The ICCS is pleased to announce that Professor Colin Coates is the recipient of the 2024 Governor General’s International Award in Canadian Studies. Professor Coates teaches Canadian Studies and History at Glendon College, York University, Toronto, Ontario.
As the founding President of the Canadian Studies Network, a former Director of the Robarts Centre for Canadian Studies, and an active member of numerous associations dedicated to the study of Canada, Professor Coates remains committed to providing excellent support to students, graduate students, early career researchers and international scholars who ‘”take every opportunity to work with Dr. Coates, to learn and benefit from his scholarship, his friendship and his promotion of research on his home nation.”
Professor Coates first served the international Canadian Studies community when he, along with Professor Ged Martin, directed the program at Edinburgh University where they formed “an influential and impressive team flying the flag for Canadian Studies” working closely with Canada House in London. As a Professor at Glendon College, he has played—and continues to play—a crucial leadership role in building and mentoring the study of Canada. As the Canada Research Chair in Canadian Cultural Landscapes, he served as a founding member of the Network in Canadian History & Environment/ Nouvelle initiative Canadienne en histoire de l’environnement, which has become the principal platform for and international face of Canadian environmental history. At institutions like Glendon College, York University and the Centre of Canadian Studies at the University of Edinburgh as well as in national and international organizations for Canadian Studies, and in European and North American networks of environmental history, he has brought a voice of impassioned and informed concern for the value of the study of Canada as a multilingual, multiregional and multidisciplinary project.
In addition to his extraordinary contribution to the teaching, promotion and endorsement of the study of Canada on the international and national scenes, Colin Coates—author, editor or co-editor of 11 books and numerous articles in both French and English—is recognized as an outstanding scholar. His work on early Canada, specifically New France, brought together researchers working in both French and English; he works fluently in both languages. His seminal book, Metamorphoses of Landscape and Community in Early Quebec (2000), translated as Les Transformations du paysage et de la société au Québec sous le régime seigneurial (2003), introduced new perspectives on the links among community, governance, landscape and economic movements. Professor Coates’ current research in environmental history has expanded into other topics, periods, and geographies, including utopian communities, environmentalism and imperial resource markets and trade.
Recognized as a leader, a “superb well-rounder” and a pillar of the Canadian Studies community, Professor Coates, in the estimation of the Committee, has “given back generously in so many ways.”
Glendon College photograph