Teaching difficult topics: managing discomfort in the classroom (2024 edition)

Dr. Angel M. Foster is a Professor in the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Ottawa. She holds a doctorate from the University of Oxford in Middle Eastern Studies, an MD from Harvard Medical School, and both master’s and bachelor’s degrees from Stanford University. Dr. Foster is a global abortion researcher and leads projects in 22 countries in Asia, Africa, Europe, the Middle East, and North America. She has authored more than 100 articles and co-edited three books; she also led the most recent revision of the Inter-Agency Field Manual on Reproductive Health in Humanitarian Settings. Dr. Foster serves as the Chair of the Board of Directors of the National Abortion Federation, Canada, the Co-Chair of the Safe Abortion Care Sub-Working Group of the Inter-Agency Working Group on Reproductive Health in Crises (IAWG) and the Editor-in-Chief of Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health.

Brenda is the University Research Chair in Metis Family and Community Traditions at the University of Ottawa and holds a PhD in Native Studies from the University of Saskatchewan where she also worked. She is an expert in the history of Metis communities who works closely with traditional knowledge keepers to understand the cultural values and contexts that have shaped the Metis world. As a professor of Native/Indigenous Studies and as someone who has only taught students from this lens, she’s had to give a lot of consideration to teaching difficult subjects. The Indigenous Studies classroom is a space where ideas of race and racism and the questions of sovereignty are at the forefront as we address conflicting ideas about land and territorial rights. Navigating these complex teaching spaces is at the heart of Indigenous Studies pedagogical practices.

Dr. Baljit Nagra is a tenured Associate Professor in the Criminology Department at the University of Ottawa. Both her research and teaching are geared towards racial justice, with a focus on race relations, national security, and surveillance. Her intellectual interest is in learning how racial boundaries are transformed through a language of gender, religion, and security. Hence, through her research, she aims to understand how racial discourses are rearticulated in the ‘War on Terror’. Her work has been published in highly-ranked refereed journals such as Sociology of Race and Ethnicity, the British Journal of Criminology, the Canadian Journal of Sociology, and the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies. She is also the author of a book titled Securitized Citizens: Canadian Muslims Experiences of Race Relations and Identity Formation Post 9/11, which was published by the University of Toronto Press.