New research explores father/son relationship - Angela Carlson (Part 1)
Mon. Jan. 27, 2025
Angela Carlson atop the Brocken in the Harz region when she was living in Wernigerode, Saxony-Anhalt (December 2019).
Photo supplied
Angela Carlson describes herself as a “linguistically driven person.” Following her undergraduate degree at UWinnipeg (BA in Linguistics and German Studies), Carlson spent time living in rural Germany – an experience she says was “spectacular.” It was a great way for her to perfect her language skills while learning more about German culture. During her time in Germany, Angela started her MA at the University of Birmingham through distance education specializing in German to English translation and completed that in 2022. In 2023, she came across the opportunity to work in the German-Canadian Studies program and it was a natural fit for her, especially as she was going to be living in Winnipeg and establishing a freelance translation business here. The program assistant position she is currently in brought her into the Father-and-Son project in November 2023.
The goal of the four-year (2023 - 2027) Father-and-Son project is to create a monograph on fatherhood in Canada as presently there isn’t one. In fact, as Carlson explains, there’s a dearth of information on the father and son relationship, especially when you’re considering the relationship of German immigrant fathers and their Canadian-born sons. Their team is pulling together secondary sources that deal with fatherhood and plans to have a literature review by early 2025. Next they’ll establish gaps in the literature. They have access to a body of oral history interviews of German-Canadian immigrants conducted by Dr. Alexander Freund, so they’ll review these to see what these interviews might provide that is specific to the project. Finally, they will conduct interviews in 2025 and 2026 to address remaining gaps. Carlson states that they may have to specifically prompt interviewees in order to get their thoughts on their role as fathers, as often times this isn’t discussed spontaneously and the interviewers will want to “specifically get access to some of those areas of silence.”
Click here to go to Angela Carlson’s excellent description of the oral history process.
Carlson notes that their team includes other researchers who are reading autobiographies and memoirs, some of which are published, while others exist as unpublished family documents. “Our research assistants are diligently reading and notetaking and providing us with the foundation for our work.” (See also Carlson’s blog post New and Returning Research Assistants Provide Support for Father-and-Son Project (April 29, 2024).)
Carlson states the German-Canadian Studies blog is a useful way to provide public updates on the project. It also serves to “generate more interest and when the monograph is done, we have more people who are able to access it.”