The McGill Alumni Association invites you to attend a Panel Discussion with McGill Professors Will Straw, Erin Hurley and Jarrett Rudy.

"Big Diva, Disco Music and Bad Habits: A Look at Quebec Pop Culture"

Join us for a fascinating evening as three of McGill’s most engaging professors talk about some phenomena that have characterized popular culture in Quebec. Erin Hurley will examine megastar Céline Dion's career in Las Vegas and her rise to international celebrity status, Will Straw will discuss Montreal’s role as a mecca for black musical stars who moved back and forth across the U.S.-Canadian border, and Jarrett Rudy will talk about the history of cigarettes in Quebec, the province once dubbed "the smoking section of Canada."

Erin Hurley is an assistant professor in the Theatre and Drama Program in McGill’s Department of English. A former actress and specialist in contemporary Québécois theatre, she has published articles on the Cirque du Soleil and Robert Lepage among others, and has given public lectures across Canada about Céline Dion, a performer with whom many Quebecers feel an emotional connection.

Will Straw, a professor in the Department of Art History and Communications, is the former Director of the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada. An author and veteran media watcher, Dr. Straw has been a cultural correspondent for CBC Radio, the Women's Television Network and the CBC local Montreal news program "Newswatch."

Jarrett Rudy is Director of the Quebec Studies Program and an assistant professor of history at McGill. He is the author of "The Freedom to Smoke: Tobacco Consumption and Identity", (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2005), a social and cultural history of the rise of the cigarette and the way smoking rituals in Montreal contributed to shaping people’s identities and social relations with others. Rudy is currently working on a history of time in Quebec from the 1840s to 1970s.