2011 News

“Ghosts” talk fills the room

By Communications Staff
Friday, March 18, 2011

A record number of campus and London communitymembers attended the 3rd annual J.J. Talman Lecture given by Dr. Tim Cook. Pictured above are (l-r): University Librarian Joyce Garnett, donor Raj Jain, Tim Cook, Department of History Acting Chair Margaret McGlynn and University Archivist Robin Keirstead.

The 3rd annual J.J. Talman Lecture brought a record number of students, faculty and community members together to hear about “Ghosts from the trenches”.

The lecture series was created in 2008 through a generous donation from Raj Jain and her brother Dr. Sushil Jain. This year’s talk partnered the Department of History and Western Libraries and drew a crowd of 160 people to hear from Dr. Tim Cook, First World War Historian at the Canadian War Museum. He spoke of stories about the supernatural and the uncanny among Canada’s Great War trench soldiers.

“I thought it was particularly striking that Dr Cook emphasized that the men who talked about seeing ghosts or being saved by ghosts were not cranks or oddities; they were ordinary, pragmatic soldiers who were doing their best to cope with extraordinary circumstances,” says Margaret McGlynn, Acting Chair, Department of History. “He emphasized the horrors of the Western front, and the ways in which this civilian army found ways to cope with the horror and sometimes even make it meaningful.

“I think that lectures like this are important because they bring together people from all across the university community, and from the wider community and remind us all that this is a past that we share, not the property simply of historians or history departments.”

University Librarian, Joyce Garnett, says the lecture is a wonderful example of how partnerships have evolved between Western libraries and academic departments. She adds this particular partnership is thanks to a former librarian and her brother who have funded the special lecture series.

In 2008, Ms Jain retired from Western Libraries after more than 42 years as a cataloguing expert, facilitating access to library collections for generations of faculty and students. She chose to give back and honour J.J. Talman through this lecture series because he was the Chief Librarian and a Professor of History at Western who gave Ms Jain her first job in Canada.

Ms Jain is committed to lifelong learning and has 2 undergraduate and 3 graduate university degrees to her credit. She and her brother, Sushil, have generously endowed several lecture series offered throughout Ontario, including the Chander Mohan Jain Memorial Lectures at Huron University College, in memory of her late husband, which has attracted world-renowned scholars since 1994.