Dr. Bill Waiser's Students

Cynthia Bottomley
MA

Research Interests: Prairie Province history, Prairie political history, Modern history (Canada)




JenniferHansenJennifer Hansen 
PhD (ABD)

Dissertation Title: Life Science at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition: Darwinism in North America and the Rise of Ecology

Fields of Expertise: Long 19th Century; History of Science; British Empire; Great Plains;  Historical Research Practice (History, Archives, Records Management, Digital Humanities)

Dissertation Description:
My dissertation analyzes a selection of the scientific lectures and exhibits presented at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition of 1904. This western Exposition, better known as the St. Louis World Fair, had a mandate to “unify knowledge” and the planners hosted an International Congress of Arts and Science in partial fulfillment of that obligation. Germany’s enthusiastic participation in both the Fair and the Congress afforded a unique opportunity for leading North American, English, and German biologists to explore ideas about evolution, progress and ecology in a public forum. I examine the legacy of Darwinism demonstrated in the life science section, an ongoing debate regarding the benefits of laboratory versus field studies, and the designation of Ecology as a field of practice—the first time the discipline was acknowledged at an academic convention.


Publications:
As Jennifer Jozic:

Jozic, J. and J. Staniec (November, 2010). “No Ordinary Life: The Miss Grey Cup and Miss Roughrider Pageants, 1951-1993.” Saskatchewan History, Saskatoon.

Jozic. J. (2005) “Climate Change,” “Transportation,” and “Life in a Northern Town.” (Online exhibits). Northern Research Portal, University of Saskatchewan Archives, Saskatoon.

Jozic, J. (2005) “From Here We Can See the Great Machine in Motion: The Belfast Monthly Magazine, 1808-1814.” University of Saskatchewan (M.A. thesis).

Jozic, J. and D. Monchuk. (2001) “Uncertainty, Early Action and Soil Sinks.” Climate Change Handbook for Agriculture 2000. ed. Joanne Kowalski. Centre for Studies in Agriculture, Law and the Environment, Saskatoon.


Select Conference Presentations:
As Jennifer Jozic:

(2013) “Industrial Leather: The Bison Slaughter in the West and the Global Tanning Industry.” (Presentation). Symposium on the Decline of Bison in the Grasslands, May 2013.

Jozic, J. (2012) “The Tribulations of Captain Blakiston.” (Presentation). Third Western Studies Conference, University of Calgary, June 2012.

Jozic, J. (2012) “Data-Mining the Legacy of Natural History on the Great Plains.” (Presentation). Association of Canadian Archivists Annual Conference, Whitehorse, June 2012.

Jozic, J. (2011) “Blakiston’s Line: Thomas Blakiston, Before and After the Palliser Expedition.” (Presentation). Keewatin Country Graduate Student History Conference, Moose Jaw.


Email: jennifer.hansen@usask.ca

Megan Hubert
MA

Thesis Title: “Giving Space Meaning”: The Cultural History of the Saskatchewan Railway Hotels, 1926-2005

Thesis Description: My research focuses on the Canadian railway hotels that were built in Saskatchewan: The Bessborough Hotel in Saskatoon, and The Hotel Saskatchewan in Regina. I am investigating how the building of these hotels by competing railway companies, their unique architectural styles, and their central locations affected the ways in which the hotels became socially important spaces to their home communities and howthese hotels were representative of their cities’ larger cultural values and aspirations.

Email: mjh591@mail.usask.ca

Glenn Iceton PhD (ABD)

Dissertation Title: Defining Space: How History has Shaped and Informed Notions of Kaska Land Use and Occupancy

Fields of Expertise:
Environmental History; Aboriginal History; Northern Canadian History; Fur Trade History; Aboriginal Rights and Title.

Dissertation Description:
My dissertation examines land claims in the Yukon and northern British Columbia from an environmental historical perspective. Focusing on the Kaska Nation, who have not settled land claims, I consider the ways in which conceptions of the Kaska’s historical land use and occupancy as well as the significance of place is shaped through the current legal framework of Aboriginal rights and title and contemporary environmental politics. My dissertation will also take into account the historical circumstances in which the evidence of land use has been produced and the implications of this production of knowledge for current conceptions of land use and occupancy.

Publications: 
Iceton, Glenn."Law of the Yukon: A History of the Mounted Police in the Yukon (book review)." The Northern Review (forthcoming).

Iceton, Glenn. "The Last Patrol: Following the Trail of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police's Legendary Lost Patrol (book review)." The Northern Review (forthcoming).

Iceton, Glenn. “Missionaries.” In Herschel Island Qikiqtaryuk: A Natural and Cultural History of Yukon’s Arctic Island. Ed. Christopher R. Burn. Whitehorse: Wildlife Management Advisory Council (North Slope), 2012.

