Institute on Québec Studies

The Institute on Québec Studies at SUNY Plattsburgh is very pleased to welcome Dr. Jocelyn Létourneau as the Distinguished Fulbright Research Chair in Québec Studies for the fall 2025 semester.

Dr. Jocelyn Létourneau is professor emeritus at Université Laval, Quebec City. Over his career he has held fellowships from the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, N.J., two Fulbright scholarships (UC Berkeley/Stanford and Yale, respectively) as well as grants from the Collegium de Lyon and the Zentrum for interdisziplinäre Forschung (University of Bielefeld, Germany). He was elected to the Royal Society of Canada in 2004 and awarded the Trudeau Foundation Prize (2006) in recognition of his outstanding achievement in research and participation in public life. In 2018, he was honoured with the Prix Actas André-Laurendeau for the excellence of his scholarly work and his many contributions to the social sciences and humanities.

The focus of Dr. Létourneau's research project, while in residence at SUNY Plattsburgh, is titled, “Silent Revolution: Mapping and conceptualizing societal changes in Quebec today.” His reflective and exploratory research project to conceptualize and interpret what Quebec is becoming has three objectives: 1) to identify the nature of the societal and identity-based changes currently at play in Quebec; 2) to develop the conceptual means to comprehend what is emerging in that society; 3) to identify some of the channels through which the change is being expressed, i.e., five journals that are driven by young intellectuals will be analyzed with respect to the new questions and themes around which Quebec's reference points are refashioned. Interdisciplinary in nature, Dr. Létourneau's research lies at the crossroads of history, sociology, political science, literature, and sociolinguistics.

The Distinguished Fulbright Chair in Québec Studies at the Institute on Québec Studies, SUNY Plattsburgh is made possible thanks to support from the Québec Ministry of International Relations and La Francophonie and Fulbright Canada. 

Chairholders support the advancement of Québec Studies in the United States and expand knowledge about Québec among the academic community and opinion leaders in the United States. They engage in collaborative research, deliver public lectures, give seminar presentations, participate in conferences and otherwise contribute to ongoing research activities in the United States. The chairholder is housed at the Institute on Québec Studies, SUNY Plattsburgh. 

Researchers selected to serve as Distinguished Fulbright Chairs in Québec Studies will have interest in the following fields: 

• Bilateral relations between Québec and the United States;
• Economic diplomacy and bilateral trade (interdependence, supply chains, etc.) between Québec and the United States;
• The fight against climate change, the energy transition and sustainable transportation; 
• Energy and natural resource issues;
• Security and border-related issues;
• Québec culture and identity; 
• Immigration and attracting talent;
• Québec’s international relations and its regions.

Past Distinguished Fulbright Chairs in Québec Studies and their research projects are:

2023–2024: Dr. Kristine Plouffe-Malette, Assistant Professor, and Director of the Master’s degree program in applied international law and international politics, Université de Sherbrooke, and associate professor, Université du Québec à Montréal: “The Quebec-New York border crisis: what remains of the orderly processing of asylum claims at Roxham Road”

2022–2023: Dr. Jean-Philippe Marcoux, Professor of American Literature at Université Laval: “The Society of Umbra: A Digital Archive”

2021–2022: Dr. Jean-François Godbout, Professor of Political Science at the Université de Montréal: “Institutional Legacies of the French Colonial Regime in North America”

2019–2020: Dr. Amélie Quesnel-Vallée, Canada Research Chair in Policies and Health Inequalities, Director of the McGill Observatory on Health and Social Services Reform, and Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology and Department of Epidemiology, McGill University: “Connecting Health and Social Care for Older Adults: Comparative Evidence from Canada and the U.S.” The 2020 Distinguished Fulbright Chair in Québec Studies lecture by Dr. Amélie Quesnel-Vallée, “Physical Distancing is a Privilege,” is available on YouTube. 

