Biography

Degrees

PhD, Communication and Culture (Ryerson/York)
MA, Political Studies (University of Saskatchewan)
BA, Political Science and History (University of Toronto)

Representative Publications and Conference Papers

·    Books

Cairns, James, and Alan Sears. 2012. The democratic imagination: Envisioning popular power in the 21st century. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Sears, Alan, and James Cairns. 2010. A good book in theory: Making sense through inquiry. 2nd ed. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

·    Articles and Book Chapters

Cairns, James, and Susan Ferguson. [Forthcoming.] The truth in embodied stories. Journal of Canadian Studies.

Cairns, James. 2012. "A parliament of man become a parliament of women": Performing femininity and the state through mediated civic ritual in Ontario, 1900-1940." Journal of Historical Sociology (online first) DOI: 10.1111/johs.12004.

Cairns, James, and Susan Ferguson. 2011. Human rights revisionism and the Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Antisemitism. Canadian Journal of Communication 36(3):415-434.

Cairns, James. 2010. From Social Celebration to Social Deliberation: The rise of liberal-pluralist symbolism in Ontario. Canadian Journal of Communication 35(3):395-412.

Cairns, James. 2009. Politics? Fear not!: The rise of The Average Superhero in the visual rhetoric of Bill Davis’ 1971 election pamphlet. In Communicating in Canada's past, ed. G. Allen and D.J. Robinson, chap. 7. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Cairns, James. 2008. Ontario Throne Speeches through the lens of mass media. Canadian Parliamentary Review 31(3):21-6.

Cukier, Wendy, and James Cairns. 2009. Gender and attitudes to small arms: Implications for action. In Sexed pistols: Gender perspectives on small arms and light weapons, ed. V. Farr and A. Schnabel. Tokyo: United Nations University Press.

·    Recent Academic Conferences

Sears, Alan, and James Cairns. 2012, "The social reproduction of queerness." Presented at Historical Materialism, SOAS, London, UK. November. 

Cairns, James, and Susan Ferguson. 2012, "Transnationalizing BDS: The academic and cultural boycott in Canada and the US." Presented at the Left Forum, Pace University, New York, NY. March. 

Cairns, James. 2011, "The contradictions of interdisciplinarity in the twenty-first century university." Presented at the Grand River Forum Conference, Laurier Brantford, Brantford, ON. October.

Cairns, James, and Susan Ferguson. 2011. "Truth in politics: The case of pro-Palestine discourse in Canada." Presented at the annual meetings of the Canadian Communication Association (Congress of the Social Sciences and Humanities), University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, NB. June.

Cairns, James, and Susan Ferguson. 2011, "Challenges in Palestine solidarity work in Canada." Presented at The Left Forum, Pace University, New York, NY. March.  

Cairns, James, and Susan Ferguson. 2010, "The truth about embodied narratives." Presented at the Grand River Forum Conference, Laurier Brantford, Brantford, ON. October.

Cairns, James. 2010, “Interdisciplinarity as a way of teaching social science.” Presented at the International Conference on Interdisciplinary Social Sciences, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK. August.

Cairns, James. 2010, "'A parliament of man become a parliament of women': Constructing femininity and the state through mass mediated civic ritual, 1900-1945." Presented at the annual meetings of the Canadian Communication Association (Congress of the Social Sciences and Humanities), Concordia University, Montreal, PQ. June.

Cairns, James, and Alan Sears. 2010, "Consolidating neo-liberal education: Schooling goes to market." Presented at the annual meetings of the Society for Socialist Studies (Congress of the Social Sciences and Humanities), Concordia University, Montreal, PQ. June.

Cairns, James, and Susan Ferguson. 2010, "Human rights revisionism and the Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Antisemitism." Presented at the annual meetings of the Canadian Communication Association (Congress of the Social Sciences and Humanities), Concordia University, Montreal, PQ. May. 

2012-13 Teaching

Fall: CT220(BR2), Contemporary Studies Methodologies; and CT345(BR2), Applied Democracy
Winter: CT220(BR4), Contemporary Studies Methodologies; and CT400Y, Occupy the 21st century: Global crisis and resistance