The Public Humanities Hub (PHH) hosts (or co-hosts) a number of speakers each year who are actively engaged in public-facing research and community-engaged scholarship. These events include both lectures and panels and are designed to showcase exemplary forms of public scholarship. The Hub is particularly interested and open to co-sponsoring events with departments and units on campus with advanced humanities research.
2024/25 Public Humanities Noted Scholar Lecture Series
March 6th, 2025: PHH Noted Scholar Lecture: Dr. Alex Hanna and Dr. Beth Coleman, “The Politics of Freedom: Generative AI, Race as Technology, and Postcolonial Computing”.
‘Digital Colonialism’ and its racial, gendered, social and political norms are baked into the algorithms that drive AI. This set of enduring problematics provides, in the present, unique ethical, regulatory, juridical and conceptual challenges. In this exciting Public Humanities Hub Noted Scholar Lecture, Dr. Alex Hanna and Dr. Beth Coleman will explore “The Politics of Freedom: Generative AI, Race as Technology, and Postcolonial Computing”.
Dr. Alex Hanna is Director of Research at the Distributed AI Research Institute (DAIR)* and has published widely in top-tier venues including the journals Mobilization, American Behavioral Scientist, and Big Data & Society, and top-tier computer science conferences such as CSCW, FAccT, and NeurIPS. Dr. Hanna is a Senior Fellow at the Center for Applied Transgender Studies, and sits on the advisory board for the Human Rights Data Analysis Group and the Scholars Council for the UCLA Center for Critical Internet Inquiry. *The Distributed AI Research Institute is a space for independent, community-rooted AI research, free from Big Tech’s pervasive influence.
Dr. Beth Coleman is Associate Professor “Data & Cities”, Institute of Communication, Culture, Information and Technology, University of Toronto (U of T). Working in Science and Technology Studies, generative aesthetics, and Black poesis, her research focuses on smart technology & machine learning, urban data and civic engagement, and generative arts. Dr. Coleman is inaugural director of U of T’s Black Research Network. She was a 2021 Google Artists and Machines Intelligence awardee and is a Senior visiting researcher with Google Brain and Responsible AI.
Event offered by: Public Humanities Hub and Centre for Computational Social Science.
For announcements about upcoming PHH events, visit this webpage.
Past events
March 28th, 2025: Fostering Trustworthy Science
Although many have argued that science as an institution should be generally trusted by the public, others have noted that there are lots of reasons for distrust between the public and science. This focuses our attention on what should be considered trustworthy science, how to generate that kind of science, and how to signal its presence. I will argue that there are three interrelated bases for grounding the trustworthiness of any particular piece of science, and that these bases can be utilized by the non-expert to assess the trustworthiness of scientific expertise. These bases are 1) a method for detecting the presence of expertise, 2) an assessment of the expert community with which the expert is engaged, and 3) shared relevant social and ethical values. With this view, scientific expertise is capable of being assessed for trustworthiness by the non-expert. These bases provide reasons for trustworthiness in both cases of expert consensus and dissensus. I will conclude with implications for the practices and institutions of science for fostering trustworthy science.
A Science and Technology Studies Colloquium, funded by the Public Humanities Hub-supported Research Cluster, Reasonable Trust: Fostering Humanities Methods in Public Engagement with Science and Technology.
March 27th, 2025: Responsible Innovation within the Social Contract for Science
The 20th century social contract for science removed societal responsibility for scientists pursuing basic research. It was not their job to be concerned with the societal impact of their work. The 21st century found such removal untenable (in part because of concerns about dual-use research) and now scientists are widely regarded as having some responsibilities for the impact of their work, even if pursuing science solely for curiosity reasons. However, it has not been clear what the nature of these responsibilities are, what norms should shape that responsibility, whether such responsibility should limit scientific freedom, and what accountability structures should accompany such responsibility. In this talk, Dr. Heather Douglas will discuss this terrain, and provide some answers to these questions, answers that will be central to any new social contract for science.
A Science and Technology Studies Colloquium, funded by the Public Humanities Hub-supported Research Cluster, Reasonable Trust: Fostering Humanities Methods in Public Engagement with Science and Technology.
March 8th, 2025: Thomas Heywood’s The Golden Age
All are welcome at this staged reading of an unknown play by a contemporary of Shakespeare, Thomas Heywood. The Golden Age (1611) presents a whirlwind survey of Jupiter’s rise to power as he usurps the throne of his father Saturn, and it shows some of his romantic liaisons he has along the way. The play is the first part of an ambitious five-play mythological cycle Heywood wrote to give London audiences a survey of classical mythology before most of his Latin and Greek sources had even been translated into English. Directed by Dr. Toph Marshall (AMNE) and using a newly-edited script, this performance of The Golden Age introduces Heywood and shows the dynamism and theatrical energy he brings to the stage.
Event offered by: Public Humanities Hub and the Department of Theatre and Film.
