St. John's College Special Panel Discussion - "Implications of the Death of Osama Bin Laden"

St. John's College Special Panel Discussion – "Implications of the Death of Osama Bin Laden"

July 26, 2011

Webcast sponsored by the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre. Hosted by St. John’s College. Moderated by St. Johns College Alumnus, Asad Kiyani, this panel features experts who will discuss the global implications of the recent death of Osama Bin Laden. This panel includes Dr. Jon Beasley-Murray (UBC French, Hispanic, and Italian Studies); Dr. Maxwell A. Cameron (UBC Political Science); Ivan Somlai (Centre for Asia Pacific Initiatives, University of Victoria); and Alnoor Gova (UBC Education). This event took place at St. John’s College, Fairmont Social Lounge on Thursday, June 2, 2011.

Speaker Biographies

Asad Kiyani is a PhD Candidate in the Faculty of Law at the University of British Columbia. His research focuses on the development of modern international criminal law, and the legitimacy of the International Criminal Court. He is specifically interested in the intersection between international law and criminal law, and the justification of punishment in the international context.

Dr. Jon Beasley-Murray is a Professor at the University of British Columbia in the department of French, Hispanic, and Italian Studies and in the Arts One Program. Some of his research interests include Latin American cultural, literary, and political history, The Latin American left and social movements, Colonial Latin America and its maritime links with Spain, The theory and practice of Latin American cultural studies. For more information, please visit Dr. Beasley-Murray’s website: http://blogs.ubc.ca/jbmurray/

Dr. Maxwell A. Cameron is Professor of Political Science at the University of British Columbia. He specializes in comparative politics (Latin America) and international political economy. In addition to publishing numerous works, Dr. Cameron is a Distinguished Scholar in Residence at the Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies (2011-12) where he organized a colloquium series Aristotle’s idea of “practical wisdom” and its relevance in politics today.

Ivan Somlai is an Associate at the University of Victoria’s Centre for Asia-Pacific Initiatives. Since September 2006, he has been Director of Global Collaboration, through which he pursues international development consulting. His preferred areas are rural health systems and services; social forestry; ecotourism; multiculturalism; decentralisation; governance; executive leadership training; alternative conflict mitigation; motivation of multidisciplinary/intercultural teams; and ethnobureaucratic analysis. For more information about Ivan Somlai, please visit: http://www.capi.uvic.ca/content/somlai

Alnoor Gova is PhD candidate in the Faculty of Education. His research focuses on the present Canadian political scene, largely in the areas of Citizenship, Multiculturalism, Immigration, National Security and Law; and specifically focuses on an instrument of governmentality known as ‘community-government’ employed within the not-for-profit sector.

Select Books and Articles Available at UBC

Beasley-Murray, Jon. (2010). Posthegemony. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. [Link]

Cameron, Maxwell A. (2012). After the Democratic Charter’s First Decade: Achievements, Limitations, and Next Steps. Latin American Policy, Vol. 3, no. 1, 2012, pp. 58-73. [Link]

Gova, Alnoor; Kurd, Rahat. (2008). The Impact of Radical Profiling: a MARU Society/UBC Law Faculty Study. Working Paper Series, Vol. 8-14.

UBC Library Research Guides

Law

Political Science

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Donald Stadtner – Sacred Sites of Burma

July 26, 2011

Webcast sponsored by the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre. Hosted by the Museum of Anthropology (MOA), Canadian Society for Asian Arts, Rosalie Stronck Family Foundation, and UBC’s Buddhism and Contemporary Society Program. Drawing on his most recent book, Sacred Sites of Burma, renowned scholar Donald Stadtner gives an illustrated lecture on how sacred sites have come into existence. This lecture is co-presented by MOA, Canadian Society for Asian Arts, Rosalie Stronck Family Foundation, and UBC’s Buddhism and Contemporary Society Program funded by The Tung Lin Kok Yuen Canada Foundation. This talk is part of the Asian Illuminations Series Lecture.

Biography

Dr. Donald Stadtner has taught Art History at the University of Texas, Austin. His publications include Ancient Pagan: Buddhist Plain of Merit (2005) and Sacred Sites of Burma: Myth and Folklore in an Evolving Spiritual Realm (2010). He has conducted many study groups to Burma (Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, Los Angeles County Museum, the World Affairs Council, and The Smithsonian Institution).

