Cultures, Communities, and Conflict: Histories of Canadian Universities and War ed. by Paul Stortz and E. Lisa Panayotidis (review)

In Cultures, Communities, and Conflict: Histories of Canadian Universities and War, editors Paul Stortz and E. Lisa Panayotidis have brought together a fascinating collection of articles examining the social, cultural, and intellectual responses of Canadian universities to the crisis of war. As the editors note in their introduction, there is already a substantial literature on Canada in wartime, but little of it has touched on the fundamental place of the university in Canada’s responses. War is the ultimate challenge a nation can face. It unsettles communities and institutions and tests deep-set assumptions and opinions, not to mention sacrifices hundreds if not thousands of citizens. As this collection takes as its premise that the university, one of Western civilization’s oldest and most enduring institutions, is central to national culture, understanding how university communities responded to war and the threat of war seems natural. Yet the collection also recognizes that universities are embedded within those cultures. As many of the chapters in the book argue, universities have never been the isolated “ivory towers” so often derided by those in the so-called real world. Universities have histories of their own, but they are inextricably wound into the moral, intellectual, social, and political debates of their time and place.

Cultures, Communities, and Conflict brings together eleven chapters by thirteen different scholars. It is beyond the scope of this short review to investigate all the articles in the book; however, a few stand out as apt for contemporary observers of university life. In his chapter Michiel Horn revisits his earlier work on challenges to academic freedom during war, revealing how claims on patriotism can produce a chill in debate that today might be called “political correctness.” Chapters by Sarah Burke, James Pistula, and Linda Quiney investigate what role gender plays in student life and university enrolment and whether war challenged or reinforced prevailing norms and assumptions. James Hull and Donald Avery investigate how war’s demand on resources and pressure for innovation can transform scientific research and its place on campus. And Catherine Gidney unpacks the effects of a foreign American war, the one in Vietnam, on Canadian youth and student protest movements. All of these issues have parallels in peacetime.

One major drawback to this volume is that it makes no effort to incorporate French-language universities, something the editors acknowledge in the introduction. As they explain, this collection is an examination of a select number of English-language universities. The selection is perhaps too select, offering an unbalanced perspective on the Canadian campus. Three of the eleven chapters examine the University of Toronto. This is a bit disproportionate. Acadia and Saskatchewan are also treated to dedicated discussions. No other institutions receive this level of attention, and, in all, only eleven schools get more than a passing mention. All but one are major research institutions. The effects of war on smaller, liberal arts colleges, such as Bishop’s and St. Mary’s, receive little treatment. Another omission is any substantive discussion of the pacifism that must surely have occurred during times of war at theological schools and Bible colleges across the country. In short, the volume’s idea of “the university” fails to acknowledge the diversity of the institution’s shapes and sizes.

These critiques are mostly minor quibbles. As a whole, this book makes an excellent contribution to our understanding of both war’s effect on Canadian society, and the role of the country’s institutions of higher education in responding to war’s challenges. But the book draws lessons for more than wartime. In an era when the university is under threat from the angles of corporatization and neo-liberal criticism, this is a timely book that offers important insights for anyone who cares about these institutions of higher learning.