March 7th, 2025: Keynote Address: Euripides in the Ukraine
The “dreamscape” of Euripides’ Iphigenia among the Taurians, set in the peninsula now known as Crimea, explores the interpenetration of reality and illusion. Greek Black Sea colonies were a crucial route by which central Eurasia came into contact with the Mediterranean, standing at the intersection of competing imperial ambitions. Artists have responded to the centrality of dreaming to Euripides’ play: Gluck’s opera Iphigénie en Tauride (1779); its staging by neo-expressionist choreographer Pina Bausch in Wuppertal (1974); the play Rescue Me (A Postmodern Classic with Snacks) by Canadian-Japanese author Michi Barall, first produced in New York (2010); the play Iphigenia and the Furies (on Taurian Land) by Ho Ka Kei, 2019 Toronto Theatre Critics’ Best New Canadian Play; and the immersive performance The Burnt City by Punchdrunk in London (2023–2024). Each reception foregrounds dreams and builds on those that came before, so that the significance of dreams deepens over time.
This event is open to the public — all are welcome! No registration needed.
February 26th, 2025: PHH Noted Scholar Lecture: Dr. Amanda Cheong
Join us for a PHH Noted Scholar Lecture by Dr. Amanda Cheong, Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, where she will speak about her PHH Faculty Fellowship project, “Life and Death Off the Record”.
Event offered by: Public Humanities Hub, Asian Canadian & Asian Migration Studies program (ACAM), Centre for Asian Canadian Research & Engagement (ACRE) and Centre for Migration Studies (CMS), with promotional support from the Department of Sociology.
February 12th, 2025: PHH Noted Scholar Lecture: Dr. Crystal Webster
Join us for a PHH Noted Scholar Lecture by Dr. Crystal Webster, Associate Professor, Department of History, where she will speak about her PHH Faculty Fellowship project, “Condemned: How America’s Courts and Prisons Terrorized Black Children”.
Event offered by: Public Humanities Hub and Department of History.
February 5th, 2025: PHH Noted Scholar Lecture: Dr. Antje Ziethen
Join us for a PHH Noted Scholar Lecture by Dr. Antje Ziethen, Associate Professor of French, Department of French, Hispanic & Italian Studies (FHIS), where she will speak about her PHH Faculty Fellowship project, “Reverse Diaspora: The “Brazilians” in West Africa”. This lecture is also part of the FHIS Research Seminar.
Event offered by: Public Humanities Hub and Department of French, Hispanic & Italian Studies.
January 30th, 2025: Art as Indigenous Pedagogy
Join the UBC Public Humanities Hub (PHH) and Vancouver Art Gallery (VAG) on January 30th, 2025 for “Art as Indigenous Pedagogy”, featuring artist and filmmaker Shelley Niro and Indigenous Art Education expert and UBC faculty member, Dr. Shannon Leddy. This program coincides with the exhibition, Shelley Niro: 500 Year Itch, the first major retrospective of Shelley Niro’s work. Dr. Shannon Leddy will guide participants through an interactive process that engages with Shelley Niro’s artwork. This will be followed by an artist talk by Shelley Niro on her body of work exploring themes from her four-decade career, including, Matriarchy, Past is Present, Actors and Family Relations. This exciting event is free. Registration is required to hold your seat. Refreshments will be provided.
Event offered by: Public Humanities Hub and Vancouver Art Gallery.
November 26th, 2024: Free Screening of Les Filles Du Roi
Everyone is welcome to come along to a free screening of Les Filles du Roi, the acclaimed musical written and directed by Corey Payette. The screening takes place on Tuesday, November 26, in the Royal Bank Cinema in the Chan Centre. Doors open at 1.30pm, with the film starting at 1.45pm. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with UBC alumni Corey Payette (writer/director) and Christian Díaz Durán (editor). Synopsis: The lives of young Mohawk Kateri and her brother Jean-Baptiste are disrupted by the arrival of the king’s daughters, young French women sent to the new colony to marry and have children. They forge an unlikely relationship with young Marie-Jean Lespérance, whose dream of a new life is more complicated than she could have imagined. Les Filles du Roi was nominated for 10 Leo Awards in 2024, winning Best Musical Score and Best Production Design.
Event offered by: UBC’s Department of Theatre and Film and Public Humanities Hub, in partnership with the X̱wi7x̱wa Library, Arts Indigenous Student Advising, and the UBC Film Society.
October 31st, 2024: Violent Intimacies, Trans Worldmaking, and LGBTI+ Organizing in Turkey
Please join us for a workshop on transfeminist solidarity and worldmaking, featuring the screening and discussion of “The Neighbour,” a transfeminist short film directed by Cedoy and produced by Lalu (esra) Ozban, and the seminar discussion of Asli Zengin’s Violent Intimacies: The Trans Everyday and the Making of an Urban World exploring the trans everyday where violence and intimacy are co-constitutive.
Event offered by: The Queer and Trans Anti-Fascisms Research Cluster (funded by the UBC Public Humanities Hub). Co-sponsored by the Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality & Social Justice, Middle East Studies, Department of Anthropology, and the UBC Film Society.
