Congratulations to Professors Gwyn Campbell, Department of History and Classical Studies, and Isabelle Daunais, Département des littératures de langue françaises, who were recently named Distinguished James McGill Professors, an award that recognizes a late-career scholar's sustained scholarship of world-class caliber and international leadership, similar to a Canada Research Chair, Tier 1.
Professor Campbell is the founding Director of the Indian Ocean World Centre housed within the Faculty of Arts at McGill. He held a Canada Research Chair in Indian Ocean World History from 2005-19, and a Humboldt Award from 2017-19 for his research and teaching in Indian Ocean World studies. He is currently director of a major international research project entitled “Appraising Risk, Past and Present: Interrogating Historical Data to Enhance Understanding of Environmental Crises in the Indian Ocean World.”
Professor Daunais recently held the Canada Research Chair in the Esthetics and Art of the Novel (Tier 1), which aimed to better understand the place that novels occupy in how we explore our world. An expert on 19th century french literature and modern novels, Daunais's 2021 book essay, La vie au long cours: Essais sur le temps du roman was a finalist for the 2021 Prix littéraires du Gouverneur général, catégorie "Essais".