Opening session keynote 1– former president Lorna Marsden

Lorna Marsden served as President and Vice-Chancellor of York University from 1997-2007 and remains as professor and President emerita. After completing her PhD at Princeton University, she began her academic career on the faculty of the Department of Sociology at the University of Toronto in 1972 where she taught economic sociology courses at both the undergraduate and graduate level. In 1984, Prime Minister Trudeau appointed her to the Senate of Canada where she worked until 1992, when she resigned to become president and vice-chancellor of Wilfrid Laurier University. While Senator, she taught part-time at the University of Toronto and while president, she taught at both WLU and York from time to time and recently has been teaching at Glendon faculty to the most interesting and enthusiastic students.

Keynote 2 – Megan Boler – ‘Pedagogies of Discomfort’

Megan M. Boler received her PhD at the History of Consciousness Program at the University of California , and is Professor at the Ontario Institute of Studies in Education/University of Toronto; and Associate Faculty of Knowledge Media Design Institute. Her books include Feeling Power: Emotions and Education(Routledge 1999); Democratic Dialogue in Education: Troubling Speech, Disturbing Silences (Peter Lang, 2004); and Digital Media and Democracy: Tactics in Hard Times (MIT Press, 2008). She is the recipient of two major research grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council: the first 3-year project, “Rethinking Media, Citizenship and Democracy: Digital Dissent after 9/11,” used mixed-methods to examine the motivations of producers of “digital dissent”– digital media practices that challenge corporate-owned news media. Her current funded 3-year research project “Social Media in the Hands of Young Citizens” focuses on how young people’s social media practices are redefining what counts as civic engagement and participatory democracy.

Professor Bolen's web-based productions include a study guide to accompany the documentary The Corporation (dirs. Achbar and Abbott 2003), and the multimedia website Critical Media Literacy in Times of War. She teaches graduate studies in philosophy of education, and her essays have been published in journals including Educational Theory, Women’s Studies Quarterly, and New Media and Society. Links to her essays on pedagogical topics such as "The Risks of Empathy: Interrogating Multiculturalism's Gaze" and "A Pedagogy of Discomfort" or "The Ethics of Shattering World Views" can be found at www.meganboler.net

Abstract: Education and the Discomfort of Change”

"When and how do educational aims include challenging cherished assumptions and beliefs, investigating through critical reflection the implications of "common sense", "norms," and dominant cultural values? How does a "pedagogy of discomfort" invite students and educators to step out of comfort zones and engage the intellectual and affective dimensions that constitute our learning and knowing? Professor Boler will address both educational theories and pedagogical practices that engage the affective and political dimensions of learning within the contexts of higher education."