October 28th to 29th, 2024: Symposium | Keywords: Literature and Politics
What is the relationship between literature and politics, and how does it shape the wider field of literary studies today? What are some of the most important historical permutations of this fraught relationship, and how do they continue to inform the vocabulary and critical methods in use today? How is the tension between literature and politics being reconfigured under the specific pressures of our own present, and what new interdisciplinary avenues might scholarship on literature and politics pursue in the future? This symposium addresses these questions via a series of talks on four political keywords of topical concern in our contemporary political landscape: “Discipline,” “Human Rights,” “Indigeneity,” and “Vulnerability.” This two-day symposium brings together scholars in dialogue to address a political keyword from distinct theoretical perspectives and historical angles.
Event offered by: UBC Department of English Language & Literatures, UBC Public Humanities Hub, UBC Institute of Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Social Justice, UBC Faculty of Arts, Universität Regensburg, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).
October 4th to 6th, 2024: Connected Past Conference
A special area of focus for the conference will be the application of network perspectives to the emergence and spread of religious beliefs and practices, positioning these phenomena as deeply intertwined with the human and material connections that comprised the ancient world. Religion has often been regarded as both an intensely local and intensely transcultural force for ancient communities. Now, at the digital frontiers of the twenty-first century, the resurgent interests in large-scale questions on human development have opened up new opportunities to study religion from relational and quantitative perspectives combined with deep qualitative and historical approaches developed in the humanities.
Event offered by: The Connected Past, The Society for Ancient Mediterranean Religions, UBC Ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern Studies, The UBC Centre for Computational Social Sciences, Green College UBC, The UBC Centre for Migration Studies, The UBC Public Humanities Hub, UBC History, UBC Anthropology, the Vancouver Chapter of the Archaeological Institute of America, the Database of Religious History, UBC Advanced Research Computing, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
October 3rd, 2024: Dr. Roberto Barrios: A Revelatory Pandemic? COVID-19 and Disaster Social Science
Using ten pandemic case studies from across Latin America, this presentation explores how a focus on crisis in the Global South stands to correct the temporal and historiographic Eurocentrisms of crisis theory and beckons us to re-imagine the relationship between crisis, subjectivity, agency, and transformative social change.
Speaker: Dr. Roberto Barrios has researched disaster risk reduction and recovery since 1999. He has conducted fieldwork in a variety of locations in Central America, Mexico, the Caribbean, the U.S. Midwest and the U.S. Gulf South. Using ethnographic methods, Dr. Barrios’ work has focused on documenting the voices of disaster survivors with specific attention to the categories through which they define successful disaster recovery and the ways they narrate the connection between sensory experience and the built, social, and “natural” environments.
Event offered by: Department of Anthropology, Disaster Resilience Research Network, Public Humanities Hub, Department of Civil Engineering, Centre for Climate Justice, and School of Public Policy & Global Affairs.
October 3rd, 2024: Not Your China Doll: A Conversation on Anna May Wong, the First Asian American Film Star
Join the Winnifred Eaton Archive for a public talk, “Not Your China Doll: A Conversation on Anna May Wong, the First Asian American Film Star” with author Katie Gee Salisbury and Dr. Mila Zuo.
Event offered by: Winnifred Eaton Archive. Co-sponsored by the Public Humanities Hub, UBC Asian Studies, Centre for Cinema Studies, Centre for European Studies, Department of History, Department of Central, Eastern & Northern European Studies, and the UBC Film Society.
October 3rd, 2024: Visit of Swiss-Congolese Film Director, Rachel M’Bon
Join the Centre de la Francophonie for a special screening of “Je suis noires” (Becoming a Black Woman). Directed by Rachel M’Bon and Juliana Fanjul, this thought-provoking documentary offers a nuanced perspective on the complexities of identity, race, and gender in Switzerland through the lens of Black women.
Event offered by: Centre de la Francophonie. Co-sponsored by the Public Humanities Hub, Consulate General of Switzerland in Vancouver, UBC’s Coordinated Arts Program, the Department of Central, Eastern & Northern European Studies, the Centre for Cinema and Media Studies, and the Royal Institute for Theatre, Cinema and Sound (Erasmus Hogeschool Brussels).
September 26th, 2024: Science and the Public
In this Science and Technology Studies Colloquium, Dr. Angela Potochnik will discuss how expanded public participation in scientific research can give rise to “responsive science”, contribute to public trust in science, and help scientific institutions discharge their obligations to the public.
Speaker: Dr. Angela Potochnik, Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Center for Public Engagement with Science, University of Cincinnati
Event offered by: UBC Science and Technology Studies Colloquium and the PHH-funded research cluster, Reasonable Trust: Fostering Humanities Methods in Public Engagement with Science and Technology.
September 18th, 2024: Archives of Dissent: Sexuality, Caste, History
Suturing histories of caste and sexuality to histories of dissent in South Asia, this talk rearranges the grammar of our ethical engagements with the past and present. At stake here are the historical vernaculars -the data- that found the evidentiary regimes of rights and representation for subaltern subjects. On offer here are figurations of andolan/protest, meditations that move between the heady inspirations of dissent and the stultifying violence of state practices. Andolan is after all a movement in Hindustani music, an alankar (combination/ornamentation of notes) that oscillates between one fixed note and its counterpart, touching, suffusing, all that lies in between. Let us imagine such an historical andolan together.
