On June 20, 2018, International Refugee Day, CBC’s The Current aired So They Can Rest A Little. This is a moving documentary on the fate of Yazidi women tortured, persecuted and sold into slavery by their ISIS captors following a genocide in Iraq in August 2014. Following this … [Read more...]
When a Given Name No Longer Fits the Person You Have Become: Thoughts on a Recent Episode of Out in the Open with Piya Chattopadhyay
As I have written in previous blogs, there are people who choose to change their name for a variety of reasons. Some people select a new name for entertainment and commercial purposes, such as pennames, pseudonyms or even mononyms; some for political purposes in response to … [Read more...]
A Recent Radio Interview on CBC’s Here and Now (Toronto)
A few weeks after The Power of Names was published, I had an opportunity to speak with Mary Wiens of Here and Now (CBC). We talked about the many ways in which names infiltrate our lives without any conscious awareness. I also discussed what it means to truly “inhabit your … [Read more...]