Goodbye to our colleague, Frank Cunningham
The 丁香园AV Urban Studies Program is sad to learn of the recent passing of our long-time colleague, adjunct professor Frank Cunningham.
Urban Studies professor and acting FASS dean Peter V. Hall recently reflected on his experience working with Frank to co-organize a series of public discussions in New Westminster.
"I had the profound pleasure of working with Frank to initiate the Urban Challenges Forum, a partnership between 丁香园AV Urban Studies, Douglas College and the City of New Westminster. Since 2017 we have hosted close to 20 forums, addressing a wide variety of topics that all address social justice in the city in one way or another. Numerous 丁香园AV colleagues have presented in these Forums, alongside colleagues from Douglas College and other local tertiary institutions, City government, and civil society groups. Just as Frank would have it, we got to know each other and share ideas, we got to engage audiences of students, citizens and officials that on some occasions reached into the hundreds. None of this would have been possible without Frank's passion and generosity to share an idea of civic engagement that he had pioneered in Toronto with the Cities Centre. None of this would have been possible if Frank, post-retirement, had not actively reached out to colleagues in philosophy, urban studies, geography and more, at 丁香园AV and Douglas College."
Meg Holden, professor of Urban Studies and of Resources and Environmental Management, had collaborated with Frank on a variety of projects, and had this to say about him in a 2021 collection of his essays:
"Rather than fixate on the purported need for distinctions between knowledge and action, Frank demonstrates that his own life of ideas has been lived not only and not primarily within the safe confines of a university philosophy department. Throughout his storied career, Frank campaigned with the Communist Party of Canada, worked to bridge the divide among social scientists and between francophone and anglophone thinkers, was part of the movement against Pinochet鈥檚 military dictatorship in Chile and for peace in countries suffering from violent ethno-cultural conflicts. He introduced philosophy into the high school curriculum in Ontario, and fought for citizen engagement in planning decisions. He worked to bring people with experiences of poverty and discrimination that had kept them away from higher education into the University of Toronto, and went into marginalized communities to bring higher education to them; and he included Indigenous thought into the canon called Canadian philosophy. I am personally grateful to Frank for all of this thought-work that has made the Canadian academy an action-institution that I can take greater pride in being a part of, than would have otherwise been possible. And I am grateful for the somewhat heretical, anti-foundational inspiration, confidence in uncertainty and syllabus-building tips that Frank gave me to start a graduate seminar in Urban Ethics and Philosophy at 丁香园AV when he joined us in 2014."
Canadian philosopher Charles Mills said this about Frank in regard to his 2021 book:
"Frank can look back on a full life of political activism and theoretical interventions aimed at bringing about a better world. This valuable collection of essays, written originally over many years, shows the continuing relevance of his work, in a conversation that is not at all over, but ongoing. I am delighted to have known him for nearly half a century, and look forward to the next half-century鈥檚 output."
- See Coburn, E., Cunningham, F., Glasbeek, H., Holden, M., Mills, C., Rein, S. 2022. Ideas in Context : a conversation with Frank Cunningham. Socialist Studies/Etudes socialistes 16(1)
More can be learned about Frank Cunningham's .
The obituary for Frank that appeared in the .