Speaker: Dr. Anjali Arondekar is Peggy and Jack Baskin Foundation Presidential Professor of Feminist Studies. She was the founding Director, Center for South Asian Studies, University of California, Santa Cruz, 2020-24.
Event offered by: The Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality & Social Justice, UBC Public Humanities Hub, Department of Asian Studies, Centre for Migration Studies, Centre for Climate Justice, and Department of English Language & Literatures.
September 17th, 2024: Educate, Agitate, Organize: Trans/Queer/Caste Workshop
Can an anti-caste movement politics found trans/queer histories? Using the framework of caste abolition and queer/trans legal struggles in South Asia, our workshop will offer some potential pathways for radical trans/queer/caste futurites. Two (rather ambitious!) questions will animate our gathering: (1) How has the escalation of authoritarianism and religious violence in South Asia impacted queer/trans/caste projects of dissent? (2) What do trans/queer/caste movements teach us about navigating crisis amidst a climate of constant conflict?
Speaker: Dr. Anjali Arondekar is Peggy and Jack Baskin Foundation Presidential Professor of Feminist Studies. She was the founding Director, Center for South Asian Studies, University of California, Santa Cruz, 2020-24.
Event offered by: The Queer and Trans Anti-Fascisms Research Cluster (funded by the UBC Public Humanities Hub), Department of Asian Studies, Centre for Migration Studies, Centre for Climate Justice, Department of Geography, Department of English Language & Literatures, and the Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality & Social Justice.
September 11, 2024: Talk and Q&A with Yuliya Kovaliv, Ambassador of Ukraine to Canada
Her Excellency Yuliya Kovaliv – Ambassador of Ukraine to Canada is pleased to share the latest developments of Ukraine’s resistance against Russia’s war on Ukrainian soil, as well as in the international arena: Canadian and global assistance to Ukraine; a Peace Formula as a path to a just peace in Europe; opportunities to improve and strengthen cooperation between Ukraine, Canada and the world during and after the war.
Event offered by: Department of Central, Eastern & Northern European Studies, UBC Public Humanities Hub, Centre for European Studies, the Office of Global Engagement, the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs, the Department of History, and the Program in International Relations.
August 24 and August 31, 2024: Sapin-Sapin: Filipinx Art Festival
From NPC3 (National Pilipino Canadian Cultural Centre) and the creators of Baklangtasan, comes Sapin-Sapin: Filipinx Art Festival! Join them for two fun dates: Saturday, August 24, 10 am – 5 pm | Community Workshops in Writing, Movement, Visual Arts, and Acting; and Saturday, August 31, 7pm – 9pm | Evening Performances of song, dance and the main event — Staged Readings of New Short Plays — written by emerging Filipino artists. Note: These plays will be bilingual — in Tagalog and English. Have fun with the community and enjoy great food after!
Event offered by: NPC3, Baklangtasan, GRSJ, UBC Department of Theatre and Film, and UBC Public Humanities Hub.
August 22, 2024: ResiStories: Living Archives of Pride
Celebrate Pride at the Museum of Vancouver! This August, we are honouring our local 2SLGBTQIA+ icons and histories and the “living archive” today’s community embodies and represents. Emceed by Shay Dior, prepare to be wowed by drag performances from Continental Breakfast, Count Cupid and Mx Bukuru—who are taking inspiration from queer historical moments and icons to create their sets. Plus, scholars of queer culture and archives—and drag of course—will share info on the lesser known references in each performance. All of which will be followed by a panel discussion between the artists and scholars. Come be entertained and educated and meet living archives of pride!
Event offered by: Museum of Vancouver, UBC Public Humanities Hub, and UBC Strategic Equity & Anti-Racism (StEAR) Enhancement Fund.
August 15-16, 2024: Communicating Climate Hope: Countering eco-anxiety and climate doomism in research and practice
As the impacts of the climate crisis rise, we are also seeing a rise in eco-anxiety. Although experiencing such emotions may inspire some to act, for many the result is doomism, and a resulting inability to act. Therefore, the current Climate Hope event aims to explore the vital role of effective communication in fostering hope and driving positive action in the context of climate change. The rise in eco-anxiety and doomism reflects a disconnect between understanding the climate crisis and acting to affect positive change. Communication plays a vital role in resolving this disconnect, aiming to understand the ways in which people think and talk about the problem, and to develop ways to promote beneficial framings and narratives that can contribute to positive, collective change.
Conference co-sponsored by: UBC Public Humanities Hub.
July 12, 2024: New Cantonese Input Tools 粵語好打得
Join the UBC Cantonese Language Program for an immersive and dynamic Cantonese teaching workshop if you are interested and passionate about Cantonese teaching. Teachers of all experience levels from seasoned educators to novice instructors are welcomed. Led by Dr. Jon Chui & Dr. Chaak Ming Lau, the workshop delves into the latest Cantonese input and output technologies and tools such as Cantonese Fonts and Typeduck. Participants will have the opportunity to collaborate with fellow educators, exchange ideas, and leave with a toolkit of some teaching resources. Light refreshments and certificate of attendance will be provided to in-person participants.