2018–2019: Dr. Ted Rutland, Associate Professor in the Department of Geography, Planning, and Environment at Concordia University: “Disappearing Difference: Montreal's War on Street Gangs and the Urban Carceral State”

2017–2018: Dr. Alexandre Turgeon, Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of History, University of Ottawa: “‘Did You See His Latest Tweet?’ How Twitter is Changing Politics in Québec and in the United States, 2014–2018”

2016–2017: Dr. Marie Connolly, Professor in the Department of Economics at the Université du Québec à Montréal: “Intergenerational Income Mobility in Canada and the United States”

2015–2016: Dr. Erin Hurley, Professor in the Department of English at McGill University: “The Identities of English-Language Theatre in Québec’s Eastern Townships and the Montérégie and its ties to the United States”

2014–2015: Dr. Jarrett Rudy, Department of History and Classical Studies, McGill University: “The Standardization of Time on the Québec-New York Border: Modernity, the Law, and Local Convention, 1883–1974”

2013–2014: Dr.Frédérick Gagnon, Director of the Center for United States Studies at the Raoul Dandurand Chair in Strategic and Diplomatic Studies, and Professor of Political Science, Université du Québec à Montréal: “Upstairs Neighbors: Québec–U.S. Relations and the Impacts of ‘La Belle Province’ on U.S. Elections”

2012–2013: Dr. Stéphane Paquin, Canada Research Chair in International and Comparative Economy, École nationale d'administration publique: “The International Relations of Québec and its Engagement with the United States”

Canadian Scholars interested to apply? For more information, visit Fulbright Canada’s page on the Research Chairs Program. This award is open to all researchers associated with a Québec university, government agency or institute. The next competition for awards to be taken up in the 2026–2027 academic year will open in May 2025 with an application deadline of November 15, 2025.

The Distinguished Québec Address recognizes and features individuals who have made a discernibly positive contribution to Québec public life. The address is the keynote institute-sponsored campus event of the year. Showcased in Krinovitz Hall, the address explores timely and significant issues of concern to Québec, Canada, the United States and the international community.

Previous Distinguished Speakers

• Mr. David Brulotte, Québec Delegate General in New York City (11/2024)
• Dr. Yulia Bosworth, President, American Council of Québec Studies; Associate Professor of French and Linguistics, and Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures at Binghamton University (3/2024)
• Dr. Daniel Béland, Director, McGill institute for the Study of Canada and Director, Quebec Studies Program, McGill University (2022) — Watch Dr. Béland presentation
• Dr. Stéphane Paquin, École nationale d’administration publique (2021) — Watch Dr. Paquin presentation
• Mr. Geoffrey Kelley, Minister for Native Affairs, Government of Québec (2017)
• Ms. Christine St-Pierre, Minister of International Relations and La Francophonie (2015)
• Mr. André Picard, Health Columnist for The Globe and Mail (2014)
• Mr. Michael Goldbloom, Principal, Bishop’s University (2013)
• Mr. John Parisella, Delegate General of the Québec Government Office in New York (2010)
• Mr. Pierre Arcand, Minister of International Relations and Minister responsible for La Francophonie, Government of Québec (2009)
• Ms. Monique Gagnon-Tremblay, Minister of International Relations and Minister responsible for La Francophonie, Government of Québec (2007)
• Mr. Larry Smith, President and CEO of the Montreal Alouettes professional football team (2005)
• Mr. Philippe Couillard, Minister of Health and Social Services, Government of Québec (2004)

The IQS Scholar-in-Residence program is for emerging and prominent scholars who have a demonstrated, professional focus — as an instructor, researcher or practitioner — on Québec. Select scholars, chosen through a nomination and competitive application process, undertake residence at the Institute for a period of one week to one academic semester. Scholars are provided with an office, access to a computer, library facilities, and an honorarium. The scholar-in-residence program is open to citizens of the United States and Canada.

During their time spent as a scholar-in-residence at the institute, scholars can undertake a variety of research projects, public lectures and classroom teaching opportunities. Scholars are encouraged to utilize the rich variety of Québec content holdings, available at SUNY Plattsburgh’s Feinberg Library. A public reception as well as an official dinner, hosted by the president of the college, are featured elements of the scholar-in-residence program.

This initiative provides a campus and community forum that showcases professors, intellectuals, business leaders and government officials who offer a rich assortment of public lectures on Québec and Québec–U.S. issues. To facilitate extended discussions with speakers, question and answer periods and informal receptions are an integral part of the Québec Speakers Series.

