Research Seminar Series

About the Research Seminar Series

The Research Seminar Series is a venue for faculty to engage with colleagues and students to share their ideas and celebrate research culture at King’s.

Winter Semester 2024

Seminar 5: Serving Our Fatherland with Pen: Italian Soldiers as Propagandists in Mussolini's War
Dr. Nicolas Virtue, Department of History
Wednesday, February 7, 12:30 - 1:30 pm
Vitali Lounge Extension, Wemple Hall

This presentation explores a unique set of sources that were discovered serendipitously in the US National Archives: hundreds of letters, poems, short stories, and drawings submitted by ordinary Italian soldiers for publication in an army newspaper during the Second World War. Focusing on the research process itself, the presentation addresses the opportunities as well as the challenges faced by historians when interpreting these unusual but problematic sources.

View the event poster.

Seminar 4: The Ayatollah and I: Iranian Female Poets Reading Their Erotic Poems for the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic
Dr. Mahdi Tourage, Religious Studies and Social Justice and Peace Studies
Wednesday, January 17, 12:30-1:30 pm
Dante Lenardon Hall, DL 112

This paper is an examination of the erotic desires that emerge in annual poetry readings by selected Iranian female poets in the presence of the country's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei. Using desire as a conceptual tool, Dr. Tourage will argue that these poems, especially the highly eroticized ones, open up discursive pathways towards pleasure, creativity and agency in ways that counter the dominant narratives of the “emancipatory agency. By historicizing the complexities of the female poets’ engagement with the literary conventions of Persian poetry and the ideological norms of the Islamic Republic, Dr. Tourage will demonstrate the instability of concepts such as “emancipation,” “resistance,” “agency” and “conformity.”

View the event poster.

Fall Semester 2023

Seminar 3: Pandemic Impact on King’s Counselling Services and Student Wellness Strategies
Dr. Rosemary Vito, School of Social Work, Joanna Bedggood, Manager, Student Wellness, and
Dr. Rick Csiernik, School of Social Work
Wednesday, December 6, 12:30-1:30 pm
Dante Lenardon Hall, DL 112

This presentation provides an overview of the pandemic impact on university counselling services at King's University college. The purpose of this research study was to better understand the trends in how students coped with stress before and during the pandemic, and to consider service use needs afterwards. Secondary data was analyzed over three years (2018-2021) and illustrated with an applied case study. Key results were shared, and the impact on wellness services and student wellness strategies was discussed.

Seminar 2: Between Life and Beyond: Examining Coma, End-of-Life Brain Function, and Cognitive Recovery
Dr. Loretta Norton, Department of Psychology
Tuesday, November 14, 2023, 12:30-1:30 pm
Dante Lenardon Hall, DL 112

Dr. Norton is one of the first researchers in the world to measure brain activity in intensive care unit (ICU) patients. Through her research, she aims to create a better prediction tool for patient recovery and have a meaningful impact on families and healthcare professionals tasked with making difficult life and death decisions.

Seminar 1: Informal International Relations
Dr. Thomas Tieku, Department of Politics and International Relations
Wednesday, October 11, 2023, 1:00-2:00 pm
Dante Lenardon Hall, DL 112

This talk will delve into the hidden world of unspoken, unwritten and unofficial rules and practices that govern international relations. "Informal international rules" (IIRs) are embedded in formal international institutions and they play a crucial role in shaping global politics, even though they're often not discussed in mainstream discourse. This talk aims to help us better understand how informality is a fact of international life.

Download the event poster.