UPEI mourns the passing of faculty member Dr. Carlo Lavoie
The University of Prince Edward Island is saddened by the passing of Dr. Carlo Lavoie, chair of the Department of Modern Languages, Faculty of Arts, on October 11, 2023.
Dr. Lavoie (Carlo as he would have preferred) a member of the Department of Modern Languages since 2003. His research interests, as he put it, explored “the historical, geographic, structural, and memorial identity links which bind the individual to his or her community in developing new possibilities for inhabiting any given territory.” Much of his research and published work focused on Acadian and Québécois culture and literature. He explored such diverse topics as sport, hunting, minority status, immigration, poetry, and literature, all with an eye to better understanding Francophone identity. He remained active as a scholar despite his battles with cancer, publishing in 2021 the edited volume, Freedom, Imagination and Space of Constraint. The Question of Context in Literature. Paris: Éditions du Cygne. At UPEI, Carlo founded and directed the Acadian Studies program. He was committed to sharing his academic work with a wider public through interviews, videos, and the development of web content for Radio Canada and La Voix Acadienne.
Carlo was also very active in the Francophone community on PEI, in the Atlantic region, and nationally. For example, he served as the president of the Advisory Committee of the Acadian and Francophone Community of Prince Edward Island, as the vice-president of L’Association canadienne-française pour l'avancement des sciences-Acadie (French Canadian Association for the Advancement of Sciences–Acadie), and he co-authored multiple reports about the promotion of the French language and culture on PEI and in the Atlantic region.
Carlo was a tireless promoter of Francophone culture and language. But he was also wonderfully open-minded and inclusive in his intellectual pursuits. More recently, in his research to advance the immigration of Francophones to PEI and Canada, he insisted that we embrace a broad international community of French speakers as the way forward to enhance Francophone culture on and off the Island. Carlo will be remembered for his generosity of spirit and his tireless energies for his intellectual endeavours.
Read the message sent to the UPEI community by Dr. Greg Keefe, interim president and vice-chancellor, at the time of Dr. Lavoie's passing.
