International Issues Discussion Series

Dear Friends,

The International Issues Discussion (IID) series at Toronto Metropolitan University is pleased to present its fifth and final talk of the Winter 2026 series in partnership with the Canadian International Council (CIC), "Canada in a Fragmenting World: Navigating Geopolitics, Alliances, and Emerging Security Challenges."

Our guests will be:

Dr. Patrice Dutil, an author, commentator and former podcaster who specializes in political and administrative history. By day he teaches in the Department of Politics and Public Administration at TMU. His most recent books are The Enduring Riddle of Mackenzie King and Statecraft and Canadian Prime Ministers and Their Cabinets (with Stephen Azzi).

Dr. Sanjay Ruparelia Ruperalia, Professor of Politics and Public Administration at TMU, where he holds the Jarislowsky Democracy Chair, and a Senior Fellow of the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada. He co-hosts On the Frontlines of Democracy, a monthly podcast and lecture series, and regularly contributes to media in North America and Asia. His books include Divided We Govern: coalition politics in modern India; The Indian Ideology, and Understanding India’s New Political Economy.

and

Grace van Vliet, Ph.D. Candidate in History at the University of Toronto. She holds a Master's in European, Russian, and Eurasian Affairs from the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, and a BA in History from TMU. Her research explores networks of international terrorism and their state sponsors, as well as the history of counterterrorism. She has written about the links between the Cold War Communist Bloc and Third World liberation movements, post-Cold War state building, and the origins of Canadian counterterrorism and security culture.

Their talk will be held in-person on Wednesday, April 8th between 6:30 and 8:30 pm in ENG 103 (the Vari Engineering Building, 245 Church Street, Toronto). Attendance is free and everyone is welcome.

Founded in 2005, the IID is a non-partisan, student-led forum designed to engage all members of the TMU community on major events and issues in contemporary global affairs through reasoned, objective, and scholarly discourse. For further details about the IID and our series, please see http://iid.kislenko.com or contact student leaders at [email protected]

The CIC’s mission is to provide a platform for all Canadians to engage in global affairs. Since 1928, as a non-partisan, charitable organization, the CIC has provided a platform for citizens to help shape Canada’s place in the world. Home - Canadian International Council

Dear Friends,

The International Issues Discussion (IID) series at Toronto Metropolitan University will present its fourth talk of the Winter 2026 series, “Beyond Formal Equality: Feminism, Gender Violence, and the Institutional Responsibilities of Democratic Societies."

Our guest will be Claudia Aguilar Barroso: currently Legal Advisor at FGA Ventures Inc. (Vancouver). In Mexico, she founded Aguilar Barroso Abogados, a firm specializing in constitutional litigation, regulatory law, and human rights. She is Professor of Constitutional Procedural Law and holds postgraduate studies in Human Rights, Constitutional Procedural Law, and Gender Studies. Her academic and professional work focuses on judicial independence, democratic institutions, substantive equality, and the structural dimensions of gender-based violence within legal systems. She regularly lectures and writes on constitutional reform, the rule of law, and gender justice in comparative perspective.

Her talk will be held in-person on Wednesday, March 11th between 6:30 and 8:30 pm in ENG 103 (the Vari Engineering Building, 245 Church Street, Toronto). Attendance is free and everyone is welcome.

Founded in 2005, the IID is a non-partisan, student-led forum designed to engage all members of the TMU community on major events and issues in contemporary global affairs through reasoned, objective, and scholarly discourse. For further details about the IID and our series please see http://iid.kislenko.com or contact the IID student leaders at [email protected]

Dear Friends,

The International Issues Discussion (IID) series at Toronto Metropolitan University is proud to present its third talk of the Winter 2026 series, “Taiwan as a Gateway to Exploring the Sinosphere".

Our guest will be Julia G. Bentley, a former Canadian diplomat whose work focuses on Asia, where she lived for over 20 years. She served as a diplomat in China, Taiwan, India, and Malaysia, where she was High Commissioner. She is now affiliated with three universities and the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada. In spring 2025 she undertook field research on Taiwan as a gateway for exploring the Sinosphere, cross-Strait relations, and regional issues in Asia. Her report on this research can be found here: https://lnkd.in/excZkx5i

Her talk will be held in-person on Wednesday, February 25th between 6:30 and 8:30 pm in ENG 103 (the Vari Engineering Building, 245 Church Street, Toronto). Attendance is free and everyone is welcome.

Founded in 2005, the IID is a non-partisan, student-led forum designed to engage all members of the TMU community on major events and issues in contemporary global affairs through reasoned, objective, and scholarly discourse. For further details about the IID and our series please see http://iid.kislenko.com or contact the IID student leaders at [email protected]

Dear Friends,

The International Issues Discussion (IID) series at Toronto Metropolitan University is proud to present its second talk of the Winter 2026 series, “What is a World Order?".

