When Democracy Becomes Controversial: Climate Change and the Corporate State

source: Simon Fraser University    2016年10月27日
The 2015 Nora and Ted Sterling Prize in Support of Controversy winners were Stephen Collis & Lynne Quarmby
Our democratic system is vulnerable and has been slowly dismantled by those in power, most egregiously while under the Harper Conservatives. Citizens today must wrestle with the contradiction of participating in a broken system - voting, supporting parties and candidates, participating in public debate, even running for office — at the same time, recognizing that the most pressing issues we face (such as climate change, the geographical displacement of populations, and Indigenous rights and land claims), require us to take direct action outside of the electoral and representative apparatus of governance.

Rethinking Our Understanding of Human Cognition, Behaviour, and Mental Illness

source: Simon Fraser University 2   016年10月27日
On October 17, 2016, the Nora and Ted Sterling Prize in Support of Controversy award was presented to SFU evolutionary biologist Dr. Bernard Crespi for his research on the Diametric Theory of Human Mental Illness.
The Nora and Ted Sterling Prize in Support of Controversy was established at Simon Fraser University in 1993 to honour and encourage work that provokes and/or contributes to the understanding of controversy.
The Sterling Prize may be awarded for work in any field, including - but not limited to - the fine arts, humanities, social sciences, natural sciences and education. The selection of the annual prize winner is the responsibility of the Sterling Prize Committee.

Great Soul or Great Schemer? Exploring the Myth of Mahatma Gandhi - Bidisha Ray

source: SFU History     2013年11月5日
Mahatma Gandhi's name is synonymous with peace and saintliness almost everywhere on the planet. Yet in parts of postcolonial South Asia, Gandhi's life, politics, ideologies, and legacy have been the subject of considerable controversy and even violent denigration. How, then, should we remember Gandhi? Misogynist tyrant or freethinking radical? Self-absorbed kingmaker or farsighted statesman? Economic genius or utopian fantasist? By exploring some of the most popular myths surrounding the man and his work, Dr. Bidisha Ray will offer a fresh perspective on what Gandhi and Gandhi-isms may stand for.

BIDISHA RAY
Born and raised in Calcutta, Bidisha Ray holds degrees from the universities of Delhi, Jadvapur, York, and Machester. She has spent time teaching History and Politics as well as working with the British Cabinet Office in London. She is currently working on a book-length study entitled Contesting Respectability: Sexuality, Corporeality and Popular Culture in Colonial Bengal.

Charles Marohn/The Minnesota Series: Original Thinking from the American Midwest

source: Simon Fraser University Continuing Studies 2013年11月7日
http://www.sfu.ca/city
In October 2013, SFU hosted an urban planning lecture featuring Charles Marohn. The lecture was part of a series on Minnesota, a state that shares more than a border with Canada.
Marohn is the co-founder and president of Strong Towns, and a professional engineer who is passionate about planning and small towns. He brings a civil-engineering perspective that results in original ideas such as the "stroad," a street/road hybrid that manages to be both expensive and unproductive. He's a fiscal conservative who makes his case effectively to a small-government audience as much as to urban planners and engineers.
This lecture was sponsored by TransLink, the City of Surrey, and SFU Urban Studies.
Find out about SFU Continuing Studies' other courses, programs, and events on urban planning at http://www.sfu.ca/continuing-studies/....

Franco "Bifo" Berardi - Public Lecture

source: Simon Fraser University    2013年12月23日
September 14, 2013 - Franco Berardi
His recent books include The Uprising: On Poetry and Finance (Semiotext(e) 2012), After The Future (AK Press, 2011), and The Soul at Work: From Alienation to Autonomy (Semiotext(e) 2009).
His visit is in conjunction with Brady Cranfield and Jamie Hilder's exhibition Due To Injuries... at 221A.
This event is co-sponsored by SFU's Vancity Office of Community Engagement and the SFU Institute for the Humanities
http://sfuwoodwards.ca/index.php/comm...

