The Department of Recreation and Leisure Studies is proud to present the Shaw-Mannell Leisure Research Award Lecture featuring 2022 recipient, Karen Fox.
The award recognizes international career contributions to the study of leisure, broadly defined, and influence on leisure scholarship at the University of Waterloo. The award is named in honour of retired faculty members Sue Shaw and Roger Mannell to recognize their outstanding individual career achievements.
Listening to our elders about leisure
Josef Pieper developed a substantial oeuvre about the meaning of leisure, because he saw leisure in modern society undercut with the overwhelming emphasis and value on work, commodification, and capitalism as detrimental to the “essence” of leisure. In this presentation, Dr. Karen Fox turns again to Pieper’s concept of leisure to reconsider the breadth of his scholarship and insight for today’s world and Frank Ostaseski’s “Five Invitations: Teachings on Death and Living Fully”. Intertwining stories and theory, Fox wanders through types of leisure often overlooked or dismissed that help us see life as it is, being at home with oneself and others, as well as accepting and celebrating all of life’s journey of living and dying.
Karen Fox
- Professor Emerita, Faculty of Kinesiology, Sport and Recreation - Academic Programs at University of Alberta. Dr. Fox received her PhD in Leisure Studies at the University of Minnesota (1990) and accepted her first faculty position at the University of Manitoba that same year. Dr. Fox accepted a faculty position at the University of Alberta from 1997 to her recent retirement in 2020.
- Recipient of the Faculty of Physical Education and Recreation Outstanding Research Award at the University of Alberta in 2008
- Invited to be a keynote speaker at top leisure conferences such as the Canadian Congress on Leisure Research, Leisure Studies Association in the UK, the World Leisure and Recreation Association, the National Recreation and Park Association in the United States, as well as the Coalition for Education in the Outdoors Research Symposium
- Research primarily focused on outdoor recreation, environmental ethics, Native Hawaiian and Indigenous perspectives, and philosophical perspectives of leisure including end-of-life.
- Since retiring, Dr. Fox has focused training a new rescue dog, writing a novel, learning to play the ukulele, improving her singing, and volunteering at the Pilgrims Hospice and the new animal hospice in Edmonton.
This lecture is offered in person and streamed online.
Lecture and award presentation will take place in Sun Life Auditorium - Lyle S. Hallman Institute (LHS) 1621, starting at 2:30 p.m., beginning with opening remarks. Reception to follow at 4 p.m. in the adjacent Fireplace Lounge.
A link to the virtual lecture will be emailed to registrants prior to the presentation.
The Shaw-Mannell Lecture is funded by the Lyle S. Hallman Professorial Endowment.