Recent Speakers

• Dr. David Haglund, Professor of Political Studies, Queen’s University
• Mr. Robert Laliberté, Director General, International Association of Québec Studies
• Dr. Jocelyn Létourneau, Professor of History & Canada Research Chair in Contemporary Political History and Economy in Québec, Université Laval

A Scholarly Authors’ Workshop and Book Project Authors’ Workshop 

• Dates and Venue: May 27-29, 2026 Québec City, Québec 

The Center for the Study of Canada and Institute on Québec Studies at the State University of New York (SUNY), Plattsburgh, the Jarislowsky Chair on Trust and Political Leadership at Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières (UQTR) in cooperation with École nationale d'administration publique (ÉNAP), Groupe d’études et de recherche sur l’international et le Québec (GERIQ),  and Observatoire sur les États-Unis, Chaire Raoul-Dandurand, Université du Québec à Montréal (UQÀM) are co-organizing a two-day authors’ workshop on Canadian and American international political leadership.  The goal is to produce a scholarly book volume to be published by a leading university press. 

International political leadership, involving Canada and the United States, is today at the forefront of political discussion and analysis.  Our workshop is designed to investigate, methodologically and empirically, those domestic and international factors that most directly impact the ability of various political leaders to exercise power in international affairs.  How does the prevailing construction/structure and workings of domestic and international political institutions, for example, affect how political leadership is and can be exercised in the international community by Ottawa and Washington? What role do domestic factors such as political parties, interest groups, public opinion, the bureaucracy, and the judiciary play in influencing international political leadership by either/both nations? How does the prevailing international political system (including nations, alliances, military postures, trading arrangements, international organizations, etc.) facilitate or constrain international political leadership by Canada and the United States?  When have elected political leaders in Ottawa and Washington deliberately sought to alter, even challenge, the scope and exercise of political power — and have these efforts been successful?  Do such challenges fundamentally alter the dynamics of international governance moving forward?  How does political leadership in the international community relate to the management of salient domestic issues or developments in international affairs? Are there substantive differences in the national experiences of Canada and the U.S.? 

Our workshop is for scholars and professionals who think deeply about Canadian and/or American political leadership (i.e., prime ministers, presidents, premiers, governors and mayors) and the exercise of political power in the international system. 

For more information, please consult the Call for Papers, with details on submission proposals due by September 15, 2025.

The 13th Annual Colloquium on Québec Studies organized by the SUNY Plattsburgh Institute on Québec Studies and Bishop’s University Eastern Townships Resource Centre was convened March 28-29, 2025. 

The Call for Papers for the 14th Annual Colloquium will be available soon. We invite researchers, academics and students from all disciplines in humanities and social sciences to contribute to this international and multidisciplinary conference. We are most interested in contributions from history, sociology, political science, public policy, linguistics, education, health, art and architecture. Paper proposals will be accepted from undergraduate/graduate students and faculty from all universities. We especially encourage faculty to identify and encourage talented students to submit a proposal for consideration.

The aim of this colloquium is to provide a forum, where the participants can share their research knowledge and ideas on Québec’s past, its recent trends, and map out the directions for its future. The colloquium will result in the publication of select edited scholarly essays in the Journal of Eastern Townships Studies (JETS).

For further information, please reference the Call for Papers for the 13th Annual Colloquium on Québec Studies.

The Québec Summer Seminar (QSS) has a history of being the flagship program for professors in the United States with interest in Canadian Studies and Québec Studies who seek a deeper appreciation of contemporary Québec. The QSS is conducted in the English language.

The QSS is an intimate gathering for faculty professional development which includes: 

• Review of contemporary multidisciplinary scholarship on Canada and Québec;
• Overview of Canada-focused professional development opportunities;
• Meetings with leading academic specialists; 
• Cultural activities relevant to our program objectives;
• Networking designed to support the inclusion of Canada in curriculum.

Faculty exclusively at institutions of higher education with interest in the teaching, research, and study of topics related to Canada and Québec are invited to register. Please review additional program details posted in the Québec Summer Seminar flyer.

To apply for Aug. 4-7, 2026, please complete an online application by Feb. 1, 2026.

Two book volumes, edited by Institute Director Christopher Kirkey (SUNY Plattsburgh), Frédérick Gagnon (Université du Québec à Montréal), and Stéphane Paquin (École nationale d’administration publique), are forthcoming in 2025: The Québec-United States Relationship: Political, Security, Economic, Environmental and Cultural Dynamics published by Palgrave Macmillan; and published by Presses de l’Université Laval, La relation Québec-États-Unis: Dynamiques politiques, sécuritaires, économiques, environnementales et culturelles. 

