Events at: Irving K. Barber Learning Centre Room 185

One Day @ UBC: Egypt and the Bible: Cultural Contact in Literature, Religion and Art

Egypt was an important political and cultural point of reference for Israel and had a major influence on Israel and the larger Levant throughout the 1st millennium BCE. Explore the cultural, religious and literary significance of Egypt for ancient Israel, with a particular focus on genres, texts, and literary motifs of the Hebrew Bible. THOMAS […]

One Day @ UBC: Separating the Wheat from the Chaff – How Can We Best Produce our Food?

How can we produce food in a more sustainable manner while providing livelihoods to farmers as well as nutritious and accessible food to consumers? There are many solutions being promoted: organic, urban agriculture, GMO, local, fair trade, and so on. But what do we actually know about what works? Gain a broad overview of the […]

One Day @ UBC: Thor and Company: Old Norse Mythology through the Ages

Few mythologies can rival the popularity of Old Norse mythology – the world of Thor, Odin and Loki, of dwarves, trolls and frost giants. But almost everything we “know” about Old Norse mythology was recorded by hostile Christian observers or Icelandic scribes writing at least two hundred after years the Christianization of Iceland. As a […]

One Day @ UBC: Topics in World History, 1945-2001

Explore contemporary history through the lens of places and sites around the world – places such as Auschwitz; the city of Guangzhou, on China’s southeast coast; the Galapagos Islands; the International Monetary Fund building in Washington, DC; a United Nations refugee camp in western Uganda; the former secret detention centre at the Argentine Naval base […]

One Day @ UBC: Object Lessons, Object Questions: A One Day Experiment @ MOA

Engage in a conversation about objects and culture and the many ways in which objects are part of our (cultural) lives. Attempt to establish what differentiates “common” from “museum” objects. Take a walk through the museum’s backstage and get acquainted with artifacts from the museum’s Amazonian collections, learn about their biographies, and debate the curatorial […]

One Day @ UBC: Diabetes: How Interactions between our Genes and Environment Cause a Global Epidemic

We live in a global diabetes epidemic: 415 million people live with diabetes, diabetes claims 5 million lives annually – more than HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined – and diabetes consumes 12% of our health expenditures. Yet the underlying molecular defects that cause diabetes remain elusive. Learn about the latest achievements in the field of […]

The Legend and Reality of Ancient Sparta – What the Movie 300 Didn’t Tell You

In Charlottesville, Berlin, Vienna and elsewhere today, right-wing nationalist demonstrators wearing t-shirts or carrying shields with Spartan logos claim ancient Sparta as a justification for their extreme attitudes. This session will explore the reality of ancient Spartan life that has been hidden for centuries behind a screen of propaganda and distortion.