Showcasing works of art dealing with issues concerning identity, cohabitation, loss, migration, and adaptation ranging since the construction of the Pacific Canadian Railway to the modern age, this exhibit focuses on the transitional ideologies and identities of Chinese immigrants since the period of the building of the Canadian Railway to the modern day. Each contemporary piece of work constitutes its own reflections to these issues and their history in an attempt to define self identity and evolution of time, space, and culture.
C.A.S.S. (UBC Chinese Art Students Society) was established in 1994 with the mandate to educating and facilitating the appreciation of Chinese art and tradition. C.A.S.S. welcomes everyone, regardless of ethnicity, to take part in events and activities focusing on Chinese culture.
(Webcast of Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas’ reading on September 30, 2010)
Through illustrative storytelling, Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas turns stereotypes of First Nations’ cultures literally upside down. In RED: A Haida Manga (Douglas and McIntyre, 2009), he tells the epic tale of a Haida hero named Red, a leader so blinded by revenge that he leads his community to the brink of war and destruction. The story is told through 108 pages of hand-painted illustrations. When arranged in a specific order, the panels of the narrative create a Haida formline image four metres long. The sequence for this complex design is displayed on the inside jacket.
Drawing from classic Haida narratives, and in the “tradition of innovation,” Yahgulanaas has created a new genre called Haida Manga – part Haida, part Japanese-style comic. He has dropped the traditional rectangular boxes and gutters associated with North American graphic literature. Instead, he has invented a flowing style that uses a bold line stretched almost to the breaking point – a motif associated strongly with Haida formlines – to link the images in the narrative in a layout that confounds expectation.
Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas was formerly introduced to Haida iconography by his elder cousin, the painter, carver and printmaker Robert Davidson. He also studied with Cantonese artist Cai Ben Kwon. He has exhibited his art throughout Canada. His other books include Flight of the Hummingbird, A Tale of Two Shamans, The Last Voyage of the Black Shipand Hachidori. He lives close to the Two Sisters mountains on an island in the Salish Sea.
Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas read at the Lillooet Room of the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre on September 30, 2010, 1:00.
Webcast sponsored by the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre and hosted as part of the Robson Reading Series at IKBLC, through illustrative story telling, Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas challenges native stereotypes. The stories of the trickster Raven, as told by Yahgulanaas, are what most people would call comics, and they are fun, humorous and sometimes rude. Yahgulanaas takes traditional Haida stories and turns them into manga (Japanese-style comics). He has dropped the traditional rectangular boxes and voice balloons associated with the North American comics of Marvel and DC. Instead, he has developed a flowing style that uses a bold line stretched almost to the breaking point – a motif strongly associated with Haida art – to link the images in the narrative.
Biography of Author
Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas’ wide-ranging artistic practice explores themes of identity, environmentalism and the human condition. Influenced by both the tradition of Haida iconography and contemporary Asian visual culture, he has created an artistic practice that crosses diverse cultures, generations, and disciplines.
Yahgulanaas uses art to communicate a world view that, while particular to Haida Gwaii, his ancestral North Pacific archipelago, is also relevant to a contemporary and internationally-engaged audience. Working in multiple forms including painting, sculpture and illustrated publications, his artistic practice is acclaimed for its vitality and originality.
Raised in Delkatla, Haida Gwaii, Yahgulanaas began working as an artist after many decades in the leadership of the Haida Nation’s successful campaign to protect its people’s indigenous culture and environment. In the past decade, Yahgulanaas’ work has been presented in museums across Canada and all over the world, including at international exhibitions in Asia, Australia, the Middle East and Europe. His art works are in numerous public and private collections including the British Museum (London, England), the Vancouver Art Gallery (Vancouver, Canada), the Glenbow Museum (Calgary, Canada) and the Museum of Anthropology (Vancouver, Canada). His large sculptural works are part of the public art collection of the City of Vancouver in Canada. In 2011/2012, Yahgulanaas was the Audain Professor in Contemporary Arts of the Pacific Northwest at the University of Victoria.
Author’s Titles at UBC Library
Yahgulanaas, M. N. (2001). A tale of two shamans. Penticton, B.C.: Theytus. [Link]
Yahgulanaas, M. N., & Park, L. (2011). Old growth. Vancouver: Read Leaf. [Link]
Yahgulanaas, M. N. (2010). Red: A Haida manga. Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre. [Link]
Webcast sponsored by the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre, and hosted by the Master of Arts in Children’s Literature (MACL) program, the School of Library, Archival and Information Studies, the Departments of Language and Literacy Education, English, and the Creative Writing Program, SLAIS presents Lissa Paul. As scholars working in children’s literature know all too well, cross‐disciplinary conversations are often uneasy. Though librarians, literary scholars, educators, cultural studies and media specialists may critique the same primary texts, what they say and how they say it very much depends on the critical vocabularies of their particular disciplines. In developing Keywords for Children’s Literature, editors Philip Nel and Lissa Paul responded to the need for a shared vocabulary by inviting internationally renowned authors and scholars from a range of disciplines to map the histories and etymologies of key conflicted terms in the field. In her talk, Lissa will preview some of the engaging essays in the book, beginning with her key to the word ‘keyword.’
Select Articles Available at UBC Library
Paul, L. (2011). The children’s book business: Lessons from the long eighteenth century. New York: Routledge.
Paul, L. (1999). Boy stories, girl stories. Orbit, 30(3), 8.
Paul, L. (2005). Sex and the children’s book. The Lion and the Unicorn, 29(2), 222-235. doi:10.1353/uni.2005.0032 [Link]
Garavini, M. (2012). Keywords for children’s literature. edited by Philip Nel and Lissa Paul. New York and London: New York: University Press. International Research in Children’s Literature, 5(2), 223-224. doi:10.3366/ircl.2012.0068 [Link]
Webcast sponsored by the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre and event hosted by UBC Alumni Weekend 2010, this lecture features Dr. Stanley Coren. Since the time of Darwin scientists have been trying to understand how animals communicate. Today, psychologists know enough about this process so that it can be applied to allow you to understand the language of your pet dog, or even your pet cat (who speaks a somewhat different dialect). Stanley Coren is a psychology professor and neuropsychological researcher who has become best known to the general public for a series of books regarding the intelligence, mental abilities and history of dogs. Through television shows and media coverage that has been broadcast in Canada and the United States as well as overseas, he has become popular with dog owners, while continuing research and instruction in psychology at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, British Columbia.
Webcast sponsored by the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre, the Community Partner for Learning (CPL), C.A.R.E. Society, the School of Community and Regional Planning, IKBLC and other UBC partners engages the diverse community with young global citizens (UBC recipients of C.A.R.E. Travel Awards). This event serves to welcome all the recipients back from their overseas assignments and to kick off the first of a series of Global-Local Learning Exchanges in the 2010/2011 semester.
Relevant Books and Articles at UBC Library
Geller, J. D., Zuckerman, N., & Seidel, A. (2014). Service-learning as a catalyst for community development: How do community partners benefit from service-learning? Education and Urban Society, doi:10.1177/00131245135147 [Link]
Stater, K. J., & Fotheringham, E. (2009). Mechanisms for institutionalizing service-learning and community partner outcomes. Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement, 13(2), 7. [Link]
Webcast sponsored by the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre and hosted by the UBC Buddhism and Contemporary Society Program. Based on the religious thought of Shinran Shonin, the founder of Shin Buddhism, the largest sect of Japanese Buddhism, this presentation explores the world of religious dialogue. Specifically, how can one understand the particularity of religious thought within the larger scope of religious diversity. Through examining case studies of teaching and learning, one can begin to see how Shin Buddhism provides a way to appreciate differences among religious perspectives while also finding common ground. Professor Unno is currently Assistant Professor of East Asian Religions at the University of Oregon, specializing in Japanese Buddhism. He is also an ordained Shin Buddhist priest. He received his PhD in Buddhist Studies from Stanford University in 1994, and has since taught at Brown Univesrity, Carleton College, and Kyoto University. He has published and lectured on Pure Land Buddhism, Zen Buddhism, and Psychology of Religion. UBC’s Buddhism and Contemporary Society Program lectures are made possible by the generous support of The Tung Lin Kok Yuen Canada Foundation, in collaboration with the Institute of Asian Research and Department of Asian Studies.