Event offered by: UBC Department of Asian Studies, UBC Cantonese Language Program, Department of Language and Literacy Education (LLED), UBC Language Sciences Institute, and the UBC Public Humanities Hub.
June 29, 2024: ResiStories: Building Community Futures
Vancouver is full of built environments that are the result of urban planning, grassroots community place-making, and sometimes a bit of both. Depending on their histories, consultation processes, and the intention behind the project, these built environments can be spaces of inclusion for some and exclusion for others. Inspired by the Museum of Vancouver’s (MOV) exhibition with artist Yao Jui-Chung, Mirage: Disused Public Property in Taiwan, we ask: who are built environments in Vancouver for and why? What can be done to address the inequities of public space-making?
Event offered by: Museum of Vancouver, UBC Public Humanities Hub, UBC Centre for Asian Canadian Research and Engagement (ACRE), UBC Strategic Equity & Anti-Racism (StEAR) Enhancement Fund, Heritage Vancouver Society, Powell Street Festival Society, Punjabi Market Collective, and Sliced Mango Collective.
June 17, 2024: Discussion and Reading with Comics Author Tobi Dahmen
The German Consulate General in Vancouver and the Survivor-Centred Visual Narratives Project are delighted to host German illustrator and comics artist Tobi Dahmen, for a discussion and reading of his latest graphic novel, Columbusstrasse: Eine Familiengeschichte 1935-1945 (2024). Based on old family letters discovered after his father’s death, this family saga from World War II uses moving accounts to reconstruct the German war years, reflecting on the nation’s past and exploring political and personal responsibility. During the event, Dahmen will discuss the inspiration and process behind the book and read selected passages while presenting the illustrations. There will be a light reception at the event.
Event offered by: German Consulate General in Vancouver, Survivor-Centred Visual Narratives Project, and UBC Comics Studies Cluster, a UBC Public Humanities Hub Research Cluster.
June 1, 2024: Kuwentong Pamamahay: Stories and Storytelling of Home and Identity from Filipino Canadian Perspectives
Join the UBC Asian Canadian and Asian Migration Studies program (ACAM) for the launch of Kuwentong Pamamahay: Stories and Storytelling of Home and Identity from Filipino Canadian Perspectives. Merienda will be included with light appetizers and refreshments.
Event offered by: ACAM, UBC Public Humanities Hub, Sliced Mango Collective, and Heritage Vancouver Society.
May 16-18, 2024: Law, Culture and the Humanities Conference and Graduate Workshop 2024
Every year, the Association for the Study of Law, Culture, and Humanities holds it annual conference, usually a two-day affair, as well as a graduate student workshop, usually held on the day before the annual conference. The theme of this year’s conference is “Senses of Law”. Law is heard, seen, experienced, felt, and understood in many ways. This year’s theme invites submissions on legal senses, sensibilities, and sensations. What satisfies “the sense of justice”? What makes for a legal sensation? How does law depend on, appeal to, or defy common sense(s)? What are the different sensibilities that law creates, cultivates, challenges, and ignores? How do the meanings that law takes for granted, or brings into being, fall differently on different ears?
Event offered by: Peter A. Allard School of Law, UBC Green College, UBC Department of History, UBC Department of Philosophy, Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice; UBC Department of Anthropology, UBC Department of English Language and Literatures, and the UBC Public Humanities Hub.
May 11, 2024: Teaching Cantonese Through Storytelling 講故仔 講技巧
Join the UBC Cantonese Language Program for an immersive and dynamic Cantonese teaching workshop if you are interested and passionate about Cantonese teaching. Teachers of all experience levels from seasoned educators to novice instructors are welcomed. Led by Cantonese writer Peg Chiu, the workshop delves into effective teaching methodologies, storytelling, and interactive activities through her book “The Tiger Under the Bridge”. Participants will have the opportunity to collaborate with fellow educators, exchange ideas, and leave with a toolkit of some teaching resources. Light refreshments will be provided.
Event offered by: UBC Department of Asian Studies, UBC Cantonese Language Program, Department of Language and Literacy Education (LLED), UBC Language Sciences Institute, and the UBC Public Humanities Hub.
2023-2024
April 16, 2024: 2024 Burge Lecture | “Blood, Borders and Diaspora’s Horizons” with Dr. Rachel Leow
Join UBC History for the 2024 Burge Lecture, featuring Dr. Rachel Leow (Cambridge University). Dr. Leow will be presenting a talk entitled “Blood, Borders and Diaspora’s Horizons: Chinese Entanglements in the Southern Seas.” The Burge lecture series provides students, faculty, alumni, and community members the opportunity to connect with historians and scholars engaged in exciting research relevant to our times.
Speaker: Dr. Rachel Leow is an Associate Professor of Modern East Asian History at the University of Cambridge, and Fellow of Murray Edwards College.
Event offered by: The Department of History and co-sponsored by the Department of Asian Studies, the Public Humanities Hub, the Asian Canadian and Asian Migration Program, the Center for Migration Studies, the Center for Chinese Research, and the Center for Southeast Asian Research.
April 12, 2024: [Screening+Conversation] AICS Closing Film: Leaving in Sorrow and Conversation with Director Vincent Chui
Vincent Chui’s “Leaving in Sorrow” 憂憂愁愁的走了 (2001) is the first Hong Kong production filmed in the “Dogme 95” style and will be featured as the closing film for the 2023/2024 Asian Independent Cinema Showcase. The film portrays Hong Kong in the year of 1997 and how the characters find their lives suddenly turned upside down by events beyond their control. We invite you to revisit this representative work of Hong Kong indie cinema which demonstrates the pursuit of timeless vision and creativity through independent filmmaking. Director Vincent Chui 崔允信 will participate in a virtual conversation following the screening.
Event offered by: UBC’s Hong Kong Studies Initiative (HKSI), SFU’s Institute for Transpacific Cultural Research, with funding from the Department of Asian Studies, the Watt family – HKSI Fund, Centre for Chinese Research, and Public Humanities Hub Seed Grant.
March 22, 2024: [Screening+Conversation] In Search of Home: Short Films Selection and Conversation with Filmmakers
Co-presented by South Taiwan Film Festival and Asian Independent Cinema Showcase, this short films selection presents TOH Tze Wei’s “The Darkest Night”, WU Yu-Fen’s “There”, and KWOK Zune’s “Night is Young.” Speaking in Cantonese, Hokkien, Malay, Mandarin, Taiwanese, and Indonesian, the three award-winning short films tell stories of the underrepresented in different parts of Asia and the possibility of finding hope and home. This is the first time the three award-winning short films will be shown in Canada and is the third program of the inaugural edition of the Asian Independent Cinema Showcase. The three directors will participate in a virtual conversation following the screening.
Event offered by: UBC’s Hong Kong Studies Initiative (HKSI), SFU’s Institute for Transpacific Cultural Research, with funding from the Department of Asian Studies, the Watt family – HKSI Fund, Centre for Chinese Research, and Public Humanities Hub Seed Grant.
March 22, 2024: Foragers Film Screening
Join Cinema Thinks The World for a free film screening of Foragers, which depicts the dramas around the practice of foraging for wild edible plants in Palestine/Israel with wry humor and a meditative pace. Shot in the Golan Heights, the Galilee and Jerusalem, it employs fiction, documentary and archival footage to portray the impact of Israeli nature protection laws on these customs. The restrictions prohibit the collection of the artichoke-like ’akkoub and za’atar (thyme), and have resulted in fines and trials for hundreds caught collecting these native plants.
Event offered by: DocUBC, the UBC Film Society, and Cinema Thinks The World, a UBC Public Humanities Hub Research Cluster.
March 21-22, 2024: Games for Decolonization Workshop
The Games and Decolonization Workshop is an interdisciplinary forum dedicated to examining the intersections between board games and discourses of settler colonialism, decolonization, Indigenous sovereignty, and social justice. This two-day event will bring together Indigenous and settler scholars to engage in critical conversations regarding the role of gaming cultures and tarot in the work of decolonization and social justice.
Event offered by: The Waterloo Centre for German Studies, German Studies Canada, the UBC Centre for European Studies, the Narratives Group in the UBC Centre for Migration Studies, and UBC Comics Studies Cluster, a UBC Public Humanities Hub Research Cluster.
March 18-22, 2024: Unwellness and Care in the University
Dr. Mimi Khúc is a leading disability studies scholar whose work is situated at the intersection of care work, art practice, and community making. She will spend a week in residency at UBC holding workshops for students, staff, faculty, and community members intentionally devised to help us think through our relationship to one another, the structure of the university, and our intellectual and creative work. All events are open to the public.
Residency hosted by: the UBC Centre for European Studies with co-sponsorship by UBC Asian Canadian and Asian Migration Studies, the UBC Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality & Social Justice, the UBC Public Humanities Hub, and the Waterloo Centre for German Studies Diversity Grant.
March 1, 2024: An Unusual Summer Film Screening
Join Cinema Thinks The World for a free film screening of An Unusual Summer. Following an act of vandalism, the filmmaker’s father decides to install a surveillance camera to record the scenes unfolding in front of the house. Everyday family life, the neighbours going to work, and the children at school, An Unusual Summer captures fleeting moments of poetry whereas, in the background, the daily choreography of the Arab district—that some name the “ghetto”—of Ramla, in current Israeli territory, comes to the surface.
Event offered by: Cinema Thinks The World, the UBC Film Society, and DocUBC.
February 29, 2024: Sound Unseen: Auscultating Gendered Violence in Mexican Fiction
Join the UBC Sound and the Humanities research cluster for a talk by Dr. Tamara Mitchell on sensing the unseen but pervasive domestic violence experienced by approximately one-third of women globally.
Speaker: Dr. Tamara Mitchell, Assistant Professor of Spanish, Department of French, Hispanic, and Italian Studies (FHIS), UBC.
Event offered by: Sound and the Humanities Research Cluster, Green College, and the Public Humanities Hub.
February 29, 2024: Black History Month Film Screening
Join UBC Latin American Studies for a free screening of short films by Black Canadian filmmakers as part of Black History Month. The film screening will be followed by a discussion.
Speaker: Dr. Crystal Webster, Associate Professor, Department of History, UBC.
Event offered by: UBC Latin American Studies, the National Film Board, UBC Film Society, UBC Department of History, Cinema Thinks The World, and the Public Humanities Hub.
February 7, 2024: Between Reparations and Freedom
In The Long Emancipation, Dr. Rinaldo Walcott posits that Black people globally live in the time of emancipation and that emancipation is definitely not freedom. This talk tackles the question, “What is (Black) freedom?”. In dialogue with Dr. Peter James Hudson, Dr. Walcott will survey a range of recent events to begin to make sense of Black non-freedom, including present initiatives in Canadian postsecondary settings, such as programs designed to increase numbers of Black faculty.
Speakers:
Dr. Rinaldo Walcott is Professor and Granger Chair in Africana and American Studies, University at Buffalo.
Dr. Peter James Hudson is Associate Professor, Department of Geography, UBC.
Event offered by: Faculty of Arts, Faculty of Education, Public Humanities Hub, UBC Office of Equity and Inclusion, and the Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality & Social Justice (GRSJ).
February 5, 2024: The Long Emancipation Reading Group
This reading group is organized in preparation for Dr. Rinaldo Walcott’s dialogue with Dr. Peter James Hudson, tackling the question, ‘What is (Black) freedom?,’ taking place on February 7th. Open to all students, staff, and recent alumni.
Event offered by: The Public Humanities Hub Graduate Committee.
February 2, 2024: AICS: Away From Home Short Films Selection
The short films selection “Away From Home” features Sze-wai HO’s “Before the Box Gets Emptied” 直到我看見彼岸, Chi-him YUEN’s “The Reticent Wave” 爺爺來訪的夜, and Chi-yan SIU’s “About Simon Says, Simon Says” 呼～. Produced in Hong Kong between 2022 and 2023, the three short films share the theme of diaspora and explore the city’s past and present through the eyes of the children, the elderly, and the migrant worker.
Event offered by: UBC’s Hong Kong Studies Initiative (HKSI), SFU’s Institute for Transpacific Cultural Research, with funding from the Department of Asian Studies, the Watt family – HKSI Fund, Centre for Chinese Research, and Public Humanities Hub Seed Grant.
January 25, 2024: Sounds That Mark Our Words: Sonic Agencies & Intimacies in the Filipinx Diaspora
Dr. Casey Mecija considers how sound offers a methodological framework that uniquely captures slippages between affect and the emotional conflicts of racism, homophobia and national belonging. In doing so, she offers a theory of “queer sound” that considers how sonicity might be used as a conceptual resource for making sense of the affective and psychic lives of diasporic communities.
Speaker:
Dr. Casey Mecija is Assistant Professor, Department of Communication Studies, York University.
Event offered by: The Sound and Humanities Research Cluster, with support from the Public Humanities Hub, and Green College.
January 20, 2024: AICS Spotlight Event: Drifting Petals
Join us for the North American Premiere of DRIFTING PETALS 花果飄零, followed by a virtual conversation with award-winning director Clara Law 羅卓瑤 and producer/writer Eddie Fong 方令正. Made over 5 years, the bold feature explores the possibility of alternate cinema, and invites the viewers to ponder on diaspora, home, and memory.
Event offered by: UBC’s Hong Kong Studies Initiative (HKSI), SFU’s Institute for Transpacific Cultural Research, with funding from the Department of Asian Studies, the Watt family – HKSI Fund, Centre for Chinese Research, and Public Humanities Hub Seed Grant.
January 17, 2024: Nimrods: A Conversation
Dr. Christopher B. Patterson will discuss his newly released prose-poetry book, Nimrods, in a conversation with Dr. Mila Zuo about poetry, pictures, and parents. Nimrods shamelessly mixes autotheory, queer punk poetry, musical ekphrasis, haibun, academic (mis)quotations, and bad dad jokes to present a bold new take on the autobiography: the fake-punk self-hurt anti-memoir.
Speakers:
Dr. Christopher B. Patterson is Associate Professor, Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality & Social Justice (GRSJ), Faculty of Arts, UBC.
Dr. Mila Zuo is Associate Professor, Department of Theatre and Film, Faculty of Arts, UBC.
Event offered by: Public Humanities Hub with the Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality & Social Justice (GRSJ).
January 12, 2024: Nimrods Graduate Student Reading Group
This reading group is organized in preparation for Dr. Chris Patterson’s conversation with Dr. Mila Zuo of his newly released prose-poetry book, Nimrods, about poetry, pictures, and parents taking place January 17. Open to all students, staff, and recent alumni.
