February 21, 2008 - Edmonton - University of Alberta graduate students and some Edmonton-area high school students are getting together to explore themes going forward such as nationalism and identity, conflict and propaganda, and security in the 21st century.
More than 400 Edmonton high school students will be on campus Feb. 21-22 to participate in the conference, The Architecture of History: Rethinking Interpretations of Past and Present. Sponsored by the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Department of History and Classics, students will discuss topics ranging from economic development in Zimbabwe to Cold War propaganda to M?tis communities in St. Albert.
Daniel Grigat, special projects co-ordinator for the Faculty of Graduate Studies' Outreach program, said the conference gets its influence from the newly revised high school curriculum that was previously very Cold War oriented.
"Now they're moving more into areas of political science, issues of globalization and governance, poverty reduction around the world and things like that," Grigat said, adding the timing of the event couldn't be more appropriate.
"The centenary encourages us to look to the past and look to the future simultaneously. So, we were trying to capture a little bit of that idea. It has inspired us to look beyond history as the study of the past and to consider the lessons that it holds for global citizenship today and in the future."
First held as Dictators' Day in 2007 at Holy Trinity High School, Grigat said one of aims of this year's conference is to get more grad student involvement.
"When we did it last year, we had graduate students presenting, but it was largely for a high-school audience," he said. "This year, we wanted to combine it with a larger grad-school audience as well."
While gearing a conference towards both high-school and graduate-school audiences may seem like a challenge, it easily falls under the mandate of the outreach program, said Grigat.
"That is what we do. Our mission is to bridge the university and the community, and we do so by getting graduate students to share their research, to share their university experience, not only with high school students, but all the way from kindergarten to Grade 12."
Keynote speakers include Kevin Solez, a PhD candidate at John Hopkins University, and Mohamed Hassan Mohamed, an assistant professor at the University of Windsor.
The conference began Thursday with Solez's Internationalism in the Ancient Mediterranean and will journey through various conflicts and movements. The event will conclude on Friday with remarks from Andy Knight, U of A political science professor and executive director of the United Nations newly created Global Centre Against Mass Atrocity Crimes, and Maj. Tom Bradley, chief of staff to the commander, Joint Task Force Afghanistan, who will speak on the challenges of peace building in the 21st century.