Khelsilem Rivers and April Charlo: Decolonizing Language Revitalization

source: Simon Fraser University    2014年1月2日
September 25, 2013 - How has Eurocentric anthropology and linguistics affected the way we interpret our elders and ancestors who share their cultural knowledge with foreign researchers?

Join us for a presentation with Khelsilem Rivers and April Charlo, indigenous peoples from community-based and cultural revitalization backgrounds, who will be discussing decolonization of language revitalization. Their presentation and open dialogue will address the context of rapid language loss and decline, and how colonization has affected or is embedded in the strategies of revitalization.
In an effort to revitalize Indigenous languages, communities may have unknowingly adopted or assimilated colonized ways of thinking as they invest interest and attempt to repair or restore ties to culture and language. Are we learning to speak Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, Nēhiyawēwin, Kanien'kéha, et all with an English-mind or are we learning to speak Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, Nēhiyawēwin, Kanien'kéha with a Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, Nēhiyaw, Kanien'keháka mind?
Indigenous languages represent one of the darkest ways in which ethnocide and cultural genocide have occurred. It is expected in the next twenty-five years over 700 of the worlds Indigenous languages will be forgotten. In the Vancouver area alone, the two Indigenous languages are considered critical endangered; Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) language has five to seven fluent speakers and hən̓q̓əmin̓əm has one fluent speaker left.
Decolonizing Language Revitalization aims to put forward perspectives of shifting values, cultural understandings, and impacts on community. It is the stories we tell ourselves (as a people) that impacts who we believe we are, and then who we become. But if the stories -- even including, or especially the Indigenous ones -- are filtered through colonialism, we have become a different people because of it.
April Charlo from Bitterroot Salish people and is a member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, Montana.
Khelsilem Rivers is a Sḵwx̱wú7mesh-Kwakwa̱ka̱'wakw language revitalization activist from Vancouver.
Supported by SFU's Vancity Office of Community Engagement
http://sfuwoodwards.ca/index.php/comm...

Hito Steyerl: Adorno's Grey - Samir Gandesha and Jaleh Mansoor

source: Simon Fraser University 2014年1月6日
October 16, 2013 - Audain Gallery: Grey on Grey Lecture Series
Hito Steyerl's installation Adorno's Grey (2012) features a single channel video set at the Goethe-Universität in Frankfurt where Theodor W. Adorno famously taught. It shows two conservators scraping the walls of a lecture hall, looking for the legendary grey that Adorno had his classroom painted in order to promote concentration. The "Busenattentat" (Breast Attack) incident that occurred during his 1969 lecture series, "Introduction to Dialectical Thinking", is narrated and interpreted over the forensic performance. Parallel to the excavation, Steyerl uncovers a constellation of artifacts from the histories of student protests, nude protests and monochrome painting. In her practice, Steyerl employs riddles, puns and word play as tools for ideological critique. In Adorno's Grey, she exercises the dialectical properties of grey within philosophy, aesthetics, pedagogy and politics.

Steyerl is a Berlin based filmmaker and author in the area of essayist documentary film/video, media art and video installation. She teaches New Media Art at University of the Arts, Berlin and her work has been included in the Venice Biennale (2013), Taipei Biennial (2010), dOCUMENTA (12) (2007) and Manifesta 5 (2004), among others.
Curated by Melanie O'Brian with Amy Kazymerchyk in collaboration with the School for the Contemporary Arts' Audain Visual Artist in Residence Program.
http://sfuwoodwards.ca/index.php/comm...

What you can do to help pollinators--A Plea for Bees' Needs: Dr. Elizabeth Elle

source: Simon Fraser University    2009年4月29日
" A Plea for the Bees' Needs: Pollinator declines and how to encourage backyard biodiversity" presented by Dr. Elizabeth Elle.
Learn more about why bees are in trouble, the natural history and status of our native bees, and what you can do in your backyard, community garden or even on your balcony to help support pollinators.
This public lecture was recorded on Thursday April 23, 2009. It was organised by Continuing Studies in Science at Simon Fraser University.

