Quebec's Silent Revolution since the 1990s

October 30 2017 | 18:00

A discussion with Jocelyn Létourneau, Professor in the Contemporary History of Quebec, Laval University - In the 1960s Quebec witnessed the so-called Quiet Revolution - generally acknowledged as a period of spectacular transformation. More recently Professor Jocelyn Létourneau has put forward the concept of a Silent Revolution transforming Quebec society since the 1990s. He argues that Quebec is experiencing a deep-seated social debate that is producing a collective change in outlook. The three fundamental questions any society asks about itself - where do we come from? Who are we? Where are we going? - are being overtly raised in contemporary Quebec. And it appears that the answers proposed by those who are about to lead society are not the same as in the past.

Damien Bélanger, Associate Professor of History at the University of Ottawa, will act as the primary discussant of the 'Silent Revolution' thesis and there will also be a panel discussion followed by a Question&Answer session.

Jocelyn Létourneau is Professor in the Contemporary History of Quebec, Laval University, Quebec City, and a former Visiting Research Associate at the UCL Institute of Education.  He is a Fellow of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton amongst other places and has been a Fulbright Scholar at the University of California, Berkeley, and at Stanford University. He has also been a visiting professor at the University of Geneva, the University of Western Brittany, the University of Paris-13, SUNY-Plattsburgh and the University of Rosario amongst other institutions. He is also a member of the Royal Society of Canada. He is the author of many books and articles on Quebec and Canada. An updated version of his Silent Revolution thesis is included in the Autumn 2017 issue of the London Journal of Canadian Studies, published by UCL Press.

Damien-Claude Bélanger is an Associate Professor of Canadian history at the University of Ottawa and the co-founder of Mens : revue d'histoire intellectuelle et culturelle. A graduate of the Université de Montréal and McGill, his research interests include French Canadian intellectual history and Canadian-American relations. He is the author Prejudice and Pride: Canadian Intellectuals Confront the United States, 1891-1945 (University of Toronto Press, 2011) and Thomas Chapais, historien (Presses de l'Université d'Ottawa, forthcoming). He is working on a history of loyalism in French Canada and his article 'Anti-Americanism and Anti-modernism in French Canadian Intellectual Discourse, 1891-1945' will also be appearing in the Autumn 2017 issue of the London Journal of Canadian Studies.