In the Season of New Rice: an exhibition by Evelyn Nodwell

April 2, 2015

Evelyn-Nodwell-_EVA0194 An exhibition by anthropologist and award-winning photographer Evelyn Nodwell, In the Season of New Rice explores village and small town life in Guizhou Province during China’s growing urbanization. Among the least developed of China’s provinces, many of Guizhou’s villages are accessible only over rough, winding and narrow gravel roads; some are only accessible on foot. More than one-third of Guizhou’s towns and steep, green hills are populated by an ethnically diverse population of many indigenous ethnic minorities.

After the fall harvest, villages stage festivals, a traditional time for courtship. Festival activities include water buffalo fights, bareback horse races, dancing, lusheng pipe playing and stalls of food, balloons and crafts. Rice is an important crop with Autumn festivals called “Tasting New Rice Festivals.” The dried rice stalks are important fodder for animals and are stacked in the fields in characteristic pointed dome shapes.

The beauty and spontaneity of these photographs were created thanks to the welcoming openness and good nature of the Guizhou people. Nodwell’s photo exhibition captures the essence of life in the province of Guizhou. The photographic works featured in this exhibition appear in conjunction with the 100th Anniversary at UBC Library as well as celebrating Asian Heritage Month in the month of May.

“We are the first foreigners ever to visit one village. They are so excited to have us. Water-buffalo fights, costumes and dancing.”
– Evelyn Nodwell’s Field Notes

Artist Bio

evelyn Evelyn Nodwell, an Anthropologist and Ph.D. graduate of UBC, attended the Alberta College of Art for two years before moving to Vancouver. She has taken photography workshops with masters such as Sharron Milstein, Nevada Weir and Sam Abell, as well as taken classes in Langara College’s Photography Program.

Evelyn’s recent exhibitions include a one-month solo exhibit at the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden in Vancouver, BC; the Art Museum of Guiyang in China as a member of an artists’ exchange group; and the DarkroomGallery.com. She began 2015 with an exhibit in The Gallery at Hycroft and also the Ferry Building Gallery in 2015. She was contracted with a solo exhibit at the West Vancouver City Hall in addition to exhibiting at the Burnaby Art Gallery and Deer Lake Gallery along with British Columbian and visiting Chinese artists in 2015.

Evelyn has had prints in the Burnaby Art Gallery Sales and Rental division; and has had photos published in Canadian Geographic Magazine, The Province newspaper and Vancouver Coast and Mountains Tourism publications. She has given photography workshops and presentations, and judges for camera clubs. Her images regularly score in the top 2-10% in local competitions.

As an anthropologist and independent filmmaker, Evelyn Nodwell has worked in British Columbia and India. Based on her research in India, she produced two television documentaries in collaboration with the Knowledge Network.

This exhibition runs from April 16 to May 31, 2015 at the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre, 2nd floor foyer exhibition gallery space.

This exhibition is in partnership with explorASIAN 2015 Festival, in celebration of Asian Heritage Month.

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Bôshibari – Tied to a Stick

March 30, 2015

Image: Nakamura Shichinosuke as Tarokaja in Bôshibari from a 2006 kabuki performance program

April Fools!! And the fools are two clever servants named Tarôkaja and Jirôkaja who manage to drink their master’s sake, in spite of the fact he has tied them up. A popular matsubamemono dance-play based on the kyôgen comedy of the same name.

Tomoe Arts focuses on kabuki dance plays based on noh themes and stories. It began in November with a tale of a flesh-eating demoness and continues in February to one of the greatest tales of duty and heroism, ending in April with the foolish drunken antics of two servants.

Tomoe Salon Series will be screening full videos of live performances from the Shôchiku’s Kabuki Meisakusen Series, which feature some of the greatest kabuki performers of the 20th and 21st centuries. The recordings have English language commentary, and after the performances, a discussion take place around the important story and performance elements. Green tea will be served as well.

