Dancehall: the Carribean book launch

Great news for all those of you who have been looking for a reason to head for warmer climes – as if the weather this week wasn’t enough!

The University of the West Indies' Institute of Caribbean Studies and the UOP invite one and all to attend the launch of DanceHall: From Slave Ship to Ghetto by Dr. Sonjah Stanley Niaah. You’ll likely need a plane to get there, but who can say no to a Jamaican vacation?

Stanley Niaah’s book is the first to document the cultural significance of dancehall, a genre of popular Jamaican music that combines reggae, digital instrumentation and rapid-fire DJ lyrics. Dancehall music came into vogue in Jamaica during the 1980s, and its popularity continues to grow around the world. In DanceHall, Stanley Niaah examines over 400 years of Black Atlantic performance history through the eyes of a native Jamaican, and links it to other genres of music including as American blues, South African kwaito, and Latin American reggaetòn.

The launch will certainly be one for the books (if you’ll forgive the pun,) and will feature conversations with Professors Brian Meeks and Wilma Bailey as well as Jerome Hamilton, the Executive Director at Headline Entertainment, and the beautiful and talented Nadine Sutherland, Recording Artist. As an extra treat, the after party will include a performance by Stone Love, one of the veteran sound systems featured in the book, as well as some other surprises.

Monday, January 31, 2011

Rex Nettleford Hall, Multipurpose Room

University of West Indies, Mona Campus

6:00pm

To help you all get in the right frame of mind for this groundbreaking launch, check out one of Sonjah Stanley Niaah’s favourite dancehall songs:

uOttawa celebrates Open Access Week!

The University of Ottawa community is celebrating Open Access this week, as we come together to highlight the benefits of Open Access and its importance in the dissemination of research.

If you're looking for a bit of a backgrounder on Open Access and what this is all about, the Open Access Week website, located at http://www.openaccessweek.org/ is a great resource. According to the site,

"Open Access Week is a global event now entering its fourth year, is an opportunity for the academic and research community to continue to learn about the potential benefits of Open Access, to share what they’ve learned with colleagues, and to help inspire wider participation in helping to make Open Access a new norm in scholarship and research. [...]

This year’s Open Access Week (October 18 – 24) will highlight the collaboration and collective action that have heightened the momentum behind Open Access and showcase a broad range of initiatives around the globe. Participation by hundreds of universities, research facilities, and other sites worldwide will illustrate the depth and breadth of support for Open Access and demonstrate the real impact of unfettered access on advancing discovery across disciplines."

Check out the video below to learn more about how the University of Ottawa is participating. The best part is that around the 15 minute mark, the UOP is mentioned!

Open Access Week 2010 from SPARC on Vimeo.

D. Paul Schafer – Revolution or Renaissance

In this video D. Paul Schafer presents the ideas gathered in his book, Revolution or Renaissance, to an audience at the University of Guelph. The presentation was also seen live via webscast at the University of Malmo in Sweden. It was recorded on March 14, 2009 during the seminar Media, Conflict and Development organized by Malmo’s Communication for Development Program.