In North America, it is common to think of abortion as a matter of moral deliberation and political controversy. But who are the actors who put an issue like abortion on the public agenda? How do they seek to transform people’s attitudes, and to what effect? In contemporary Russia, abortion is becoming contentious in the context of religious revival after decades of state-enforced atheism. Anti-abortion activism is part of a larger discourse about the “demographic crisis” into which low birth rates and decreased life expectancy are said to have plunged the country. Through ethnographic field research at Russian Orthodox pregnancy consultation centers in St. Petersburg and Moscow, I look at the ways in which the church seeks to shape public opinion on family planning and childbirth. Since abortion was the most readily accessible method of birth control during the Soviet period, many of the elderly and middle-aged women who make up the main body of lay faithful have had multiple abortions. So part of the aim of anti-abortion activism within the church is to reshape these women’s retrospective evaluations of their past decisions through commemorative rituals and penitential practices. My research asks how it is that women’s reproductive decisions come to be singled out as a focus of critical memory, and investigates the changing ideas about spirituality and responsibility that inform women’s responses.
Michael Griffin
Religious Studies
I study the philosophers of the ancient Graeco-Roman world, especially the vibrant intellectual, scientific, and literary legacy that grew up around the work of Plato and Aristotle following their own lives and during the rise of the Roman Empire. Although Plato and Aristotle are household names today, their work spawned countless arguments and innovations in the form of 'commentaries' during the millennium between Aristotle and the Middle Ages. This material is much less familiar and less studied today than the work of the masters, and is sometimes accessible only to specialists. My research and work in translation and interpretation aims to bring that material forward and, perhaps, to demonstrate why it might still carry interest for philosophers and non-philosophers in our day. My special focus has been the legacy of ancient formal logic and dialectical practice, leading to my doctoral work reconstructing the earliest commentaries on Aristotle's Categories, a seminal work whose influence has seeped into everyday speech – even our word 'category' derives from its title. I am currently interested in the dramatic and dialectical form of the Platonic dialogue and Aristotle's interpretation and codification of Socratic conversation.
Jean Michel Lauzon
Chemistry
In the atmosphere, 78% of the air is made up of nitrogen gas (N2); however, currently there is no efficient industrial process for taking advantage of this vast feedstock. In N2 gas, the two nitrogen atoms are strongly bound together and a large amount of energy is required to break the bond between them. Nature has a method for “fixing” atmospheric N2 by catalytically converting it into ammonia (NH3), a forerunner to molecules that plants use as food. In contrast, industrial ammonia synthesis, the Haber-Bosch process, was developed at the turn of the 20th century and is much more energetically wasteful. Both high temperatures and pressures are required for the formation of NH3 but give poor yields. This is such an energy intensive process that, in fact, about 1% of the world’s total energy supply goes to producing ammonia using the Haber-Bosch process each year. The ammonia is then used as a precursor to other nitrogen containing molecules and used in fertilizers and pharmaceuticals. Since agriculture makes up a significant portion of Canada’s economy, having an efficient method of producing fertilizer components will benefit Canadian farmers as well as their customers. The industrial production of ammonia is certainly necessary, but currently ecologically unsustainable. When N2 is fixed naturally, the metal atoms iron and molybdenum help break the strong bonds. The Haber-Bosch process also uses an iron catalyst, making it clear that a metal is necessary to achieve this difficult transformation. My research involves early transition metals, tantalum and zirconium, which are less expensive and of low-toxicity. The framework that supports the metal is a carbon-based molecule that has been proven to work in other catalytic reactions using nitrogen-containing molecules. My project focuses on probing the way N2 binds to the metals, how the nitrogen bonds can be broken, and how bonds between the nitrogen and other elements can be made. Achievement of this goal will impact industrial processes and energy consumption around the world.
