13 Upcoming Public Lectures with UBC – March 2018

There are lectures happening all the time at UBC. Before the start of summer, stretch your mind and learn something new – regardless of your interests, you’ll be able to find something intriguing to check out with these public lectures. 


1. March 21 – Planet Vision: Why We First Need to Build a Shared, Positive Vision of the Future to Address Our Environmental Challenges

Learn more about PlanetVision, a multi-faceted campaign — blending museums exhibits, web and social media, and a future book and lecture series — to inspire people to take everyday actions to ensure a more sustainable future. By seizing simple opportunities in our food, water, and energy systems, we can all make a real difference to issues like ecosystem decline & biodiversity loss, the degradation of our natural resources, and the mounting challenges of climate change. PlanetVision shows us how, and gives us hope. Speaker James Foley is a world-leading environmental scientist, who has worked on issues of climate change, sustainable agriculture, and global ecological change.

Where: Green College, Coach House

When: 5:00 – 6:30

 

2. March 23 – Million Dollar Med$: exploring access to life-saving medicines

What if you couldn’t get medicine for yourself or someone you love? Join Global Reporting Centre founder and journalist Peter Klein for his lecture on the Million Dollar Med$ project and its investigation of the impact of rare diseases on Canadian families and how Canada can increase access to treatments that could save lives. Then, Canada Research Chair in Access to Medicines Michael Law will discuss just how easy or difficult it is to get life-saving medicines in Canada.

Where: Michael Smith Laboratories Room 102

When: 9:00 – 10:00 am

 

3. March 25 – Financing a Sustainable Future

The evening will feature three speakers delivering 15 min talks highlighting regional and international examples of impact investments that support biodiversity conservation and human well-being. Lectures will be followed by a panel discussion with questions from the audience. You will have the opportunity to visit with presenters, regional groups engaged in conservation finance, and guests during a no-host social.

Where: Joseph & Rosalie Segal Centre, SFU, Harbour Centre

When: 7:00 – 9:00 pm

 

4. March 28 – Sustainable Intensification in Policy and Practice: The UK Story with Michael Winter

Join us at Dr. Michael Winter’s talk about sustainable intensification, part of the UBC Future of Food Dialogue Series. Dr. Winter is a rural policy specialist and social scientist with particular interests in applying inter-disciplinary approaches to policy-relevant research and in direct engagement in the policy process. His current research focuses on the governance of sustainable agro-food systems and food security; the historical and contemporary sociology of west country agriculture; and farmer environmental attitudes and decision-making, particularly in the context of diffuse pollution and water quality.

Where: Multipurpose room, Liu Institute for Global Issues

When: 12:30 – 1:30 pm

 

5. March 28 – Egypt’s Scattered Heritage: The Distribution of Egyptian Archaeology to the World’s Museums

Egypt’s cultural heritage is amongst of the most widely dispersed of any country following centuries of intense colonial and imperial interest in its history, monuments and antiquities. From 1883 onwards, British teams were prolific exporters of Egyptian antiquities, in large measure due to its position as an occupying power, as well as on account of the transnational sponsorship model adopted by missions to fund their work. As a result, it is estimated that some 350 institutions across 27 countries in 5 continents received Egyptian archaeological finds through British agencies. This lecture examines the motivations for collecting Egyptian antiquities from 1883 to the present day in a diversity of contexts.

Where: Green College, Coach House

When: 5:00 – 6:30 pm

 

6. March 29 – 8th Annual Burge Lecture w/ Dr. Ian Miller, Harvard University

Join us for this year’s 8th Annual Burge Lecture “Illumination and its Discontents: Electricity Theft and the Political Economy of Japanese Energy” with guest lecturer Dr. Ian Miller, Professor of History at Harvard University. This talk with discuss how Japan, the world’s third-largest economy, became addicted to fossil fuels.

