Concordia's Vol. 26, No. 10 February 7, 2002 pr.concordia.ca/ctr Hexagram Institute receives a $21.9-million Cf I grant Funds from the Canada Foundation for Innovation will provide research space and equipment for the digital arts BY BARBARA B LACK 40 per cent by provincial agencies, communications and sound The CFI apphcation was made by of the money will buy exciting new and 20 per cent by other sources. researchers in a multi-media evalua­ Concordia Fine Arts Professors Lynn equipment for researchers, including exagram, the new inter-uni­ About $8 million will go to build­ tions lab. Hughes and Barbara Layne under the two Sony high-definition cameras H ve rsity project in digital art ing Hexagram's research space in the About $1.5 million will go to Con­ name Conve rging Digital Content: ($355,000 each), Avid production that is led by Concordia, has been arts/engineering complex to be built cordia's main partner, the Universite Interdisciplinary Research in Emerg­ and post-production fa cilities, a awarded an Innovation Grant by the at Guy and Ste. Catherine Sts. Nearly du Quebec a Montreal (UQAM), to ing Cinema and Interacti ve Media robotic arm, digitally-assisted Canada Foundation for Innovation. $500,000 will be spent on renova­ build an interactive explorations centre Arts. The interim director of Hexa­ jacquard weaving looms, and two The grant is for $2 1,963,639, of tion in the Drummond Building on that will match and be connected to gram is Dean Christopher Jackson. rapid-prototyping machines, which which 40 per cent is funded by CFI, the Loyola Campus to accommodate the one in Concordia's new building. Professor Layne said that the rest she describes as "a 3D photocopier." Professor revisits royal processions in 16th-century France BY SIGALIT HOFFMAN ate studies and research, was also larity, during the reign of Henri II, overjoyed with Wagner's achieve­ they become the subject of 250-page arie-France Wagner, a profes­ ment, which is bound to be a badge poetic tomes. Msor in Concordia's Departe­ of honour for the university. For example, in a town of 24,000 ment des Etudes fran c;: aises, has "This is amazing news," he said. people like Troyes, up to 6,000 received a $1.6-million grant over 'The grant proposals were submitted "undesirables" would be kicked out five years from Canada's major social to hard-nosed reviewers, and these and "replaced" with 4,000 military science and humanities research people agreed that hers was one of the men, and for the ceremony, the agency. best applications this year. " municipal council built a series of "I was speechless," said Wagner, ephemeral structures to punctuate the who is the first Concordia professor Rituals of power procession. to receive an award of that magni­ Wagner will be the head researcher Wagner, who plans to read the nar­ tude. The Social Sciences and in a project that involves five other ration of the processions in succes­ Humanities Research Council universities across Quebec and sion, hopes to piece together the (SSHRC) announced in December Ontario. In all, seven researchers, 15 history and the culture of the towns that she had been awarded one of five graduate students, and five collabora­ in which the processions took place. Major Collaborative Research Initia­ tors from as far away as France will "Reading the accounts is a study of tive grants handed out across Canada. study the evolution of royal proces­ politics, of art, of culture, and of lan­ The grants usually range in value sions in French towns between 1484 guage," she said. from $1.5 to 2.5 million, and the and 1615. SSHRC is the major federal agency competition for funding is always Though the topic may seem far that gives grants to humanities and stiff. removed from the 21st century, Wag­ social science researchers. The SSHRC "We were 32 last January, 10 last ner said there are elements of the corresponds to two other major grant­ April and five in December," she said. royal visits that are still current. Like a Professor Marie-France Wagner, Department des Etudes Franc;aises ing agencies, the Canadian Institutes "It was very selective." politician visiting his constituents or for Health Research (CIHR) , and the Her co-investigators are Benoit the pope visiting his followers , Wagn­ this is proof that while the proces­ also a rallying cry. They helped foster Natural Sciences and Engineering Bolduc (University of Toronto), Alain er said, the processions were "a ritual sions were a statement of the a sense of belonging to the city, and Research Council (NSERC). Laframboise (Universite de Montreal), of power, of the glory of the personal­ monarch's sovereignty over the town, to the greater French nation, Wagner