Québec’s engagement with the United States is the most significant and consequential point of interaction amongst all its international activities.  This new, edited book volume — available in both the English and French languages — seeks to explore the many ways in which Québec engages with the United States, including political exchange, border issues, trade, business and investment, transportation, immigration, cultural links and identity, the role of energy transmission and natural resources, and environmental considerations. As a sub-national actor pursing a wide range of paradiplomatic bilateral and multilateral initiatives directly involving the U.S., this book both explores and explains what, when, why and how Québec has chosen to engage the United States while examining the fundamental issues that lie at the heart of the relationship. Multidisciplinary and international in focus, this edited collection of essays features the work of scholars who think deeply about Québec-U.S. relations. Each contribution considers contemporary policy relevant issues; in so doing, this collection examines and emphasizes the background, scope, and impacts of policy decisions.

For more information, please consult: The Quebec-Unites States Relationship, Springer Nature

Edited by Christopher Kirkey (Director, Center for the Study of Canada and Institute on Québec Studies, SUNY Plattsburgh), Cheryl Gosselin (Professor of Sociology, Bishop’s University) and Andrew C. Holman (Professor of History, and Director of the Canadian Studies Program, Bridgewater State University), the book volume, Quebec’s Eastern Townships and the World: A Region and Its Global Connections is published by McGill-Queen’s University Press, Rethinking Canada in the World series, March 2025.

Quebec’s Eastern Townships and the World  reveals a region with its own gravity, sense of being, and worldly connections, marked not by its insularity but by its long history as a central meeting ground. This book volume examines how the Eastern Townships take centre stage as the reader encounters the vibrancy of a place marked not by its insularity but by its long history: a central meeting ground shaped by its many engagements withs the world.  The book provides new perspectives on compelling and significant topics in Townships history and culture, including Indigenous land use, the mobility of peoples to and from the region, linguistic diversity, economic production, education, sport, religion, and culture in myriad forms.  These studies recast the Eastern Townships as a centre, a borderland, a lieu de passage between nations, communities, and peoples.

For more information, please consult: Quebec’s Eastern Townships and the World, McGill-Queen’s University Press

What is Québec’s relationship with the rest of Canada? Is there a distinct Québécois culture? What is Québec’s place on the international stage? 

These are questions editors Stephan Gervais, Christopher Kirkey, and Jarrett Rudy continue to ask in the second edition of Québec Questions: Québec Studies for the Twenty-first Century published by Oxford University Press (2016). Bringing together expert contributors, the text examines the province through historical, social, cultural, political, and economic perspectives. 

For more information and to order your copy:

Québec Questions: Québec Studies for the Twenty-first Century

The Association for Canadian Studies in the United States (ACSUS) and SUNY Plattsburgh’s Institute on Québec Studies, in partnership with Fulbright Canada, the Centre interuniversitaire des relations internationales du Canada et du Québec, and groupe d’études sur les Relations internationales du Québec (École nationale d’administration publique), the Québec Studies program at McGill University, Chaire Raoul-Dandurand, and l'Observatoire sur les États-Unis (Université du Québec à Montréal), convened a two-day colloquium in Montréal on March 14–16, 2019, “Québec Society in 2019: Current State and Future Prospects.” The colloquium featured single discipline, multidisciplinary and comparative scholarly inquiries dedicated to defining, examining and evaluating contemporary Québec society. Select papers were published in a special issue of the American Review of Canadian Studies, the peer-reviewed, multidisciplinary journal of the Association for Canadian Studies in the United States (ACSUS).

More information on the American Review of Canadian Studies Fall 2020 Special Issue “Québec Society: Current State and Future Prospects.”

Subscribers may access the special, guest-edited issue online:

American Review of Canadian Studies

This educational book, Nokkahigas: Champlain and the Meeting of Two Worlds, has been developed to increase knowledge and appreciation of Samuel de Champlain and the two worlds he gravitated between: Europe and the Northeast Woodlands of North America. It provides readers with a rare perspective of the evolving economic, political and social circumstances that governed Champlain’s roles as explorer, ethnographer, fur trader and diplomat.

• First user-friendly condensed biography of the explorer Samuel de Champlain.
• Designed to serve the needs of the education community and general public in the U.S.A.
• A scholarly yet warm and engaging narrative of 72 pages, with historic illustrations.

Samuel de Champlain’s years of engagement between the French and the Amerindians are presented in a sequential fashion. On the right side of the pages, readers will find a thematic narrative; on the left-hand side: carefully chosen annotated full color illustrations. Notes and select readings complete the volume.

