Date: Friday, Sept.19th, 2025, 1 p.m. – 4 p.m.

Venue: The Ideas Lounge (EL 1270)

Please join Phoenix Rising for our 4th annual celebration of Faculty in Arts. A panel of new and newly-promoted faculty will present on their research and scholarship achievements.

Stay tuned for a speaker’s list in late August!

Register for the event

For more information, or questions about this event please contact Tamara Jenkins at Tjenkins@mtroyal.ca

Date: Oct. 22nd, 2025, 6 p.m. – 8 p.m.

Venue: The Plaza Theatre in Kensington

The uncertainties of our times, the fears they engender, and our possible responses to them is our theme for this Phoenix Rising Engagement event in our series. Please join us as we present a multi-disciplinary series of lightning talks and roundtable discussion on fear and uncertainty from various perspectives reflecting the rich intellectual diversity of the Faculty of Arts.

Please watch out for a call for proposals in late August!

For questions contact the Phoenix Rising Chair, Tamara Jenkins (TJenkins@mtroyal.ca).

Date: Feb. 12th, 2026, 4 p.m. – 8 p.m.

Venue: Whild Rose Brewery

Stay tuned for details.

A Multi-disciplinary Series of Lightning Talks and Roundtable Discussion

Join The Faculty of Arts and Phoenix Rising for an evening of love and romance from the perspective of the Humanities, Social Sciences, and Arts:

Date: Thursday, February 13th 

Time: 

• 3:30-4:15 p.m. - Mingling and refreshments 
• 4:15 - 5:15 p.m. - Faculty of Arts Lightning Talks 
• Panel I: 
  • Rebecca Geleyn: Some Forms of Love
  • Mark Novak: St. Augustine on Be(com)ing What You Love
  • Harris Rubin: Intimacy, Passion, and Time: Examining How Changes in Romantic Partner Intimacy Perceptions Predict Passion and Sexual Behaviour
  • Sarah Matheson: Love and Limerence in Hector Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique
  • Lin Young: "Romeo and Juliet is NOT a Love Story": Okay, Then What Is?
  • Nancy Doetzel: Meeting my Soulmate in Highschool
  • Jennifer Pettit: First Love, Pick-up Trucks, and WD-40
• 5:30 - 6:30 p.m. - Keynote Talk 
  • How Do I Love Thee?: Cultivating an Enriching, Flourishing Relationship; Dr. Adam Galovan, Dept. of Human Ecology, University of Alberta
• 6:45 - 7:45 p.m. - Faculty of Arts Lightning Talks
• Panel II:
  • Kirk Niergarth: [Back] From [Soviet] Russia with [Free] Love? Canadian views of Soviet sexual politics in the 1930s
  • Duane Bratt: Love (and divorce) in Politics
  • Nazak Birjandifar: Epistolary Love and Brotherhood: Fraternal Bonds, Rivalries, and Courtly Position in the Early Modern Persianate World
  • Kenna Olsen: Chaucer's Free Love: From flatulence and birds to Valentine's Day
  • Carolyn Willekes: Lust, Licentiousness, and Lucky Charms: Sex and Love in Ancient Rome
  • Eric Roettger: Prime Love
  • Gloria Perez-Rivera: My Illegal Passions
• 7:45 - 8:30 p.m. - Mingling and refreshments

Location: Wild Rose Brewery (4580 Quesnay Wood Dr. S.W.) 

Food and bar available throughout! Faculty, students and community members are all welcome!

If you would like further information, please contact the Phoenix Rising working group Chair, Tamara Jenkins (TJenkins@mtroyal.ca).

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The Phoenix Rising working group is thrilled to extend an invitation to you for an exciting and engaging event on March 21, 2024 at Wild Rose Brewery from 2:30 - 8:30 pm. Save the date!

Our upcoming event centers on the theme of “Fun & Play.” We are inviting you to delve into these concepts within the context of your specific field. Perhaps you are exploring playful language in literature, unearthing the historical significance of leisure activities, investigating the role of play in human cognition - however you wish to approach this topic through your discipline, your insights are invaluable and will contribute to a vibrant and fun event! 

There will be food and a cash bar (alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages will be available)

Event Schedule:

2:30 - 3:30 - Refreshments and snacks - grab some pizza!

