Jeffrey Brison is a cultural historian whose work examines the intersection of culture, philanthropy, and politics in North America, with a particular focus on Canada. He is the author of , a seminal study that investigates the role of private American philanthropy in shaping Canadaâs national culture and which was nominated for the John Grenzebach Award in 2007.
A founding member of the , Jeff has expanded his research to explore the global dimensions of cultural diplomacy. His recent work includes and , along with a series of articles analyzing Canadaâs use of "culture" in advancing its foreign policy and global positioning.
In addition to his research, Jeff is a dedicated educator and mentor. Over the past two decades, he has supervised more than 40 graduate students and served on numerous supervisory committees in History, Art History, the Faculty of Education, and the Cultural Studies Program. His excellence in teaching has been recognized with several prestigious awards and nominations, including the 2014 Faculty Teaching Award from the Department of History, the 2021 Faculty of Arts Award for Excellence in Graduate Teaching, and the 2022 School of Graduate Studies and Postdoctoral Affairs Award for Excellence in Graduate Student Supervision.
Jeff is also the Director of Cultural Studies, Queenâs Universityâs interdisciplinary graduate program.
Rockefeller, Carnegie, and Canada. American Philanthrophy and the Arts and Letters in Canada
Research Reports
Open Mic Report: Revisioning Culture for Cultural Policy. Author with Lynda Jessup, Sascha Priewe and Sarah E.K. Smith. Recommendations submitted to the Ministry of Culture, Government of Mexico, Mondiacult, 2022.
, Editor, with Lynda Jessup, North American Cultural Diplomacy Initiative, 2021, open access publication, available in English-, Spanish- and French-language editions, 104pp.
, Editor, with Sarah E.K, Smith, North American Cultural Diplomacy Initiative, 2021, open access publication, 136 pp.
, technical report co-authored with Lynda Jessup and Ben Schnitzer and prepared for the Copyright and International Trade Branch of the Department of Canadian Heritage (2018). 56 pp.
Recent Peer Reviewed Articles and Chapters
âCanada: Art dâaujourdâhui: The Art of Diplomacy in the Wake of âVive le QuĂ©bec libreâ,â co-authored with Lynda Jessup, under review, Journal of Canadian Studies (in process). 12795 words.
âThe Art of Diplomacy," co-authored with Lynda Jessup and Sarah E.K. Smith, in Understanding Cultural Diplomacy: Inside International Cultural Relations, ed., Nicholas J. Cull, Stuart MacDonald and Jonathan Vickery (Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishers, forthcoming 2025).
"Cold War 'Cultural Safaris': Canadian Art, Cultural Diplomacy and the Asian Commonwealth Tour,â co-authored with Lynda Jessup, Journal of Canadian Studies, Volume 58, Issue 1, March 2024: 159-193.
âToward a Critical Diplomacy,â co-authored with Lynda Jessup, Diplomatica 6 (2024): 44â70.
"Terre Sauvage: Globalizing Landscapes and the Group of Seven," co-authored with Lynda Jessup (double-length article), Journal of Canadian Studies, Volume 56, Issue 3, November 2022: 495-535.
Works in Progress
Winnersâ History: The Group of Seven, the National Gallery, and Canadaâs Global Affairs (co-authored with Lynda Jessup; manuscript under revision)
Winners' History explores the history of Canadaâs national art narrative in conversation with other art histories in circulation internationally over the course of the twentieth century. Focusing on representative exhibitionsâby definition, state-sponsored showsâthis book examines the role of national art histories in advancing hegemonic values, dominant narratives and âwinnersâ histories.â It grows out of recent research and a growing body of literature devoted to museum representation and the role exhibitions play in reproducing cultural authority, whether of the artist, the state, the citizens it defines as such, or the museum itself. Providing detailed discussion over fourteen chapters, it deals with government-sponsored international exhibitions of Canadian art to probe the relationship between the extended state sphere of culture and the policy sphere of the state, which historically has been more explicitly directed to the advancement of liberalism and its economics.
North Atlantic Men
This book-length project examines the extra-national intellectual and cultural networks of power that connected Canada, the United States, and Great Britain from the end of the First World War to the early years of the Cold War. This study takes a collective biographical approach to a cohort of Canadian scholars, culture-makers, and politicians who were key figures in a North Atlantic community of thought, and who shared extensive ties to an American cultural power elite and to centers of power of the old British Empire. This research aims to deepen understanding of how these individualsâ inclusion in formal and informal networks both facilitated and mediated state-to-state relations between Canada, Great Britain and the United States in an era during which the three states fundamentally redefined their roles in world affairs.
