News

Vivek Venkatesh, Director, Project SOMEONE, and Éric Bellavance, historian, biblical scholar and course lecturer at Université de Montréal, McGill University and Concordia University, recently edited Praising and/or Cursing God Through Music, a special issue of Théologiques, a journal from the Faculty of Theology and Religious Sciences at Université de Montréal. Fifteen local, national and international researchers contributed to this publication that explores this subject from the point of view of a variety of academic disciplines.  The issue is now available online here.

The UNESCO Chair in Prevention of Violent Radicalization and Extremism (PREV) is looking for a COORDINATOR FOR THE PREV-IMPACT PROJECT. To learn more about the position and the application process, please click here. Please apply by Monday, September 9, 2019 at 5 pm the latest.

Project SOMEONE is pleased to announce the launch of the Words in Context Database.  The project uses Corpus-Assisted Critical Discourse Analysis (CACDA) to critically analyze recent hate discourse on popular online spaces such as YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and Reddit. The focus of the project is on the Lebanese and Canadian contexts and aims to inform and shape public policy on these issues of extremism, misogyny and gender-based violence. Government and community leaders, researchers and practitioners can access this valuable tool to detect patterns and trends of online hate. The database website is easily navigable by keyword or theme (each of which also includes an accompanying

Initiatives like the Christchurch Call to Action emphasize the international and domestic need for enhanced collaboration among a range of actors including the digital industry, researchers, practitioners, civil society and governments, in tackling violent extremist and terrorist use of the internet (VETUI). Public Safety Canada organized this event as an opportunity for Canadian experts representing these sectors to engage with representatives from Google, including their Trust and Safety team and Jigsaw. The Google team reviewed their approach to VETUI, covering areas such as policies and procedures, as well as how they draw from existing knowledge, information and best practices. This was

Timbuktu consultant Fatima Lahnait published Pasionarias. Consultant at the Institute for Statecraft and Governance in London and the Timbuktu Institute in Dakar, Fatima Lahnait is a historian and teacher in Paris. After several works on the integration of young people of North African origin in Europe and jihadist women, Lahnait published the book Pasionarias that portrays female armed political activists who have marked the last 100 years. Through the portrait of twelve women, this book sheds light on their roles and places in the context of movements or armed conflicts. These women were part of liberation armies, revolutions or resistance

In April of 2018, Global Affairs Canada awarded funding to the UNESCO-PREV Chair to create a massive open online course (MOOC) – titled “From Hate to Hope” that draws from cutting-edge research in multiple disciplines from humanities and social sciences to address strategies that build resilience against hate through the use of pluralistic dialogues. The resources showcased herein comprise of seven videos (each are available with English, French and Arabic subtitles) that were created as part of “From Hate to Hope” which feature the voices of experts in extremism, political science, psychology, religion, humanities, education, art-based pedagogies, sociology, media studies