Dr. Andrew Feenberg: Ten Paradoxes of Technology

source: Simon Fraser University     2010年6月17日
Feb 11, 2010
SFU Canada Research Chairs Seminar Series: "Ten Paradoxes of Technology"
Dr. Andrew Feenberg
Canada Research Chair in Philosophy of Technology, School of Communication

Tariq Ramadan - The quest for meaning and pluralism

source: Simon Fraser University     2011年2月4日
Tariq Ramadan, an Islamic scholar known for drawing thousands of people to events, filled a theatre and overflow room at SFU's Segal Graduate School of Business for his February 3rd talk.

Michael Mann--The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars: The Battle Continues

source: Simon Fraser University     2016年1月14日
Dr. Michael Mann, Distinguished Professor of Meteorology and Director, Earth System Science Center, Pennsylvania State University, USA.
Building on the findings in his book “The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars”, Dr. Mann discusses the basics of climate science and reveals the tactics which opponents of climate change use to distort the science and attack the reputations of scientists. He describes both the hockey stick controversy and the broader context of skepticism in science and contrarians rejecting evidence of human influence on climate.

Tinderbox- India & its Neighbours, with MJ Akbar July 12, 2012

source: Simon Fraser University    2013年1月29日
The Indian Summer Festival in partnership with SFU's Public Square and the SFU Vancity Office of Community Engagement
http://www.indiansummerfestival.ca
http://sfuwoodwards.ca/index.php/comm...

How Large Is the Bill for Global Climate Change?

source: Simon Fraser University    2016年1月14日
Dr. Chris Hope, Reader in Policy Modelling, Judge Business School, University of Cambridge, UK.
Abstract: This lecture focuses on climate change policies in developed and developing countries with an emphasis on the economic and social costs of carbon. Dr. Hope’s research involves numerical information in public policy and the integrated assessment modelling of climate change. An economist, Dr. Hope was an advisor to the Stern review on the Economics of Climate Change and was the special advisor to the House of Lords Select Committee on Economic Affairs Inquiry into aspects of the economics of climate change.

The Optimistic Environmentalist: Planning for a 100% Renewable Future

source: Simon Fraser University    2016年1月14日
Dr. David R. Boyd, Adjunct Professor, School of Resource and Environmental Management, Simon Fraser University; Environmental Lawyer and Author.
Dr. Boyd discusses the remarkable renewable energy revolution that is underway globally, with the rate of growth in wind and solar repeatedly surpassing expert projections. Canada’s progress will be evaluated, and the city of Vancouver’s plan for becoming fossil fuel free by 2050 will be introduced.

From AIDS to Zika: Institutional Innovation and Global Health

source: Simon Fraser University    2016年4月22日
SFU President’s Faculty Lecture featuring Dr. Kelley Lee, Tier 1 Canada Research Chair & Professor of Health Sciences presenting: ‘From AIDS to Zika: Institutional innovation and global health.’

Psychoanalysis vs Therapy - On Two Contrasting Discursivities December 7...

source: Simon Fraser University    2013年1月30日
On the basis of Lacan's characterization of the Discourse of the Analyst, this seminar will contrast Psychoanalytic and Therapeutic practices. Three questions will be approached. Is the analyst a clinician? How does the analyst listen? Under what conditions might analytic practice take place beyond the analyst's consulting room?
We strongly recommend those interested in attending either (or both) seminars be present also at Dr. Mayer-Foulkes' inaugural lecture, which will furnish various premises to be developed in the course of the seminars.
This event is co-sponsored by the Lacan Salon of Vancouver, Dept. of English at SFU, and The Institute for the Humanities, SFU
http://sfuwoodwards.ca/index.php/comm...