Iceton, Glenn. “The Kandik Map (book review).” Northern Review 34 (Fall 2011): 100-102.

Select Conference Presentations:
“Land Use, Dispossession, and Repossession: Ethnography, State Knowledge, and Aboriginal Title Along the Yukon-British Columbia Border,” Under Western Skies 3, Mount Royal University, Calgary, Alberta, September 2014.

“Buying Local: Changes in Athapaskan Material Culture and the Commodification of Wildlife in the Northern Yukon, 1860-1910,” Place and Replace: A Joint Meeting of Western Canadian Studies and St. John’s College Prairies Conference, Winnipeg, Manitoba. Sept. 2010.

“Exchanging the Primitive for the Civilized: Ethnographic Collecting Practices in the Northwestern Yukon, 1860-1910,” University of Calgary, Archaeology Graduate Student Association Colloquium Series, Calgary, Alberta. Dec. 2009.

“Profits and Prophets: The Impact of Exchange in the Northern Yukon on Shamanism and Wildlife Management,” NiCHE (Network in Canadian History & the Environment) Northern Workshop, Whitehorse, Yukon. Jun. 2009.

“On the Other Side of the ‘Long Chalk’: Intersecting Fur Trading Dynasties in Russian America,” Fur Trade and Metis History: Patterns of Ethnogenisis mini-conference at the Annual Conference of the Canadian Historical Association, Carlton University, Ottawa, Ontario. May 2009.

Email: glenn.iceton@gmail.com

Laura Larson
PhD (ABD)

Dissertation Title: “‘Why should I sell your wheat?’ Trudeau government agricultural transportation policy”

Fields of Expertise: Western Canadian History; Prairie Agricultural History; Economic History especially Agricultural Commodities; Environmental History

Dissertation Description:
The 1968 election of the Trudeau-led Liberal government began a process that altered the fundamental structure of prairie agriculture. My dissertation examines the 1977 Hall and Snavely Commissions on grain handling and transportation. These commissions, their recommendations and consequences are placed in the wider context of the Crowsnest Pass Freight Rate Agreement debates. Part of my examination uses historical GIS to integrate data from the thousands of elevator delivery points that once marked prairie communities with other statistical sources. I seek to give a more nuanced understanding of policies that have influenced western Canadian agriculture over the last forty years from a community to a national level.

Publications:
“Old Conflicts in a New Century: The problems of prairie grain transportation,” in ActiveHistory.ca, April 15, 2014

Select Conference Presentations:“Give Us Our Daily Bread: Changing funding models for plant breeding in western Canada,” 2014 Fort Garry Lectures, University of Manitoba, May 2, 2014

“Past Trains for Present Grains: Why agricultural history matters,” Graduate Research Conference 2014, University of Saskatchewan, March 7, 2014

“Distorting History: Canadian farmers in the single-desk debate,” Keewatin Country Graduate Student History Conference 2013, University of Saskatchewan, April 26, 2013

“The ‘Great Grain Robbery’: Canadian myths and legends,” Keewatin Country Graduate Student History Conference, University of Saskatchewan, University of Manitoba, and University of Winnipeg, April 30, 2012

Email:   laura.larsen@usask.ca

Dustin McNichol
PhD (ABD)

Research Interests: Political history of 19th and 20th century Canada, especially the West and Quebec; La francophonie canadienne; Minority-Majority Relations in nation-states; Federalism, Nationalism, and Consociationalism.

I hold a BA in Political Science/Philosophy (2009) and a MA in Canadian Studies (2011) from the University of Alberta. The principal goal of my research is to understand ethnic relations and majority-minority dynamics in nation-states with significant linguistic, religious, political, and social cleavages. More specifically, I focus on Canada's historical and contemporary processes of nation-building in discourse, historiography, political representation/activism, and institutions. Relations between French-speaking and English-speaking Canadians have always played a central role in Canadian history; what does this mean for how we understand Canada and contemporary nation-states? My dissertation, which deals with language politics in western Canada from 1975 to today, attempts to answer this question via an analysis of debates over the constitutional status of French in the region.

Selected Publications:
"Régimes linguistiques en Alberta et en Saskatchewan depuis 1988".Journal La Relève 2, no. 2 (2010), 6-7.

"Déconstruire le mythe du Canada inclusif". In Transferts des savoirs; savoirs des pratiques. Production et mobilisation des savoirs pour des communautés inclusives. Actes du colloque du Groupe de recherche sur l'inter/transculturalté et l'immigration, Edmonton, 2012 (forthcoming).

"Fragilité francophone et conscience historique dans l'Ouest canadien". Journal La Relève 4, no. 1 (2013), 10-11. 

(With Claude Couture), "La francophonie canadienne dans l'enseignement de l'histoire: Rêve français et droits linguistiques dans l'Ouest". Enjeux de l'univers social 9, no. 1 (2013), 36-41.


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