Our guest will be Dr. Margaret MacMillan, emeritus Professor of History at the University of Toronto and emeritus Professor of International History and the former Warden of St. Antony's College at the University of Oxford. Her award winning books include Paris 1919: Six Months that Changed the World (2001, 2002); Nixon in China: Six Days that Changed the World (2006, 2007); and The War that Ended Peace (2014). Her most recent book is War: How Conflict Shaped Us (2020). She gave the CBC’s Massey lectures in 2015 and the BBC’s Reith lectures in 2018. She has been awarded numerous honorary degrees, including from Ryerson University, and is a fellow or honorary fellow of many institutions including the Royal Society of Canada, the British Academy, Trinity College at the University of Toronto, and Lady Margaret Hall, St. Hilda's College, and St. Anthony's College, at the University of Oxford. She is a Trustee of the Imperial War Museum, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, and the Institute of Human Sciences (Vienna). She contributes to and comments frequently on the media both in Canada and abroad.

Her talk will be held in-person on Wednesday, February 4th between 6:30 and 8:30 pm in ENG 103 (the Vari Engineering Building, 245 Church Street, Toronto). Attendance is free and everyone is welcome.

Founded in 2005, the IID is a non-partisan, student-led forum designed to engage all members of the TMU community on major events and issues in contemporary global affairs through reasoned, objective, and scholarly discourse. For further details about the IID and our series please see http://iid.kislenko.com or contact the IID student leaders at [email protected]

Dear Friends,

The International Issues Discussion (IID) series at Toronto Metropolitan University is proud to present its fifth and final talk of the Winter 2025 series: "How did 'The End of History' Come to an End? Russia's War in Ukraine and Totalitarianism in a Postmodern Key."

Our guest will be Dr. Marci Shore, professor of history at Yale University. She will begin teaching at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy in fall 2025 as Chair in European Intellectual History, supported by the Temerty Endowment for Ukrainian Studies. Her research focuses on the intellectual history of twentieth and twenty-first century Central and Eastern Europe. Amongst her many publications are The Ukrainian Night: An Intimate History of Revolution, The Taste of Ashes: The Afterlife of Totalitarianism in Eastern Europe, and Caviar and Ashes: A Warsaw Generation’s Life and Death in Marxism, 1918-1968. In 2018, she received a Guggenheim Fellowship for her current book project, a history of phenomenology in East-Central Europe, tentatively titled “In Pursuit of Certainty Lost: Central European Encounters on the Way to Truth.” She is a regular visiting fellow at the Institut für die Wissenschaften vom Menschen in Vienna. She co-curated a Public Seminar/Eurozine forum “On the Uses and Disadvantages of Historical Comparisons for Life” (https://publicseminar.org/essays/the-last-time-i-saw-them-new-democracy-seminar-forum/.) She received her M.A. from the University of Toronto in 1996 and her Ph.D. from Stanford University in 2001, and taught at Indiana University before coming to Yale.

Her talk will be held in-person on Wednesday, April 9th between 6:30 and 8:30 pm in ENG 103 (the Vari Engineering Building, 245 Church Street, Toronto).

Attendance is free and everyone is welcome.

Founded in 2005, the IID is a non-partisan, student-led forum designed to engage all members of the TMU community on major events and issues in contemporary global affairs through reasoned, objective, and scholarly discourse. For further details about the IID and our series please see http://iid.kislenko.com or contact the IID student leaders at [email protected]

Dear Friends,

The International Issues Discussion (IID) series at Toronto Metropolitan University is proud to present its fourth talk of the Winter 2025 series: "Genocide in Sinjar: Uncertain Futures in Iraq."

Our guests will be:

Nathaniel Brunt, an interdisciplinary scholar, documentarian, and educator. His documentary and academic work critically examines modern armed conflict and the way it is, and has been, represented photographically. Brunt recently completed his PhD in the Communication and Culture joint program at Toronto Metropolitan University and York University. His research was supported by SSHRC and the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation. Prior to beginning his doctoral studies, he obtained two Master's Degrees from the University of Kent's War, Media and Security program and the Communication and Culture joint program at Toronto Metropolitan University and York University. Brunt's photographic work has been widely published and exhibited internationally. He is currently working on a long term documentary project in Northern Iraq and Kashmir and is a cross-appointed post-doctoral fellow at the Centre for Global Studies and the University of Victoria Libraries. While diverse in format, Brunt's work is connected by a commitment to producing creative projects that personalize the often-abstract nature of modern war.

Mike Fleet, a Defence Policy Officer with the Department of National Defence, Government of Canada. He previously worked as a Senior Analyst with the Privy Council Office where he focused on Iraq and Gulf States. He also has worked as a Senior Researcher with the Institute on Governance on the Iraq Team that implemented the Fiscal Decentralization and Resiliency Project. His current research focus is on Iraqi politics, federalism, state-building, and conflict dynamics. He has published with the Middle East Institute and the American University of Iraq-Sulaimani with the Institute of Regional and International Studies, and published a chapter in "Middle Power in the Middle East," where he with his co-author, Nizar Mohammed, examined Canada's security capacity building programming in the Middle East via Op.IMPACT and Op. PROTEUS. He has been quoted in Reuters and The National. He tweets .

Their talk will be held in-person on Wednesday, March 12 between 6:30 and 8:30 pm in ENG 103 (the Vari Engineering Building, 245 Church Street, Toronto).

Attendance is free and everyone is welcome.

Founded in 2005, the IID is a non-partisan, student-led forum designed to engage all members of the TMU community on major events and issues in contemporary global affairs through reasoned, objective, and scholarly discourse. For further details about the IID and our series please see http://iid.kislenko.com or contact the IID student leaders at [email protected]