Where: Robert H. Lee Alumni Centre

When: 5:00 – 9:00 pm

 

7. April 5 – Using Neutron Star Mergers to Search for Asymmetric Dark Matter

Speaker Joseph Bramante with show how heavy asymmetric dark matter could be found using the locations of neutron star mergers in galaxies, and by observing a new type of astrophysical event, a “quiet kilonova,” in which a neutron star implodes into a black hole made of dark matter accumulated at its centre.

Where: TRIUMF, Main Office Building Auditorium

When: 2:00 pm

 

8. April 5 – A Matter of Confidence: The Inside Story of the Political Battle for BC

Authors Richard Zussman and Robert Shaw join us to discuss their new book, A Matter of Confidence: The Inside Story of the Political Battle for BC. A Matter of Confidence gives readers an inside’s look at the overconfidence that fuelled the rise and fall of Clark’s premiership and the historic non-confidence vote that defeated her government and ended her political career. This talk will be moderated by Professor Gerald Baier, Political Science.

Where: Liu Institute for Global Issues, Multipurpose Room

When: 5:00 – 6:30 pm

 

9. April 9 – Are Racists Crazy? How Prejudice, Racism and Antisemitism Became Markers of Insanity From 19th-Century Race Science to the Age of Trump

In 2012, an interdisciplinary team of scientists at the University of Oxford reported that clinical tests showed that the beta-blocker drug Propranolol could reduce implicit racial bias among its users. Do experiments like these mean that racism is a mental illness? In this lecture, Sander Gilman traces the genealogies of race and racism as psychopathological categories, exploring the significance that the psychological sciences play in biological understandings of race and racism.

Where: Green College, Coach House

When: 5:00 – 6:30 pm

 

10. April 9 – PHDs Go Public: Art and Resistance

How can art and research into art contribute to social change? In the fourth event of the 2018 PhDs Go Public Research Talk Series, join us as four doctoral students from UBC’s Public Scholars Initiative have seven minutes each to talk about their research to bring about positive change through art.

Where: Peter Kaye Room, Vancouver Public Library

When: 5:30 – 7:00 pm

 

11. April 19 – MEDtalks – Emergency: Drug Use and Addiction in the 21st Century

In April 2016, BC declared a public health emergency in response to the rapid rise of fatal and non-fatal drug overdoses in the province. Since then, the problem has only worsened, with the number of overdose deaths in 2017 exceeding 2016’s totals by a significant margin. Hear from four top UBC researchers and clinicians from UBC Faculties of Medicine, Dentistry, Arts and Pharmaceutical Sciences as they present their research in a series of short MEDtalks.

Where: UBC Robson Square, Room C300

When: 6:30 – 9:00 pm

 

12. April 19 – The Wisdom of Reconciliation: A roadmap for multiculturalism

In this important talk, the Kanien’kehá:ka (Mohawk) mother, activist, Olympian, and entrepreneur makes the case for fostering a collective culture of listening and dialogue; for extending empathy to those with different outlooks and not shying away from debate; and for applying solutions-based thinking rooted in shared aspirations. This lecture is a part of UBC Connects, a new public lecture series presented by UBC President Santa J. Ono, and featuring the world’s most esteemed thought leaders.

Where: Robert H. Lee Alumni Centre

When: 6:30 – 9:00 pm

 

13. April 19 – Site C: Dammed if you do, damned if you don’t

The controversial approval of the Site C dam project by Premier Horgan and the NDP government won support from business and labour interests even as it was condemned by environmentalists and First Nations. To help sort through the issues involved, this forum brings together three experts, all of whom have offered policy advice on Site C, to provide perspective on the decision. The forum will be live streamed on the Institute’s Facebook page.

Where: Leon and Thea Koerner University Centre, Sage East Conference Room

When: 7:30 – 9:30 pm

 


Looking for something other than a talk? Check out events.ubc.ca for events going on at UBC, and follow @UBCevents on Twitter for up-to-date info.