The Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences draws thousands of people each year, and one of the best places for attendees to connect with the Federation, the host university, and each other is on Twitter. Last year, we encouraged users to label their tweets about Congress with the hashtag #congress2013, and the year before that we used #congress2012. We noticed, however, that hashtags in this format can present a number of problems, so we developed a new one to be used in 2014 and beyond. Check out our blog post to get the story behind the new and improved Congress hashtag: #CongreSSH.

The inaugural Power of the Arts National Forum took place from September 27-29 at Carleton University, presented by the school's Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences and the Michaëlle Jean Foundation. Federation President Antonia Maioni delivered a keynote speech about the democratic potential of the arts for society, and Executive Director Jean-Marc Mangin summed up his thoughts on the Forum in a blog post, calling for stronger collaboration between the social sciences and the arts. 

On October 16, 2013, the German Research Foundation (DFG) will present the first Leibniz Lecture to take place in Canada, which will be held at the University of Ottawa. The lecture, entitled "Toleration and Democracy," will see German political philosopher Rainer Forst discuss different conceptions of "toleration", and how an understanding of the notion based on mutual respect is the appropriate one for a modern, pluralist democracy. The event will take place at 6 pm in room 4007 of the Social Science Building. On October 17th, Forst will head to Toronto to provide a second lecture entitled "Two Pictures of Justice".