W. C. Desmond Pacey Memorial Lecture

Living Archive: Palestinian Displacement in Lebanon

Wednesday, March 18, 2026
Reception: 5 p.m. | Lecture: 5:30 p.m.
Alfred G. Bailey Auditorium, Tilley Hall, room 102
All are welcome to attend

Join the Faculty of Arts for the W.C. Desmond Pacey Memorial Lecture, featuring anthropologist and filmmaker Dr. Diana Allan, Associate Professor and Canada Research Chair in Anthropology of Living Archives at McGill University.

This talk addresses the concept of 'Living Archives', which has evolved from Diana Allan's ongoing research as an ethnographer, filmmaker and archivist working with Palestinian refugee communities in Lebanon.

It builds on the work of the Nakba Archive - a grassroots testimonial initiative that has documented histories of the forced expulsion of 1948 - and is premised on the reimagining of archive as a creative, participatory practice that resists fixity and centres process.

It draws inspiration from recent shifts in how Palestinian scholars, writers and artists are rethinking mnemonic and documentary witness practices, and explores camp spaces as stateless archives, mnemonically embodied rather than institutionally housed.

The W.C. Desmond Pacey Memorial Lecture, established in 1981, honours UNB professor and administrator Desmond Pacey (1944-1975) and features leading voices in the humanities and social sciences.