Select Articles Available at UBC

Stadtner, Donald. (2003). Inventory of Monuments at Pagan. Ars Orientalis. Vol. 33. pp. 212-214. [Link]

Stadtner, Donald. (2007). Seventeenth-century Burma and the Dutch East India Company, 1634-1680. Journal of Early Modern History. Vol. 11, Issue 4-5. pp. 395-396. [Link]

UBC Library Research Guides

Southeast Asian Studies

Subject Resources for Buddhism and Tibetan Studies

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Michael Souza – Psychology of Gambling

July 26, 2011

Webcast sponsored by the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre. “When you know it’s not a good idea to spend all that money, why do you do it anyways? Why can people not control their behaviour?” These are some of the questions UBC Psychology Professor Michael Souza asks himself as he works on creating a new course on the psychology of gambling.

In this lecture, 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.

Speaker Bio

Michael Souza is an Instructor in the Department of Psychology at the University of British Columbia. His research interests include the frontal lobes and executive functions, with a particular interest in changes due to age, psychological illness or neurological injury. Cognitive training and neuroplasticity.

Select Articles Available at UBC Library

Wendelken, C., Munakata, Y., Baym, C., Souza, M.J. & Bunge, S.A. (2012). Flexible rule use: common neural substrates in children and adults. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, 2(3): 329-39. [Link]

Souza, M.J., Donohue, S.E. & Bunge, S.A. (2009). Controlled retrieval and selection of action-relevant knowledge mediated by partially overlapping regions in left ventrolateral prefrontal cortex. NeuroImage, 46(1): 299-307. [Link]

UBC Library Research Guides

Psychology

Neurology

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William McKibben – Eaarth: Making a Life On a Tough New Planet

July 26, 2011

Webcast sponsored by the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre and hosted by the Vancouver Institute. Described by the Boston Globe as “the nation’s leading environmentalist,” Professor McKibben is the author of more than a dozen books, including The End of Nature, Enough: Staying Human in an Engineered Age, and Deep Economy. A former staff writer for the New Yorker, he writes often for Harper’s, National Geographic, and the New York Review of Books, among other publications. He is the founder of the environmental organizations Step It Up and 350.org, a global warming awareness campaign that in October 2009 coordinated what CNN called “the most widespread day of political action in the planet’s history.

Relevant Books and Articles at UBC Library

McKibben, B. (1989). The end of nature (1st ed.). New York: Random House.

Braasch, G., McKibben, B., & Ebrary Academic Complete (Canada) Subscription Collection. (2009). Earth under fire: How global warming is changing the world (1; 2 ed.). Berkeley: University of California Press. doi:10.1525/j.ctt1ppfpm [Link]

McKibben, W. (1919). Irreconcilable conflict with the constitution. American Economist, 63, 308.

UBC Library Research Guides

Sustainability

Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences

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Vaclav Smil – Drivers of environmental change: focus on energy transitions

July 26, 2011

Webcast sponsored by the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre and hosted by St. John’s College. Vaclav Smil is currently a Distinguished Professor in the Faculty of Environment at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada. He completed his graduate studies at the Faculty of Natural Sciences of Carolinum University in Prague and at the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences of the Pennsylvania State University. His interdisciplinary research interests encompass a broad area of energy, environmental, food, population, economic, historical and public policy studies, and he had also applied these approaches to energy, food and environmental affairs of China. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (Science Academy) and the first non-American to receive the American Association for the Advancement of Science Award for Public Understanding of Science and Technology. He has been an invited speaker in more than 250 conferences and workshops in the USA, Canada, Europe, Asia and Africa, has lectured at many universities in North America, Europe and East Asia and has worked as a consultant for many US, EU and international institutions.

Relevant Books and Articles at UBC Library

Smil, V. (2006; 2012). Energy: A beginner’s guide. Oxford: Oneworld. [Link]

Smil, V. (2004; 2003). China’s past, china’s future: Energy, food, environment. New York: RoutledgeCurzon. [Link]

Smil, V. (2008). Oil: A beginner’s guide. Oxford: Oneworld.

Smil, V. (2006). Transforming the twentieth century: Technical innovations and their consequences. New York; Toronto: Oxford University Press.

Smil, V. (2008). Global catastrophes and trends: The next 50 years. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press. [Link]

UBC Library Research Guides

Sustainability

Energy Industries

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Geoffrey Harpham and Kathleen Woodward – Humanities From Here

July 26, 2011

Geoffrey Harpham is president and director of the National Humanities Center in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, the only institute for advanced study in the world dedicated exclusively to the humanities. Kathleen Woodward is Professor of English at the University of Washington and has served as Director of the Simpson Center for the Humanities since 2000. They speak on the subject of “Humanities From Here: A Dialogue about the Place of the Creative Arts and Humanities at UBC”. This is part of an exploratory initiative to discuss the possibility of developing a humanities centre at UBC. Webcast sponsored by the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre.

