32nd Annual Keenan Lecture examines colonialism, values and fairness
STM alumnus Herriot speaks on Hunger at the Banquet: A Faith and Justice Lens on Food, Land, and Colonialism on the Prairie
By Paul Sinkewicz
The 32nd Annual Michael Keenan Memorial Lecture, held online on Thursday, Nov. 4, 2021, featured one of St. Thomas More College’s own.
Trevor Herriot began his academic career at STM in 1976, and went on to earn his undergraduate and honours degrees. He has since achieved success as a writer, naturalist, columnist, blogger, and radio commentator. He is an advocate for the preservation of nature and honouring those who have made our prairie home what it is today.
Herriot has won numerous literary accolades, including the prestigious Cheryl and Henry Kloppenburg Award for Literary Excellence in 2017, and has greatly influenced public conservation and preservation policy.
Herriot was also the 2018 STM College Distinguished Alumnus and in 2021 was the recipient of an Honorary Doctor of Letters from University of Saskatchewan.
Titled Hunger at the Banquet: A Faith and Justice Lens on Food, Land, and Colonialism on the Prairie, Herriot’s lecture used the moral lens of Catholic social teaching to look at our history and our emerging responsibilities to bring reconciliation to the prairie and its people.
“We don't want to be colonial anymore. Why? Because . . . we recognize at some level that colonizing is hostile to sharing and is more about taking and claiming,” said Herriot. “Unfortunately, that recognition seems to be about as far as many Canadians are willing to go in the work of de-colonizing. And if we can't get any further than that, cannot see how sharing the table might actually work, I think it's because we've let our minds and our hearts be colonized.”
The full lecture is a fascinating look at values and fairness, and the history of our province as well as what it means – or should mean – to be treaty people. The full video of both the lecture and question and answer discussion afterward can be found at:
