Jack Zipes' Utopian Tendencies of Oddly Modern Fairy Tales Webcast

Jack Zipes' Utopian Tendencies of Oddly Modern Fairy Tales Webcast

Jack Zipes is one of the world’s leading authorities on fairy tales, writing about and translating them. An internationally renowned scholar and author of more than 50 books on many subjects, he has through his writings transformed research on fairy tales, particularly with respect to how they function in the socialization of readers. Jack Zipes is Professor Emeritus of German and Comparative Literature at the University of Minnesota.

Though most people consider fairy tales fascinating relics of the past, they have actually undergone numerous transformations and remain oddly modern even in the twenty-first century. Using some key psychological and philosophical categories from Sigmund Freud and Ernst Bloch, Professor Zipes will discuss why fairy tales remain so important in our lives, and why writers and artists continue to elaborate and re-create utopian and carnivalesque motifs from the tales to re-shape perspectives on possibilities for changing the world.

Sponsored by Green College and the supporting units for the M.A. in Children’s Literature Program (MACL): the School of Library Archival and Information Studies, the Department of English, the Creative Writing Program in the Faculty of Arts, and the Department of Language and Literacy Education in the Faculty of Education. Webcast sponsored by the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre. To view webcast, please click here.

Celebrate UBC Authors Presents Dr. Neil Safier at IKBLC

Prior to 1735, South America was largely terra incognita to many Europeans. But that year, the Paris Academy of Sciences sent a joint French and Spanish mission to the Spanish American province of Quito (in present-day Ecuador) to study the curvature of the Earth at the Equator—an expedition that would put South America on the map and in the minds of Europeans for centuries to come. Equipped with quadrants and telescopes, the mission’s participants  referred to the transfer of scientific knowledge from Europe to the Andes as a “sacred fire” passing mysteriously through European astronomical instruments to curious observers in South America.
By looking at the social and material traces of this expedition, Measuring the New World examines the transatlantic flow of knowledge in reverse—from West to East. Through ephemeral monuments and geographical maps, from the Andes to the Amazon River, the book explores how the social and cultural worlds of South America contributed to the production of European scientific knowledge during the Enlightenment. Neil Safier uses the notebooks of traveling philosophers, including Charles-Marie de La Condamine and others, as well as maps and specimens from the expedition, to place this particular scientific endeavor in the larger context of early modern print culture and the emerging intellectual category of scientist as author.   Come join us as Professor of History, Neil Safier presents from his book, Measuring the New World: Enlightenment Science and South America.
Time: April 6, 2010
Place: Lillooet Room (Rm 301) at Irving K. Barber Learning Centre
information: ikblc-events@interchange.ubc.ca or 604.827.4366

Robson Reading @ IKBLC Presents Lee Henderson, March 25, 2010

The Man Game Lee Henderson’s highly anticipated first novel The Man Game (Penguin Canada, 2008) was published to rave reviews in the National Post, Quill & Quire and CBC Radio and went on to win the 2009 Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize and the City of Vancouver Book Award. Lee’s debut short story collection The Broken Record Technique (Penguin Canada, 2002) won the 2003 Danuta Gleed Literary Award. He is a contributing editor to the arts magazines Border Crossings in Canada and Contemporary in the UK. He has published fiction and art criticism in numerous periodicals and co-organized “Father Zosima Presents”, a monthly night of sound performances in Vancouver.

Event takes place at the Lillooet Room, Irving K Barber Learning Centre, March 25, 2010 – 2-3pm

First Nations donation/exhibition featured in UBC Reports

An exhibition of First Nations portraits, on display during March 2010 at the Learning Centre Gallery, is featured in the latest edition of UBC Reports. B.C. artist Patricia Richardson Logie recently donated the portrait collection to UBC Library.

You can view the article here.

The Irving K. Barber Learning Centre Olympic Programming Presents "Quintathalon"

The Irving K. Barber Learning Centre Olympic Committee presents

“Quintathalon”

A free lunchtime concert featuring chamber ensembles from the

UBC School of Music Woodwind, Brass, and Percussion Division

Monday, March 8, 2010 at Noon