Awards:
- Award for Excellence in Graduate Student Supervision (School of Graduate Studies and Postdoctoral Affairs), 2022 (also nominated in 2019 and 2021)
- Faculty of Arts and Science Award for Excellence in Graduate Teaching, 2021
- Queenâs University Department of History's Faculty Teaching Award, 2014
Research Fellowships and Residencies:
- Senior Resident, Massey College, University of Toronto, 2019-20
- Scholar-in-Residence, Rockefeller Archive Center, Tarrytown, New York, 2010-11
- Research Fellow, Historic Canadian Art, National Gallery of Canada, 1998-99
Selected Research Funds and Grants:
- Queenâs ELAP Faculty Mobility for Partnership Building, Global Affairs Canada, 2025-
- SSHRC Partnership Development Grant, Co-Applicant, âThe Cultural Relations Approach to Diplomacyâ 2019-2022 (extended to 2024).
- Queenâs University and Queenâs University Faculty Association, Fund for Scholarly Research and Creative Work and Professional Development (Adjuncts), 2019-20
- MITACS Accelerate Program, âThe International Dimension of Canada's Museums,â Cluster of 6 History and Cultural Studies graduate student Research Fellows, 2018-21
- Copyright and International Trade Branch of the Department of Canadian Heritage, âCultural Diplomacy and Trade: Making Connections," research contract grant, 2017-18
- SSHRC Institutional Grants, Explore Grant, Queenâs University, 2018
- Principal's Development Fund, Queenâs University, 2018
- Fund for Scholarly Research (Adjuncts), Queenâs University, 2013-18
- Rockefeller Archive Center Research Grant, 2008
- Research Award, Queenâs University Fund for Scholarly Research and Creative Work, 2008
- Research Award, Queenâs University Fund for Scholarly Research and Creative Work, 2007
- Queenâs University Conference Travel Award, 2006
- Research Award, Queenâs University Fund for Scholarly Research and Creative Work, 2006
- Rockefeller Archive Center Research Grant, 1995
- Rockefeller Archive Center Research Grant, 1994
Jeff supervises graduate students researching diverse topics relating to cultural identity and nationalism; memory, heritage, and historical representation; histories of cultural production and consumption; and cultural diplomacy.
Completed PhD Supervisions (*SSHRC recipients):
- *Christina Fabiani, âTattooing the Mainstream.â (Cultural Studies Program, co-supervision with Laila Haidarali), 2024.
- *Katie-Marie McNeill, âPrisoner Aid Beyond Borders: A Transnational History of Prisoner Aid Societies in Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and the United States, 1930-1970â (Department of History, co-supervision with Karen Dubinsky), 2023.
- *Bronwyn Jaques, ââA Ruin, More or Less, or a Place of Dark Nostalgiaâ: Prison Tourism and the Mobilization of Dark Heritage at Kingston Penitentiaryâ (Cultural Studies Program, co-supervision with Lynda Jessup), 2022.
- *James Jelinski, âExpert Tattooing: The Development of a Profession in Canada, 1891-1986â (Cultural Studies Program, co-supervision with Sarah E.K. Smith), 2019.
- *Taylor Currie, âDu Pontâs Wonder World of Chemistry: Corporate Culture as Public Culture during the Twentieth Centuryâ (Cultural Studies Program, co-supervision with Blaine Allan), 2019.
- *Sarah Dougherty, âAll the Worldâs a Stage: Local, National, and Transnational Histories of the Stratford Festivalâ (Department of History), 2019.
- *Elizabeth Diggon, âExhibiting Diplomacy: Art and International Cultural Relations in Cold War Canadaâ (Cultural Studies Program, co-supervision with Lynda Jessup), 2018.
- *Agnes Ladon, âThe Art of Arctic Sovereignty: Towards Visualizing the North as Canadian, 1927-1974â (Department of Art History and Art Conservation, co-supervision with Lynda Jessup), 2017.
- Kendall Garton, ââApocalypse at the Doll Counterâ: Cultural Nationalism and English-Canadian Responses to the Barbie Doll, 1959-1969â (Department of History), 2017.
