our annual international conference showcases Concordia talent

This year's 14th Annual Concordia-Siena Conference on Globalization took place on November 17th and 18th, with the participation of over 50 students and faculty members from Concordia and our partner school, Siena College in New York. The theme of this year's conference was Affecting Change in a Globalized World, , and our students rose to the occasion, as they always do, this time with thought-provoking talks on resilience and climate intervention. From the Loyola College for Diversity and Sustainability, Nick Cabelli started off the student session with an exploration of the concept of the Chthulucene and climate intervention from a philosophical and aesthetic perspective in his tralk entitled Preliminary Notes Towards the Chthulucene: Against Climate Intervention. Juile Quadrio then spoke about cultural resilience in occupied Tibet in her talk entitled The Struggle for Tibet’s Cultural Resilience.  Maggie McCutcheon followed up by examining the contrasting case of Great Blasket Island as an example of a lack of cultural resilience in her talk of the same title. Finally, Chelsea Cameron explored the role of nostalgia in creating personal resilience among Aboriginal survivors of the Canadian Residential School system in her talk entitled Aboriginal Resilience: Nostalgia in the Context of Canadian Residential Schools in the 19th and 20th Century. On the Siena side, we heard from gruops of students discussing such wide-ranging topics as global communication, vaccines, and the effects of technology on climate change. In addition to the student talks we were treated to a keynore address from Dr. Aziz Choudry and a series of workshops on community resilience, fermentation, urban food production, and cooperative business models from Dr. Satoshi Ikeda and community partners Sheena Swirlz from the Concordia Greenhouse, Monica Dantas from Seasons Jars, and Irina Grecu from Transition NDG. All in all, it was an exciting two days of inspiring discussion; a big thank you to all those who helped to make it so!