Biography

I arrived at SFU after completing a PhD in a joint programme organised by the Université de Montréal and the Université Libre de Bruxelles. I am a member of the Montreal History Group and of the Centre de recherche Mondes Modernes et Contemporains in Brussels.

I have always been fascinated by large urban centres.  As such, my primary research interests lie in the cultural history of cities, specifically in the way people imagine, represent, and live in their unique atmospheres.  I explore sensorial and emotional experiences with these environments, particularly in times of significant upheaval in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Most of my work focuses on Montreal and Brussels, either individually or in comparative and transnational perspective.  In The Feel of the City: Experiences of Urban Transformation (University of Toronto Press, 2014), I examined the way bodily encounters with the sights, smells, and sounds of the changing landscape in these cities shaped urban dwellers’ understandings of transformations associated with industrial modernity that were taking place on a global scale.  Then, in Bruxelles et sa radio : émotions et sonorité, 1923-1960 (CFC Éditions, 2019), I considered how the sounds and emotions transmitted and produced by radio broadcasting underpinned urban life as the city experienced, and emerged from, four long years of wartime occupation.  These questions have nourished my interest in a range of connected themes that include urban governance, streetlighting, noise abatement, heritage preservation, historical memory as well as comparative and transnational methodologies.  Currently, I am researching the social and cultural transformations to city life generated by the development of railways in Montreal between 1850 and 1950.     

As an instructor in SFU’s French Cohort Program in Public and International Affairs (FCP), I am also interested in issues surrounding Canada’s linguistic diversity.  I have conducted research on the history of British Columbia's Francophone community, concentrating especially on the development of French-language public education in the province.  With fellow FCP instructors, I co-edited a collection of essays geared toward undergraduate students that situates historical and contemporary Canadian issues in a global context.  I regularly comment on provincial and federal politics for Radio-Canada and other local and national media outlets.

Teaching Interests

I am especially interested in working with students to make connections between the past we have inherited and the world we live in today – and imagine for tomorrow.  I teach courses on city life in general, on Vancouver specifically, as well as more broadly on Canada and Quebec understood in a global context.  My courses explore the way social, cultural, political, economic, and environmental forces have shaped these societies, and invite students to reflect on the historical memories and legacies that inform our contemporary world.  I regularly supervise graduate work on these themes, and prospective students are welcome to contact me for more information.

Awards