This salon takes place April 20, 7.00-8.30pm at the Chilcotin Room (Rm 256), I.K Barber Learning Centre, 1961 East Mall, UBC. The nearest parking to the Centre are the Rose Garden and North Parkades. Parking at UBC is $7 after 5pm. UBC

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24/7 Hours at IKBLC

March 30, 2015

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From Buddhism to Nestorian Christianity: The importance of the Silk Roads in the movement of ideas and religions across Central Asia

March 29, 2015

As the popular name suggests, the Silk Roads were seen as routes for the movement of commodities over thousands of year: as silk to Rome, jade and fine horses to China. But the movement of ideas and icons was also facilitated by these trade routes and evidence of the rich variety of religions seen on the Silk Road was provided by the great cache of manuscripts discovered in Dunhuang in 1900. Since the first removal of manuscripts to London by Aurel Stein in 1907, followed in the next year by the polymath Paul Pelliot, collecting for Parisian institutions, scholars have been astounded by the richness of this manuscript hoard. It reveals the significance of Buddhism in the daily life of Tang China but also shows the importance of religion to the Sogdian traders who dominated the northern Silk Road and underlines the cosmopolitan nature of Tang China.

wood2 Speaker Bio

Frances Wood studied art at Liverpool Art School before beginning Chinese at the University of Cambridge. She spent the year 1975–6 in the Beijing Languages Institute and Peking University and wrote a PhD thesis for London University on traditional domestic architecture in the Beijing area. She worked in the SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London) library before moving to the British Library as curator of the Chinese collections, retiring in 2013. She has written many books on Chinese culture and history including Chinese Illustration (1986), The Blue Guide to China (2002), Did Marco Polo Go To China? (1995), Hand Grenade Practice in Peking (2000), The Silk Road (2003), No Dogs and Not Many Chinese: Treaty Port life in China 1843–1943 (1998), The Forbidden City (2005), The First Emperor of China (2007), The Diamond Sutra: The story of the world’s earliest dated printed book (2010), Chinese Export Paintings in the British Library (2011), and Picnics Prohibited: Diplomacy in a chaotic China during the First World War (2014).

Dr. Frances Wood’s visit was made possible through the generous support of Willem and Rosalie Stronck. Events were presented by UBC Library (Asian Library and Irving K. Barber Learning Centre) on the occasion of UBC’s Centenary Anniversary and with UBC partners, the Department of Asian Studies and the Centre for Chinese Research of the Institute of Asian Research, and with community partners, the Canadian Society for Asian Arts and explorAsian: Vancouver Asian Heritage Month Society.

UBC Library Resources

Wood, Frances. The first emperor of China. London: Profile, 2007. [Link]

Wood, Frances. The Silk Road: Two thousand years in the heart of Asia. Los Angeles, University of California Press, 2004. [Link]

Wood, Frances. Hand-Grenade Practice in Peking: My Part in the Cultural Revolution. John Murray, 2000. [Link]

Wood, Frances. No dogs and not many chinese. Treaty Port Life in China 1843–1943. London: John Murray, 1998. [Link]

Wood, Frances. Did Marco Polo go to China? London: Secker & Warburg, 1995. [Link]

This event happened on Tuesday May 26

UBC Asian Centre Auditorium (1871 West Mall, University of British Columbia, V6T 1Z2)

In partnership with:

asianstudies

Institute of Asian Research explorASIAN

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“Which Self? The Rationalities of Self-Interest from the Enlightenment to the Cold War”

March 25, 2015

Titled Which Self? The Rationalities of Self-Interest from the Enlightenment to the Cold War, this year’s Stephen M. Straker Memorial Lecture will be presented by Lorraine J. Daston, one of the world’s leading historians of science. Drawing from her own work on the history of conceptions of reason and rationality, Prof. Daston will explore the complex interaction between rationality and interestedness. Join us as she addresses important questions such as how reason can be, at one time, conceived as intrinsically disinterested and, at another, necessarily directed toward the rational agent’s self-interest.Speaker

Speaker

Lorraine J. Daston is one of the world’s leading historians of science, is Executive Director of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin and Visiting Professor in the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago. Daston has held visiting or continuing appointments with institutions such as Harvard, Princeton, Brandeis, Göttingen, the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, and the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris. She has also held fellowships in the Society of Fellows in the Humanities at Columbia, the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, Stanford’s Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, the Zentrum für Interdisziplinäre Forschung in Bielefeld, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the Institut des études avancées in Paris. In 2012, Daston was awarded the History of Science Society’s George Sarton Medal, a lifetime achievement award that is given annually to an outstanding historian of science from the international community. Daston’s Straker Lecture will be drawn from her continuing work on the history of rationality.

