The Viking Immigrants snatches the crown for “Best Book in Regional History (Prairies)” from the Canadian Historical Association!
New expanded course coming this fall! What role does social media play in the spread of historical falsehoods? Platforms like Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and YouTube are relatively new, but the hidden power structures that shape their content are not. This course explores the relationship between social media platforms and history in two ways. First, class…
New Journal of Social History Article: “The Other Little House: The Brothel as a Colonial Institution in the Canadian North West.”
Ranked one of the most read articles of 2022 by Oxford University Press Free access to the article here: https://doi.org/10.1093/jsh/shac018 What role did settler bawdy houses play in Canadian colonial expansion in the 1880s? The trial of “Big Nelly” Webb, a white bawdy house madam and sex worker who shot a Mounted Police constable on…
Social For Scholars
How do we make quality information go viral? This social media workshop offers academics, scientists, and other researchers an opportunity to learn how to successfully engage big social media audiences. The public deserves access to your strong, timely, academic work. With more than 17.5 million views for research on TikTok and Instagram, L.K. has some…
Podcast Feature: Meant to be Eaten
Kind thanks to the fab food studies podcast, “Meant to Be Eaten,” for having me on to talk about The Viking Immigrants and “Icelandic Cake Fight,” my recent article on the history of vínarterta in Gastronomica. Check out the interview here! Image: Vínarterta by Arden Jackson, photographed by Nelson Gerrard, Eyrarbakki Icelandic Heritage Centre
Publications
Books The Viking Immigrants: Icelandic North Americans. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2020 Articles “Icelandic Cake Fight: History of an Immigrant Recipe.” Gastronomica: The Journal of Critical Food Studies 19, no. 4 (2019): 28-41. “‘Eskimo’ Immigrants and Colonial Soldiers: Icelandic Immigrants and the North-West Resistance, 1885.” Canadian Historical Review 99, no. 1 (2018): 63-97. (Winner of the 2019…
Vínarterta
One of the most common markers of modern Icelandic North American identity is a seven-layered torte called vínarterta (vee-nar-terta), also popularly (mis)spelled “vinatarta” or “vinaterta.” For this English speaking and seemingly assimilated ethnic group, vínarterta is a remarkably consistent and popular symbol of ethnic identity. This torte is regularly served during special occasions, particularly at Christmas,…
History of Canadian Sex Work Legislation
Sex work legislation is an important human rights issue that concerns all Canadians. Long before the Canadian government’s passage of Bill C-36 in 2014, many other laws have tried to stop “the world’s oldest profession” in Canada. More than simply trying to end prostitution, these historical laws legalized discrimination against a range of communities based…
About
Biography Dr. L.K. Bertram is an award-winning author and Associate Professor in the Department of History at the University of Toronto, specializing in data mobilization and social media algorithms and the history of migration, gender, sexuality, and colonialism in the 19th century North American West. Bertram is the author of The Viking…
L.K. BERTRAM 