3:30 - 4:45 - Lightning Talks, Panel I, Play: It’s Serious.
Michele Wellsby, Psychology - "From children at the library to undergraduates at Mount Royal: Using play to enhance learning"
Lisa Gasson-Gardner, Religious Studies (Humanities) - “Taylor Swift’s New Religious Movement”
Stasha Huntingford , General Education (Child Studies and Social Work) - “Who can help us make fun of ourselves?”
Sarah Banting, English, Languages, and Cultures - "Close Reading as Play”
Tony Chaston, Psychology - “Learning in Immersive Online Spaces: The Academic Use of Video Game Technology…Seriously”
Sabrina Datoo, History (Humanities) - “Quackery: Playing at Being a Doctor in Urdu Satire"
Lin Young, English Languages, and Cultures - “Victorians and Videogames”
Guy Olbrecht, General Education - “Wriggle Room to Play In”
Kirk Niergarth, History (Humanities) “Singing, Sociability and Solidarity: The Entertainment Committee of the Calgary Division of
the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, 1943-1960”
David Hyttenrauch, Vice Dean, Arts - “Shoulders of Giants: Fantasy World-Building”

4:45 - Break - Grab another refreshment and more pizza

5:00 Keynote - Aritha van Herk, “Passion, Play, and Procrastination”

6:00 - Break - Snacks! Refreshments!

6:15-6:40 - David Clemis, “The History of the World in Cocktail(s) - a variety of gin cocktails will be available to purchase all evening

6:45 - 7:30, Panel II, All Work and No Play...
Carolyn Willekes, General Education, “Horsing Around: It’s Serious Business”
Samanti Kulatilake and Tom Buchanan, Sociology and Anthropology - “Monsoons: Experiencing the Field Through Literature”
Brian Nichols, Religious Studies, Humanities, “The As If World: Ritual as Play”
Nancy Ogden, Psychology - “Physical Literacy, Outside Play, and Environmental Stewardship in Early Childhood”
Nathaniel Wagenaar, Interior Design, “Exploring Play” Designing Interactive Environments”
Duane Bratt, Economics, Justice and Policy Studies, “The Politics of Lacrosse: Integrating work and play”
Rob Boschman, English, Languages, and Cultures, “Playing Dylan in the Classroom: How Hendrix Expanded the Audience for ‘All Along the Watch Tower’”

7:30 - 9:00, Panel III, Let’s Just Play
Natalie Meisner, English, Languages, and Cultures, “Love of the Game”
Jim Brenan, General Education, “Transcription and analysis of the complete works of Canadian Jazz icon Ralph Bowen”
M.R. Funk Association, Faculty of Arts members with friends

We look forward to your enthusiastic participation!

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Please join us to celebrate our new and rising Faculty of Arts colleagues at the first Phoenix Rising event of the year. A panel of new and newly-promoted faculty will present on their research and scholarship achievements.

All warmly welcome

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Speakers: Dr. Dan Devoe, Dr. Janet Miller, Dr. Duane Bratt, Dr. Nathaniel Wagenaar, Dr. Corinne Mason, Dr. Kenna L. Olsen

This panel of six MRU Faculty of Arts experts will explore the conceptions of, and intersections between, the self and community in response to expectations, policies, and experiences related to pandemics and the societies that experience them.

Details: 16 February 2023
4:00-5:30 pm, Ideas Lounge, Riddell Library and Learning Centre, (EL1270) 
In person
Card bar
All warmly welcome

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Speakers: Dr. Rob Boschman, Dr. Ranjan Datta, Dr. Tim Haney, Dr. Emily Hutchison; Dr. Caroline McDonald-Harker

This panel of five MRU Faculty of Arts experts will explore the human-environment impact in the twenty-first century. As we face the uncertainty and chaos of our destabilised environment, and the traumas that ensue, how do we respond and strive for resilience and stability?

Details: 25 January 2023
4:00-5:30 pm, Ideas Lounge, Riddell Library and Learning Centre, (EL1270)
In person
Card bar
All warmly welcome

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Phoenix Rising — Subjects that Matter Launch Schedule of Day
Taylor Centre for the Performing Arts

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