SSHRC's budget is the smallest of the Lyse Roy (Universite du Quebec a ity that passed." they were also reflections of what the said. three organizations, but caters to the Montreal), Daniel Vaillancourt (Uni­ In later processions, local artists town wanted the monarch to be. The processions, which began to largest number of researchers. The versity of Western Ontario), Pierre­ would engrave the king's or queen's "Power needs images," she said. wane after the 17th century, told a lot agency usually allocates the bulk of its Louis Vaillancourt (Universite genealogy on structures built especial­ "The use and abuse of these images is about the towns in which they took funding to social scientists rather than d'Ottawa), and Helene Visentin ly for the occasion. One could also as old as the world." place. At first, they were reported on humanities researchers such as Wagner. (Smith College). find mythology on obelisks, arcs, The processions were not only in little books that were four to five Claude Bedard, the dean of gradu- fountains and statues. To Wagner, demonstrations of power, they were pages long. At the peak of their popu- ■ Wagner continued on page 10 New religions proliferate around the world: Palmer BY BARBARA B LACK This brings with it certain anxi­ superscientists seems hardly to matter. and Belgians, because of the Solar for the Raelians. eties. Every misquote or mangled sta­ The Raelians grabbed international Temple [mass suicides in 1994], Recommended reading for the usan Palmer is a scholarly expert tistic attributed to her in the press headlines last March, when Rael was focus on people who lead normal course includes Armageddon in Waco, Son the Raelians, the Quebec­ drives a wedge between the social sci­ asked to testify before a U.S. congres­ lives. An employee of a corporation Moon Sister, Krishna Mothers, Rajneesh based new religion posited on extra­ entist and her subjects, with whom sional subcommittee hearing into there recently lost his job for practis­ Lnvers: Women 's Roles in New Religions t e rres trials and free love. She's she has so far enjoyed a trusting and human cloning. ing yoga!" (by Palmer), and Millennialism, Perse­ writing a book about them for Rut­ friendly relationship. In an article she wrote for Religion Palmer is no more sympathetic to cution and Violence . gers University Press, and she is often Until recently, the Raelians have in the News, a U.S. magazine, Palmer anti-cult organizations on this side of So far, none of her students (to her consulted by journalists. tended to view any media attention, said it was "a day of triumph" for the the Atlantic; she sees them as having knowledge) have gone from the class­ however derisory, as good 54-year-old founder, who wore a a vested interest in the form of profes­ room to a cult. She feels she is arming publicity, and in general, white suit and a star-shaped pendant, sional deprogrammers. them with knowledge at a time when the Quebec press, like his thinning hair done up in a bun. She seems to be having a picnic they are searching for new ways of Quebecers themselves, has He was accompanied by Dr. Brigitte studying new religions. For one living and thinking. been remarkably warm Boisellier, director of the Raelians' sci­ thing, there a lot of them. The Centre They are learning about their own towards the movement. entific arm, Clonaid, who assured the d'information des nouvelles religions culture in an unusual context, too. Since the leader Rael, born bemused law-makers that she is well has files on 800 new religions in Que­ Sometimes a student will make a link as Claude Vorilhon, came on the way to replicating a human bec alone. between a practice in a new religion to Quebec in 1992, the being. For another, they're a lot easier to and something the student knows movement has flourished; In the United States, the movement study than the old religions. She was from his or her own parents and Palmer puts its worldwide is now recognized for tax purposes as quoted by Toby Lester, the author of grandparents. membership at about a religion. Palmer says that last Feb­ a long feature article on new religions Palmer herself moves easily among 55,000, most of them in ruary she wrote a report to support in the February issue of the Atlantic the practitioners of the new religions, Quebec, French-speaking the Raelians' application for similar Monthly: "Their history is really short, and like other scholars, visits with her Europe and Japan. status in Canada. It had previously they don't have that many members, colleagues around the world, com­ It has elements that been denied, on the grounds that their leader is usually still alive, and paring the latest news.