- *Sarah Isabel Wallace, âSikh Immigrants in British Columbia and California, 1900-1924: Nativism, Government Surveillance and the Veil of Public Health Protectionâ (Department of History, co-supervision with Barrington Walker), 2013.
Completed Masters Supervisions (*Canada Graduate Scholarship-Masters recipients):
- James Ball, âCanadian Identity and the Committee for an Independent Canada,â (MRP, Department of History), 2024.
- Tianna Edwards, "Kingston, The Black 91șÚÁÏÍű," (Thesis, Cultural Studies Program, co-supervision with Barrington Walker), 2023.
- Alexandra Allain, âLa Naissance de la Patrie: The construction of La Guerre de la ConquĂȘte in French Canadian historiography and its impact on public memory (MRP, Department of History), 2023.
- Baraa Abuzayed, âEmbroidering a Faraway Land.â (Thesis, Cultural Studies Program, co-supervision with Sarah EK Smith), 2023.
- *Dani Reimer, âGouzenko in the Public Eye: Newspaper Narratives of Cold War Conflict,â (Thesis, Department of History, co-supervision with Karen Dubinsky), 2022.
- *Alexander Kemp, âCanadaâs âOil Shockâ: Policy and Contemporary Historyâ (MA thesis, Department of History), 2020.
- *Kiersten McLeod, MA âBathing Beauties: Synchronized Swimming, Esther Williams, and Athletic Femininityâ (MRP, Department of History), 2019.
- *Quinn Henderson, âHate White North: The Heritage Front, Resistance Records, and White Power Activism in 1990s Ontarioâ (MRP, Department of History), 2019.
- Ashley Ratcliffe, âShame, Indigeneity, and the Emotional Politics of the Canadian Settler Imaginary: David Ahenakew and the Phenomenon of the Bad Aboriginalâ (MRP, Department of History), 2018.
- Alexander Pickering, âTorontoâs Post-War Governance and Expressway Scheme: High Modernism and âNegotiationââ (MA thesis, Department of History), 2018.
- Jennifer Lucas, "To be North American but not American: The Transformation of Canadian Studies and Canadian Universitiesâ (MA thesis, Department of History), 2018.
- Nicholas Grover, âNeoliberal Modernizers: The American Friends of the Middle East and Its Subversion of Arab Nationalism, 1951-67â (MA thesis, Department of History), 2018.
- Lauren Jaques, âSelling Canada: How âBranded Nationalismâ Has Shaped the Nationâ (MRP, Cultural Studies Program), 2018.
- Kimberley Heath, â'Cloudy Thinking': The Imagined Mushroom Cloud and the Psychological Construction of Chemical Warfare from a Canadian Perspective,1899-1945â (MRP, Department of History), 2017.
- *Bronwyn Jaques, âServe Canada with Men like Theseâ: Masculinity, âPeacekeeping,â and National Identity in Cold War Canada, 1956-1959â (MRP, Cultural Studies Program), 2016.
- Rebecca Smith, âBlack Hats and the Benefits of Popularity: A Reassessment of the Significance of Al Caponeâs Cultivation of his Public Imageâ (MRP, Department of History), 2016.
- Aaron Styba, âThe Tall Mast on the Horizon: The Material and Historical Remains of HMS St. Lawrenceâ (MRP, Department of History), 2015.
- *Taylor Currie, âWe heard it on Cavalcade: Corporate Sponsored Radio and the Shaping of Liberal Consensus from the Great Depression to the Cold Warâ (MRP, Department of History), 2013.
- Brooke Anderson, âCanadian Art at the 49th Parallelâ (MRP, Department of History), 2012.
- *Elizabeth Diggon, âCanadaâs Art: Canadian Representations at the Venice Biennaleâ (MA thesis, Department of Art History and Art Conservation, co-supervision with Lynda Jessup), 2012.
- Megan Bylsma, âEmma Lake Workshopsâ (MA thesis, Department of Art History and Art Conservation, co-supervision with Lynda Jessup), 2011.
- Kendall Garton, âApocalypse at the Doll Counterâ (MRP, Department of History), 2010.
- Jonathan Kelso, âMore than a Birthday: Canadaâs Centennial Celebrationsâ (MRP, Department of History), 2009.
- Martyn Clark, âWelcome to Reginapeg: Professional Hockey in Winnipeg, 1950 to 1999â (MRP, Department of History), 2008.