Help wanted - The Cultural History of Jam Jams, Billy Boots, and Pineapple Crush

Purity Jam Jams, Billy Boot garbage bags, and Pineapple Crush pop have become iconic Newfoundland products, with unique ties to Newfoundland history and culture.

Morgan Murray at The Scope is trying to unravel/uncover/figure out the history of the cultural significance of these products in NL, e.g. how and why they have become so popular, and the important political, historical, and social factors that have made them, and kept them so.

If you have any information, theories, insights, or wild guesses about any of these products, please contact Morgan at morgan@thescope.ca.

Living Deadwood: Imagination, Affect, and the Persistence of the Past.

23 November, 2011 · 7pm
Memorial University,  Bruneau Centre, IIC 2001

Dr. Rebecca Johnson will speak on "Living Deadwood: Imagination, Affect, and the Persistence of the Past." Edward Said argued that stories about the past tell us less about that past than about cultural attitudes in the present. In this presentation, Rebecca Johnson turns to popular culture to explore that observation. We will consider the place of imagination, with its structures of feeling, in our current legal, social and economic ordering. 

Dr. Johnson uses the HBO TV show Deadwood as a point of entry to explore and re-consider the affective emotional investments that help sustain persisting colonial relationships in our contemporary legal, social, and economic orders. 

The George M. Story Lecture in Humanities is co-sponsored by the Office of the Vice-President (Research) and the Office of the Dean of Arts. It was established to honor the memory of Dr. George M. Story, a scholar of international repute and one of the editors of the Dictionary of Newfoundland English.