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This is the brand new Learning Commons Blog! Here, we'll be featuring work from students and staff related to all things culture, academia, and media. Keep an eye out for book reviews, movie suggestions, and opinion pieces on recent events. Interested in writing for the blog? Contact us, we'd love to hear from you!

Comment below to let us know what you'd like to see in this space.


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Asian Heritage Month and the Importance of Diversity in Publishing

It's the second week of Asian Heritage Month, a time to appreciate the history, present, and future of Asian culture. Of course, this appreciation shouldn't be limited to May exclusively. Everyday is an opportunity to celebrate Asian creators and art. In recent years, the importance of diverse representation and equitable publishing is becoming an increasingly widespread priority. The positive psychological, social , cultural, and political impacts of diverse representation are profound. Unfortunately, Asian characters in popular media are often tokenized, stereotyped, underdeveloped, and tertiary to white characters.  In an interview with Room Magazine , author Mariko Tamaki noted, "There is not necessarily a lot of young Asian people in books. When I was a kid, there was Obasan , that’s like the only book you can read about a young Asian girl. I think it is really important that the people you see and whose stories you see unfolding are not just the same character every ...
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Happy Pride & Queer-Coded Characters

Happy Pride Month, everyone! Every June since 1970 queer folx (whether they are openly queer or "closeted") and allies march to celebrate their true colours and advocate for LGBTQIA+ rights, while acknowledging the history of pride and those in countries where queer people are unprotected and criminalized by law. Without the work of activists such as Marsha P. Johnson , North America would likely not be as safe of a space for the celebration of queerness, though even in 2021 there aren't always accessible safe spaces. At times when queer folx have been isolated, attacked, and underrepresented, we have turned to our favourite queer-coded characters for comfort.  Historically, queer coding  - which here refers to the process by which characters in fictional media are implied to be queer - was used in a time when it was all but banned for LGBTQ+ characters to be represented on screen (and it was banned from the 30s until the 60s in accordance with the Hays Code ). For this r...
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