Speaker Biographies

Geoffrey Harpham is president and director of the National Humanities Center in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, the only institute for advanced study in the world dedicated exclusively to the humanities. His longstanding scholarly interests include the role of ethics in literary study, the place of language in intellectual history, and the work of Joseph Conrad.

Kathleen Woodward, Lockwood Professor in the Humanities and Professor of English, has served as Director of the Simpson Center for the Humanities since 2000. She has served on the Executive Council of the Modern Language Association (2009-2013), the Board of Directors of the National Humanities Alliance (2003-2009), and as Chair of the National Advisory Board of Imagining America, a broad-based network of scholars and leaders of cultural institutions devoted to fostering the development of campus-community partnerships (2000-2005).

Select Articles Available at UBC

Harpham, Geoffrey Galt. (2012). The Posthuman: Without It, Nothing Else is Possible. Interdisciplinary Science Reviews. 37(2). pp. 101-112 [Link]

Harpham, Geoffrey Galt. (2011). Why We Need the 16, 772^nd Book on Shakespeare. Qui Parle. 20(1). pp. 109-116. [Link]

Woodward, Kathleen. (2012). Work-Work Balance, Metrics, and Resetting the Balance. PMLA. 127.4. pp. 994-1000. [Link]

Woodward, Kathleen. (2009). Contagious: Cultures, Carriers, and the Outbreak Narrative. Modern Language Quarterly (Seattle). 70(2). pp. 287-290. [Link]

UBC Library Research Guides

Primary Sources in the Humanities and Social Sciences

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Asian Heritage Month National Conference

July 26, 2011

The Irving K. Barber Learning Centre and the Vancouver Asian Heritage Month Society (VAHMS) co-hosted a webcast of a nation-wide teleconference among Asian Heritage Month societies in Vancouver, Calgary, Montreal and Toronto to share expert speakers’ experiences in integrating Asian-Canadian content into Canada’s education system. This Vancouver panel features Dr. Ray Hsu, Tetsuro Shigematsu, Anna Ling Kaye, Cara Kauhane, and Joyce Lam.

Speakers’ Biographies

Dr. Ray Hsu has over ten years of experience providing awesomeness to clients, including the CBC, UBC, the National Arts Council of Singapore, and the Banff Centre. He is the author of two award-winning books and his writing has been published in Vancouver, Toronto, New York, Chicago, Singapore, and London. Dr. Hsu has also given talks on creativity, education, and leadership for over ten years, including interviews on CBC Radio One, Chicago Public Radio, and the Globe and Mail’s Report on Business. His ideas take many forms: from writing books and headlining conferences to mentoring creative thinkers at retreats and seminars. He co-founded Art Song Lab, an interdisciplinary platform to create fusions across poetry, music, and performance. While teaching in a US prison for two years, he founded the Prison Writing Workshop, which showcased incarcerated writers and performers in print and on public radio.

Tetsuro Shigematsu is a Canadian radio broadcaster, comedian and filmmaker. He was the most recent host of CBC Radio One’s former afternoon series The Roundup, where he replaced Bill Richardson in 2004, making him the first visible minority to host a daily network radio program in Canada. The show completed its final episode on November 4, 2005. Prior to working for CBC Radio, he was a writer for the Canadian TV show This Hour Has 22 Minutes.

Anna Ling Kaye’s journalism has appeared in the International Herald Tribune and Caijing Magazine, amongst others. Her fiction has appeared in anthologies in Hong Kong and Vancouver. Having lived in more than ten cities including Beijing and Mumbai, she is now an enthusiastic Vancouver-ite.

Cara Kauhane graduated from Capilano University with an Associate of Arts in Creative Writing, and is currently a creative writing and anthropology student at UBC. She has been published in Capilano University’s magazine The Liar.

Joyce Lam is the Co-Founder and Artistic Director of the Vancouver Asian Canadian Theatre (VACT). She has produced over 40 productions with VACT and has recruited, developed and maintained a body of volunteers that has sustained its operations for 13 years. Joyce created VACT to showcase Asian Canadian actors, tell Asian Canadian stories and address their conspicuous absence on the Canadian stage.

Select Books Available at UBC Library

Hsu, R. (2010). Cold sleep permanent afternoon. Gibsons, BC: Nightwood Editions.