Information About the Stephen Straker Memorial Lecture

Stephen Straker (1942-2004) was an historian of science at UBC for thirty years and the chief inspiration for the creation of the STS program. We honour his memory with an annual distinguished lecture. Stephen was an award-winning teacher; some of his own undergraduate lectures in history of science have been preserved here: http://www.archive.org/details/StephenStrakerLecture1a

***To attend this year’s Straker Lecture, click here.***

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Julie McLeod – Tackling the wicked problem of managing records in the digital environment

March 24, 2015

Webcast sponsored by the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre and hosted by the iSchool at UBC. Drawing on her research on electronic records management, in particular the AC+erm (Accelerating positive change in electronic records management https://www.northumbria.ac.uk/acerm) project, Dr. Julie McLeod will argue that ERM is a ‘wicked problem.’ She will discuss how the Cynefin framework, a framework that helps decision makers to make sense of a range of business problems and situations in dynamic contexts, can be used to take appropriate action and choose appropriate solutions. She will refer to different digital records contexts, including research data management, and will consider some of the ways forward and requirements to address the challenges we face.

Speaker Bio

Dr. McLeod is Professor of Records Management at the iSchool at Northumbria University, which she joined after a thirteen year career in industry as an information and records manager. She is Program Leader for the MSc of Information & Records Management. She has worked on innovative experiential learning and distance education initiatives with The National Archives of the UK, the BBC, the Deutsche Bank, the European Central Bank, and other organizations, and is a member of the BSI and ISO committees on records management. She has led JISC and AHRC funded research on electronic records management and research data management (DATUM). She has published widely, including co-authoring and editing several books; is Editor of the Records Management Journal and a member of the editorial boards of other scholarly journals; and has served as a member of Arts & Humanities Research Council Panels and Peer Review College. In 2007, she was awarded a Personal Chair in Research at Northumbria University. In 2014 she received the Emmett Leahy Award.

Select Articles and Books Available at UBC Library

McLeod, J., & Childs, S. (2007). Consulting records management oracles—a Delphi in practice. Archival Science, 7(2), 147-166. [Link]

McLeod, J., & Hare, C. (2006). How to Manage Records in the e-Environment. Psychology Press. [Link]

UBC Library Research Guides

Library, Archival, and Information Science

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Wesbrook Talks presents The Right Honourable Beverley McLachlin, P.C.

March 24, 2015

Webcast sponsored by the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre as part of the Wesbrook Talks event at MBA House in Wesbrook Village. On March 3rd, alumni UBC and Wesbrook Village presented the third in the series of Wesbrook Talks, featuring former UBC Law professor and honorary UBC alumna, The Right Honourable Beverley McLachlin, P.C., LLD’90, Chief Justice of Canada. Find out how she became interested in law and hear about some of the influences that have shaped her long, successful career. The conversation will be moderated by Mary Anne Bobinski, Dean and Professor, UBC’s Peter A. Allard School of Law.

Speaker Bio

Beverley McLachlin is the 17th and current Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, the first woman to hold this position, and the longest serving Chief Justice in Canadian history. In her role as Chief Justice, she also serves as a Deputy of the Governor General of Canada. In 1980, she was appointed to the County Court of Vancouver and then to the Supreme Court of British Columbia. In 1985 she was appointed to the British Columbia Court of Appeal, three years later in 1988 she was appointed Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of British Columbia. She was appointed as a Puisne Justice to the Supreme Court of Canada on 30 March 1989 and was made Chief Justice of Canada on 7 January 2000.

UBC Library Resources

McLachlin, B. M. (1991). Charter: A New Role for the Judiciary, The. Alta. L. Rev., 29, 540. [Link]

McLachlin, B. M. (2002). Bills of Rights in Common Law Countries. International and Comparative Law Quarterly, 51(02), 197-203. [Link]

McLachlin, B. M. (1990). Role of the Court in the Post-Charter Era: Policy-Maker or Adjudicator, The. UNBLJ, 39, 43. [Link]

Presented by

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Most Popular IKBLC Webcast Videos

March 20, 2015

IKBLC-web
Since 2003, the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre has used webcast videos as a way to deliver broadcasts through the Internet. Lectures captured by video are archived and streamed from YouTube’s server for viewing by end users from the comfort of their desktops.

The Irving K. Barber Learning Centre is dedicated to the intellectual, social, cultural, and economic development of people in British Columbia. By providing and enhancing access to information such as its webcast collection, the knowledge and innovative teaching and research can be shared with as many people in British Columbia and throughout the world as possible. We hope you enjoy some of our more popular webcast videos based on recent data from around the world.

