Passing the Salt: How Eating Together Creates Community

Sharing a meal is a simple, yet sacred occasion. It is a universal act that is important to building relationships within people groups. Intentionally eating together creates time and space to engage in the spiritual and intellectual levels that are unique to human beings. Sharing food cultivates community because the implications of the meal extend beyond the time of eating together. While there are other places people meet, gathering around a meal is the most accessible because if nothing else, everyone must eat. Through participant observation and personal interviews, this CE/T project explores four meals to determine how eating together creates common space and develops community. This research will be used to facilitate other groups to who wish create their own meal tradition as a means to build or perpetuate relationships

Shifting the Culture of Quarantine

Quarantine will likely never be a comfortable experience for anyone, but there are concrete steps that can be taken to improve the experience and help shift perceptions of quarantine in the United States from punishment to social responsibility. Changing perceptions, however, requires changing the reality of the quarantine experience, which must be done through a series of policies, regulations and tangible support to individuals who have had their freedom of movement curtailed. These actions must also be taken to reinforce the public’s trust in government. This paper looks at how quarantine has been used in recent history, assesses what we can learn from the experiences, and proposes a set of actions the United States could take to improve the quarantine experience, and eventually change perceptions

Negotiating copyright in online creative spaces: how Canadian fan writers navigate and learn about law

The Internet makes it easier than ever for users to access, transform or "remix", and distribute content. This technological and cultural revolution makes creators of us all - and makes copyright more relevant to more people. However, despite the ease of creating and sharing media online (as opposed to simply consuming: see Lessig, 2004), public copyright literacy has not necessarily increased. Amateur online creators typically lack formal copyright training, which may lead to legal misunderstandings or concerns, as well as an amateur-grown culture of informal copyright norms for negotiating the law. This research uses fan fiction writers as one example of online creators. Fan fiction refers to stories based on identifiable segments of popular culture, such as books, movies, or TV shows (Tushnet, 1997). Fan fiction is typically amateur-written and shared in free online communities. Fan fiction writers are one among many online subcultures who create second-generation works drawing on pre-existing media, and who are therefore copyright stakeholders. Prior research with fan creators indicates that copyright norms are prevalent in fan communities. Norms may track or integrate legal doctrine to varying degrees; however, misinformation also circulates in fan spaces, as creators may refer to peer sources and find legal texts inaccessible (Fiesler, Bruckman, 2014; Fiesler et al, 2015; Freund, 2014). This presentation reports on the author's preliminary dissertation findings regarding fan writers. It is interdisciplinary, drawing on scholarship in law, information studies, and fan studies. It presents a literature review of the subject as well as results from a pilot study and early qualitative interviews addressing how Canadian fans negotiate copyright. This research adds a Canadian perspective to the literature on online creators' copyright knowledge, research, and needs. It also adds further qualitative data about how stakeholders outside law, libraries, and traditional publishing negotiate copyright law in a global, digital context

Use of Revised International Health Regulations during Influenza A (H1N1) Epidemic, 2009

All nations should implement these regulations and cooperate in disease surveillance and data sharing

Fan Fiction and Canadian Copyright Law: Defending Fan Narratives in the Wake of Canada\u27s Copyright Reforms

Amateur, non-commercial writing based on contemporary copyrighted works — “fan fiction” — is a practice that is worth defending despite its unclear status vis a vis copyright law. In this article, I assess how Canadian fan authors may defend their works using Canadian copyright law. I argue that the recent copyright reforms are promising for fan and other second generation creators. The new fair dealing categories of parody and satire are positive steps, though the broad and technologically neutral non-commercial user-generated content provi-sion may be the most promising reform of all. I begin with an exploration of the benefits of fan fiction writing before going on to assess how fan fiction may have fared under the Copyright Act prior to the reforms. Subsequently, I argue that the new users’ rights embedded in the Copyright Act, including the new fair dealing exemption for parody and satire and, especially, the non-commercial user-gener-ated content (“UGC”) provision, may finally articulate a needed legal breathing space for fan fiction. While the UGC exemption appears tailored to YouTube and other audiovisual content, it may actually be the most important development yet for fan writers in Canada

The Global Health Law Trilogy: Towards a Safer, Healthier, and Fairer World

Global health advocates often turn to medicine and science for solutions to enduring health risks, but law is also a powerful tool. No state acting alone can ward off health threats that span borders, requiring international solutions. A trilogy of global health law—the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, International Health Regulations (2005), and Pandemic Influenza Preparedness Framework—strives for a safer, healthier, and fairer world. This article critically reviews this global health law trilogy. These international agreements are not well understood, and contain gaps in scope and enforceability. Moreover, major health concerns remain largely unregulated at the international level, such as non-communicable diseases, mental health, and injuries. The article promotes the lessons learned from 21st century international health law, which are that broad scope, robust compliance, inclusion of public and private actors, and sustainable financing are essential to success. It further explores the notion that in an age of nationalistic populism, collective action remains vital to ameliorate globalized health threats, helping realize the right to health. Reforms to the “trilogy” of global health laws are necessary to assure success and provide a critical roadmap for the World Health Organization’s next Director-General. The article concludes by calling on the new WHO D-G to take additional action toward a safer, healthier and fairer world by pushing for novel global health laws on major health hazards, including noncommunicable diseases, mental health and injuries, and new initiatives such as universal health care

The H1N1 Influenza A Virus: A Test Case for a Global Response

The threat of widespread infection from the new H1N1 influenza A virus (also known as a swine flu virus) provides the first real-time test of the global and domestic preparedness activities that have moved forward over the past few years. The World Health Organization has declared the event a public health emergency of international concern, the first time that designation has been used under the revised International Health Regulations. A public health emergency has also been declared in the United States. Those steps have pushed influenza plans at the local, state, national, and global levels into motion. This paper reviews the strategies, directives, and guidance documents that have been developed in recent years to meet the challenge of a long-anticipated, widespread influenza outbreak