Hsu, R. (2013). No such thing as youth. Windsor Review: A Journal of the Arts, 46(1), 18. [Link]

UBC Library Research Guides

English

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Featured Place at IKBLC: Atlin, BC

July 21, 2011

Our featured B.C. place for this week is the northern most place we have featured yet: Atlin. The town of Atlin and Atlin Lake are located along Highway 7, not too far south of the border with Yukon. Atlin likes to be called “Switzerland of the North” because of its wintertime beauty and activities. The name Atlin is derived from the Tlingit word atlah which means “big water.” The town was founded in the late 19th century when gold was struck in the area, drawing thousands of settlers; today the population is around 450 people.

Our featured document is a photograph from our B.C. Historical Photograph Collection. It is an example of the importance of having access to the back (or verso) of some photographs, when they contain helpful inscriptions or stamps. The photograph was probably taken looking across Atlin Lake:

“Rift in the clouds”, Atlin B.C.

The title, “Rift in the clouds,” was inscribed on the back of the photograph, possibly by the photographer. By looking at the back, we can see the stamp of the photographer:

Verso of the photograph

The photographer was L.C. Read, who, according to the Camera Workers of B.C., was active in the Atlin area up until around 1919.

If it were not for the photographer’s stamp on the back of the photograph, we wouldn’t be able to say who the photographer was, and it would be unlikely that the location could be identified as Atlin.

To learn more about our historical photograph collections, consult our Photographs Research Guide. In the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre, the Atlin Meeting Room is number 191, on the first floor.

Cross-posted at UBC Library’s Rare Books & Special Collections.

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Feature Place at IKBLC: Keremeos

July 17, 2011

It seems appropriate in our blog series about places in British Columbia used as room names in the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre to address researching the origin of place names. There are a number of sources that are useful for researching place names, and one here at UBC is the Norman Ogg Place Name Collection (see the finding aid here). In 1979-1980, Norman Ogg undertook a study of the origins of place names in Canada (excepting Quebec) and Washington State. He received many letters from town and city clerks and archivists explaining the origin behind their city’s name, as well as a number of ephemeral items such as brochures.

The place we are examining this week is Keremeos. Keremeos is located in the Southern Interior of British Columbia and is in the Similkameen Valley. The aboriginal people of this area, the Sylix, are now part of theOkanagan Nation Alliance. Horticulture and agriculture are the main industries in Keremeos, and the area is also home to Cathedral Provincial Park. As Norman Ogg learned from the clerk of the Village of Keremeos in 1980, there are two theories behind the name Keremeos: it was believed to be derived from the Aboriginal language of the area to mean either “wind channel in the mountains” or “cut in two by water,” referring to the Similkameen River.

Letter to Norman Ogg from clerk of Village of Keremeos.

Village of Keremeos.

(Click on the image of the letter to see a larger version).

Other sources for place names in British Columbia include BC Geographical Names (a free online resource),The encyclopedia of raincoast place names by Andrew Scott and many other books available at UBC Library which can be browsed by subject in the catalogue.

The earliest source for B.C. place names was written by Captain John Walbran, captain of the S.S. Quadra. This photograph is from the Chung Collection, which also contains a copy of Walbran’s book British Columbia Coast Names, and one of his chief officer’s logs.

Captain John Walbran, from the Chung Collection.

As described by the Dictionary of Canadian Biography, Walbran’s Coast Names is “an amazing grab-bag of history, biography, and anecdote,” and a “rich mass of anecdotes and digressions.” It is a well-known and well-used source of British Columbia history.

In the Barber Centre, the Keremeos Lounge is on the second floor, adjacent to Ike’s Cafe on the south side of the building. A great place to have a cup of coffee and read up on B.C. place names!

Keremeos Lounge, adjacent to Ike’s Cafe.

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Community Historical Recognition Program Video Online

July 15, 2011

This digital story is about Canadian senator Lillian Dyck’s family, her upbringing, and being of mixed Chinese and Native Canadian descent. Since 2010, the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre has been working with community organizations on documenting and preservating Chinese Canadian-related family history projects. These groups span the country from Victoria, BC to St. John’s, New Foundland, for a total of nineteen projects that will be showcased along with the work created by the UBC Chinese Canadian Stories Uncommon Histories From a Common Past project.

The Community Historical Recognition Program (CHRP) is a four program that provides federal government funding for community-based commemorative and educational projects that provide recognition of the experiences of ethno-cultural communities affected by historical wartime measures and/or immigration restrictions applied in Canada, and that promote these communities’ contributions to building Canada. Working alongside Professor of History Dr. Henry Yu, UBC Library has embarked on this project to document the stories of Chinese Canadians to enrich our understanding of a period history that has been largely untold and undocumented.

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