Michael Souza – Psychology of Gambling – 61,611 views

An expert on the study of gambling addictions, Michael Souza reviews reward and addiction from a behavioral, cognitive and neurobiological standpoint. He examines the social psychology behind gambling behavior, casino structuring and casino marketing.

Stanley Coren – Animal Communication: How to Speak Dog – 57,064 views

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 a pet cat (who speaks a somewhat different dialect). This event was a partnership with alumni UBC on Alumni Weekend.

Ramachandra Guha – Ten Reasons why India will not and must not become a Superpower (29,174 hits)

While historian Ramachandra Guha acknowledges the recent surge in economic growth, he provides critical analysis of the deep fault-lines within Indian society, politics, economics, and culture, concluding that the talk of India’s imminent rise to superstardom is highly premature.

Charles Moore- Plastic Ocean – 14,628 views

In 1997, Captain Charles Moore discovered the Great Pacific Garbage Patch– a whirlpool of plastic debris in the Pacific Ocean. Since his discovery, Moore has been analyzing the giant litter patch and its disastrous effects on ocean life. Learn what we must do to stop adding to the millions of tons of plastic choking the world’s oceans in the “age of plastic.” This event was a partnership with UBC Sustainability.

Gwynne Dyer – Geopolitics in a Hotter World – 13,677 views

Global warming is moving much more quickly than scientists thought it would. Even if the biggest current and prospective emitters – the United States, China and India – were to slam on the brakes today, the earth would continue to heat up for decades. At best, we may be able to slow things down and deal with the consequences, without social and political breakdown. Gwynne Dyer examines several radical short- and medium-term measures now being considered—all of them controversial. This event was a partnership with UBC Sustainability.

Naomi Klein – This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate – 13,295 views

Naomi Klein is the author of the critically acclaimed #1 international bestsellers, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism and No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies which have each been translated into more than 30 languages. This event was a partnership with the Vancouver Institute.

Do you have comments or feedback about our webcast initiative? Do you have any recommendations for upcoming lectures to be captured on video? Please let us know, we’d love to hear from you.

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David Newhouse – SFU-UBC Indigenous Graduate Student Symposium – Keynote Speech

March 19, 2015

Webcast sponsored by the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre and hosted by the SFU-UBC Indigenous Graduate Student Symposium. In visioning approaches to Indigenize the academy, the 13th Annual Indigenous Graduate Student Symposium (IGSS) explores concepts, practices, innovations, and challenges of making academe more respectful and responsive to Indigenous Knowledge Systems, Indigenous communities, and learners.

Keynote Speaker: David Newhouse, Onondaga from the Six Nations of the Grand River community near Brantford, Ontario. He is Chair and Associate Professor, Indigenous Studies & Associate Professor, Business Administration, Trent University.

Respondents: Dr. Ethel Gardner, Sto:lo, Elder, Simon Fraser University & Dr. Amy Parent, Nisga’a, Post-Doctoral Fellow in Indigenous Education, Indigenous Education Institute of Canada/Faculty of Education, University of British Columbia. Hosted by the IGSS Planning Committee & SAGE & Sponsors: Simon Fraser University; UBC Faculty of Education’s Indigenous Education Institute of Canada; and SAGE (Supporting Aboriginal Graduate Enhancement).

Select Articles Available at UBC Library

Imrie, R., & Newhouse, D. (1994). Aboriginal people and HIV/AIDS in Canada – unpublished study done for the royal commission on aboriginal people. Ontario: Unpublished.

Newhouse, D., Beegle, K., Open Knowledge Repository, & World Bank e-Library. (2005). Effect of school type on academic achievement: Evidence from Indonesia.

Salée, D., Newhouse, D., Lévesque, C., & Institute for Research on Public Policy. (2006). Quality of life of aboriginal people in Canada : An analysis of current research. Montreal: Institute for Research on Public Policy.

Newhouse, D., Orr, J., & Atlantic Aboriginal Economic Development Integrated Research Program. (2013). Aboriginal knowledge for economic development. Halifax; Winnipeg: Fernwood Publishing.

UBC Library Research Guides

Aboriginal Studies

Aboriginal Statistics

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Indigitization Program – Open for applications

March 18, 2015

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