Crossing Boundaries Symposium
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SAVE THE DATE!
Crossing Boundaries Graduate Symposium
Friday, March 14, 2025
Markin Hall
REGISTER HERE
Note: the symposium is a free event, but registration is required to attend.
Registration deadline: March 10.
Crossing Boundaries Graduate Symposium is a celebration of graduate student research in the fine arts, humanities and social sciences at the University of Lethbridge.
Featuring a full-day of presentations and a keynote lecture, Crossing Boundaries showcases the innovative research and creative work of MA, MFA, MMus and PhD students at ULethbridge. A community-building event, the symposium fosters collegial conversations across multiple disciplines and areas of inquiry.
The event will have two formats for student presentations: short 5-minute lightning round talks geared toward new graduate students and longer 15-minute academic presentations of graduate research and creative work.
We are excited to announce the keynote speaker for the upcoming symposium is Dr. Yoke-Sum Wong, Associate Professor, School of Critical and Creative Studies, Alberta University of the Arts (AUArts).

2025 Keynote Speaker
Yoke-Sum Wong
Associate Professor, School of Critical and Creative Studies
Alberta University of the Arts
Imagining Research/Research Imaginings
This talk takes as its starting point Sociologist C Wright Mills ‘s writing on the sociological imagination. “The Sociological Imagination”, Mills writes in 1959, “enables us to grasp history and biography and the relations between the two within society”. He further adds, “That is its task and its promise.” What does this “promise” mean today – as we take on research in a world so overwhelmed by turbulent events and the tangled crises of communication? How can we broaden our methodological practices to enfold multitudes of imaginings? How can we approach imagination or the act of imagining in our research that seeks to find possibilities and potentials towards a generous and just society?
About the keynote
Yoke-Sum Wong is Associate Professor in the School of Critical and Creative Studies at the Alberta University of the Arts (formerly ACAD). She was previously in Lancaster University, UK, where she taught in the departments of History and Sociology, and returned to Canada in 2016. She considers herself an interdisciplinary academic, and has written/presented on various subject matter including post-colonial architecture, material culture, Japanese popular culture, modernism and its racism. She has also been the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Historical Sociology/Sociology Lens and has steered the journal through digitalization and Open Access changes. Her latest research focuses on the cultural productions in Southeast Asia during the Cold War. She also organized and co-organized international research creation multidisciplinary workshops that brought together academics, artists, creative practitioners in order to build new methodologies and provoke different ways of knowing. She likes cooking.
We are seeking 2 types of presentations:
- 5-minute lightning round talks by new graduate students
- 15-minute formal paper or creative project presentations by graduate students at any level
Submission Information:
Academic Research Papers
- 250 word abstract
- 150 word bio
Artistic or Creative Project Contributions
- 150 – 200 word description of creative work (feel free to include images if applicable)
- 150 word biography
Interested in Presenting?
Submit your proposal as a Word or PDF document to finearts.dean@uleth.ca by February 7, 2025.
Notifications will be sent by February 14, 2025. Acceptance will be based on content quality, originality and academic significance.