The Center for the Study of Canada and the Institute on Québec Studies, State University of New York College at Plattsburgh, were fortunate to secure the talents of author Joseph-André Senécal, Ph.D. Senécal was born in the city of Québec, has lived in the United States since 1956, and is Professor Emeritus of French language and literature and former Director of the Canadian Studies program at the University of Vermont. 

To obtain your free copies of the Nokkahigas book, please email: [email protected]

Also published by the Center for the Study of Canada and Institute on Québec Studies at SUNY Plattsburgh is the map “New France in the Champlain Valley, 1609–1759” researched and conceptualized by Joseph-André Senécal. The map is inscribed with place-names and other geographical designations used by French explorers, soldiers and settlers between 1609–1759, a time when France claimed and settled the area, now of New York State and Vermont.

An electronic copy of the New France in the Champlain Valley Map, 1609–1759, is available for download.

New France in the Champlain Valley Map, 1609–1759

For more information, review these brief videos featuring Dr. Senécal discuss the context of the map of New France in the Champlain Valley, 1609–1759, and the images it contains:

Watch: Overview of the New France in Champlain Valley Map with Dr. Joseph-Andre Senecal

Watch: Dr. Joseph-Andre Senecal Discusses Images Printed on the New France in the Champlain Valley Map

Professional development opportunities in Québec Studies for K–12 teachers, curriculum specialists, librarian and administrators throughout the United States are regularly provided by the Institute on Québec Studies, SUNY Plattsburgh. 

Week-long intensive summer institutes are held every summer and organized in collaboration with the Canadian-American Center, University of Maine. 

The “Québec Dimensions: Historical, Geographic and Cultural Explorations” Summer Institute for K–12 Professionals takes places in Montréal and Québec City and provides professional development in English for American-based teachers, curriculum coordinators and administrators of social studies, geography, history and French. Both pre-service and in-service educators are welcome to participate. 

Educators must apply for acceptance for participation. Please apply online: Registration application for Québec Dimensions Summer Institute for K-12 Professionals 

Dr. Christopher Kirkey, institute director, and Ms. Amy Sotherden, assistant director with focus on K–12 programs, are delighted to offer presentations and professional development workshops on a variety of Québec and Canadian topics for both teacher and student audiences. School districts in northern New York state are invited to contact us to secure an appointment for us to work with your school. An assortment of presentation and training topics are available for discussion.

The Institute on Québec Studies provides timely and informative classroom materials, for use by teachers and students alike. We look forward to working with north country schools, superintendents, principals, teachers and students on Québec focused K–12 curriculum instruction, delivery and materials. We welcome the opportunity to bring Québec topics to your classroom!

Partnership with North Country Teacher Resource Center

Courses with a Québec focus are regularly offered by the Institute on Québec Studies in collaboration with the North Country Teachers Resource Center for area teachers.

Most recently, the O Canada 2025 Seminar for Teachers offered through the North Country Teachers Resource Center organized a session titled, “Understanding Quebec in Canada.” In this session, the roots of the French presence in Canada were traced, and what “nation” has meant to francophones in Canada from the time of the British Conquest of Quebec in 1760 until today was examined. The session reviewed Quebec’s formative place within Canadian Confederation and Quebecers’ many and thriving identities within the country. The session explored the question: who do Quebecers think they are? The following learning objectives for the seminar’s teacher participants were pursued:

• Understand the origins, periodization, and identities of the French-speaking populations in Quebec and Canada
• Understand what makes Quebec a “distinct society”
• Understand how Quebecers’ notion of interculturalism differs from the concept of multiculturalism that operates in the rest of Canada (ROC)

To access a video recording of this presentation and others within our professional development series for K-12 educators, please email your request to: [email protected]

Québec Studies Associations

• American Council for Québec Studies (ACQS)

The ACQS is the national scholarly association in the United States for individuals interested in the study of Québec. The ACQS hosts a biennial conference and publishes the journal Québec Studies.

• International Association of Québec Studies (AIEQ)

The AIEQ is responsible for the promotion and development of Québec Studies in Canada and throughout the international community. The Association works to foster an international network of research on Québec through a variety of programming efforts.

Québec in the World

• Ministère des Relations internationales et de la Francophonie (MRIF)

The Ministère des Relations internationales et de la Francophonie conducts the Government of Québec’s involvement with the international community, with a view to promoting and defending Québec’s interests and values. The MRIF is represented by the Québec Government Office in New York City and offices/bureaus in Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston, Atlanta and Washington.