Presentation on Verdun, Quebec, at UQAM

A "table ronde" on "Verdun, 1939-1945 : guerre et urbanité" is scheduled for March 7, 2007, from 3.00 to 5.00 p.m., at Pavillon Athanase-David, salle D-R200, 1430, rue Saint-Denis, at the Université Québec à Montréal. The round table will consist of Serge Durflinger, professeur, Département d'histoire, Université d'Ottawa and author of Fighting from Home: The Second World War in Verdun, Quebec (UBC Press, 2006); Claire Poitras, professeure-chercheure, Institut national de recherche scientifique, Urbanisation, Culture et Société; and, Yves Tremblay, historien militaire, Direction Histoire et patrimoine du ministère de la Défense nationale, Ottawa and professeur associé, Département d'histoire, UQAM. For further information, contact Isabelle Bisson-Carpentier, (514) 987-3000, poste 5022 or bisson-carpentier.isabelle@uqam.ca.

"The Valiants" and Canadian military history

While "The Valiants" - a series of monuments constructed in Ottawa "to honour fourteen Canadian men and women that marked the history of Canada during periods of conflict" - hadn't yet made it as a post on this blog, the resulting discussion of their place, and the place of military history in Canada, on the discussion group H-Canada is of interest and should be captured now. My thanks to Dr. Jack Granatstein for suggesting it as a topic for a post here.

The discussion at H-Canada began on November 13 when Chris Tait, a graduate student at the University of Western Ontario, wrote "'The Valiants' as Public History: A Comment", providing a "personal reflection" on the statues and the project's website. Responses to the initial posting have continued through November and have reflected an interesting and wide-ranging discussion on the subject (November 14 - messages one, two and three; November 15 - one, two, three and four; November 17 - one; November 20 - one; November 21 - one; November 22 - one; November 23 - one and two; November 25 - one; and November 27 - one).