Select Articles and Books from UBC Library
Gleig, A. (2008). Buddhism and psychotherapy across cultures: Essays on theories and practices – edited by Mark Unno. Melbourne, Australia: Blackwell Publishing Asia. doi:10.1111/j.1748-0922.2008.00293_2.x [Link]
Kawai, H., & Unno, M. (1992). The Buddhist priest Myōe: A life of dreams. Venice, CA: Lapis Press.
Weishaus, J. (2006). The butterfly and the mushroom Shingon refractions: Myoe and the mantra of light Mark Unno. The San Francisco Jung Institute Library Journal, 25(1), 79-86. doi:10.2307/25705381 [Link]
Unno, M. (2003). S. A. Thornton, charisma and community formation in medieval Japan: The case of the Yugyō‐ha (1300–1700): Charisma and community formation in medieval Japan: The case of the Yugyō‐ha (1300–1700). History of Religions, 42(3), 282-285. doi:10.1086/375111 [Link]
Webcast sponsored by the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre and hosted by St. John’s College, this lecture features Dr. Olav Slaymaker. Over geological time scales, landscapes evolve under the influence of tectonic plate movements, cyclically changing Earth-Sun relations, spatial variations in rock strength and cyclically changing climate. However, within the time frame of the present century, it is proposed that there are four different drivers of landscape change, namely relief (an expression of the current state of tectonics which propagates its effect into erosion potential), warming climate, rising sea level and increasing human activity. It can be argued that sea level is a derivative of climate but it is useful to consider it separately because of its distinctive mode and place of action. Climate, especially temperature change, is probably the least important of these four drivers in most temperate and tropical environments. Arctic landscapes are different in the sense that phase changes in the cryosphere are of such overriding importance. It is further claimed that human activity, in the form of land use and land cover change, has become the most important driver of landscape change globally. It is anticipated that human activity will become increasingly dominant as the 21st century progresses. The integrity of the argument depends on defining and comparing effects at specific temporal (century) and spatial (landscape) scales.
Relevant Books and Articles at UBC Library
Owens, P. N., & Slaymaker, O. (2004). Mountain geomorphology. New York; London: Arnold.
Slaymaker, O., & Kelly, R. E. J. (2007). The cryosphere and global environmental change. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub.
Slaymaker, O. (2000). Geomorphology, human activity, and global environmental change. New York; Chichester, England: J. Wiley.
Slaymaker, O. (1997). Streamflow response to clear-cut logging and road construction in the Kamloops forest district. Victoria, B.C.: Forest Renewal BC.
Webcast sponsored by the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre, and hosted by the Vancouver Institute, Gwynne Dyer has worked as a freelance journalist, columnist, broadcaster and lecturer on international affairs for more than 20 years, but he was originally trained as an historian. He received degrees from Canadian, American and British universities, finishing with a Ph.D. in Military and Middle Eastern History from the University of London .
In the summer of 2009, the battle of the Plains of Abraham was fought one more time in Quebec. The debate that stormed over the commemoration of the event proved that it is not easy to negotiate the meaning of this founding moment of Quebec’s destiny. Yet, it has been 250 years since “the English burned our farms and bombed our city”. What is to be done today with the Conquest, its history and memory?
Select Articles Available at UBC Library
Létourneau, J. (2014). Je me souviens?: Le passé du Québec dans la conscience de sa jeunesse. Anjou, Québec: Fides.
Létourneau, J. (2010). Le Québec entre son passé et ses passages. Montréal: Fides.
Létourneau, J. (2006). Que veulent vraiment les Québécois?: Regard sur l’intention nationale au Québec (français) d’hier à aujourd’hui. Montréal: Boréal.
Létourneau, J. (1996). Les années sans guide: Le canada à l’ère de l’économie migrante. Montréal: Boréal.