Event offered by: The Public Humanities Hub Graduate Committee.
January 11, 2024: ResiStories: Reimagining Refugee Memoirs
Join the Public Humanities Hub (PHH) and the Museum of Vancouver (MOV) for a compelling reading of excerpts from the memoirs, Landbridge by Y-Dang Troeung and Carmen Aguirre‘s Something Fierce: Memoirs of a Revolutionary Daughter. Both Y-Dang and Carmen’s works resist traditional forms of the refugee memoir and examine the problematic image of the “grateful” refugee’s arrival in Canada.
Event offered by: Public Humanities Hub and Museum of Vancouver
November 16, 2023: Seven Cautionary Tales for Publicly Engaged Humanities in 2023
This discussion with UBC practitioners and scholars of public humanities work shares lessons learned from the “Humanities Without Walls” project (housed at the Humanities Research Institute, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign).
Speakers:
Dr. Antoinette Burton is Professor of History, Maybelle Leland Swanlund Endowed Chair, and Director of the Humanities Research Institute at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (UIUC).
Dr. Jenny L. Davis is a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation and Associate Professor of Anthropology and American Indian Studies at UIUC where she is Director, American Indian Studies Program.
Event offered by: Faculty of Arts, Public Humanities Hub, and St. John’s College.
November 9, 2023: Between Exile and Holocaust: Fred Wander’s Hôtel Baalbek
Focusing on the biography and literary work of the Austrian-Jewish writer and Holocaust survivor Fred Wander, this presentation will attempt to interrogate a conceptual divide within the scholarship on exile, refuge, and persecution during the Nazi period that rigidly separates the experience of exile from the Third Reich (generally considered as having happened in the “West”) from that of persecution within the Holocaust (seen as having taken place in the “East”).
Speaker:
Dr. Erin McGlothlin is Vice Dean of Undergraduate Affairs, College of Arts & Sciences and Professor of German and Jewish Studies at Washington University in St. Louis.
Event offered by: Department of Central, Eastern & Northern European Studies, Centre for European Studies, Public Humanities Hub, UBC Arts SSHRC Visiting Speakers Exchange Grant, and the UBC Holocaust Education Committee.
November 8, 2023: Humanities Without Walls: Graduate Student Reading Group
This reading group is organized in preparation for the “Seven Cautionary Tales” discussion with Dr. Antoinette Burton and Dr. Jenny L. Davis on November 16. We will discuss the Humanities Without Walls project and the challenges of public engagement. Open to students and staff.
Event offered by: The Public Humanities Hub Graduate Committee.
November 3, 2023: “A Genealogy of Indigenous Law: A Writer’s Journey” by Dr. John Burrows.
Co-hosted with the Canadian Network of Law & Humanities, a Public Humanities Hub-funded research cluster, and Indigenous Legal Studies at the Peter A. Allard School of Law.
October 27, 2023: “Querying AI: Social Science and Humanities Perspectives on AI in Research and Politics“.
In partnership with the UBC Centre for the Study of Democratic Institutions (CSDI), UBC Centre for Computational Social Sciences (CCSS), UBC Language Science Institute, UBC Centre for Artificial Intelligence Decision-Making and Action (CAIDA), and SFU Digital Democracies Institute (DDI), SFU.
October 22, 2023: “Metropolis Reworked” by the Vancouver International Film Festival (VIFF).
Co-sponsored with the Consulate General of the Federal Republic of Germany Vancouver, UBC Department of Theatre and Film, UBC CENES, and Goethe Institut.
October 11, 2023: “UBC Comic Book Club: Roaming (2023)” by Jillian Tamaki and Mariko Tamaki.
Hosted by the UBC Comic Studies Cluster, a Public Humanities Hub-funded research cluster, and co-sponsored with UBC Creative Writing.
October 3, 2023: “Imagining Capital: Debt, Trade, and the Fantasy of ‘Infinite’ Resources” by Dr. Robert Markley.
Hosted by the Department of English Language & Literatures and co-sponsored with the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (ASECS).
2022-2023
April 5, 2023: “Broad Brush Strokes and Fine Lines: Courtroom Drawing and the Visual History of the 20th Century” by Dr. Charlotte Lerg.
Co-hosted with the Department of History.
March 23, 2023: “Pictures of Dorian Gray: Oscar Wilde in Weimar Germany” by Dr. Yvonne Ivory.
Hosted by the Department of English Language & Literatures and co-sponsored with Central, Eastern and Northern European Studies, Art History, Visual Art and Theory, Theatre and Film, and the Centre for European Studies.
March 8-9, 2023: A public talk and graduate colloquium by Dr. Olivette Otele.
Co-sponsored with the Department of History, Political Science, English Language & Literatures, Allard Law, and the Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice.
February 14, 2023: “Resisting erasure: geo-mapping destroyed and forgotten Jewish communities” with Dr. Nataliia Ivchyk, Dr. Frances Malino, and Jason Guberman-Pfeffer.
Co-sponsored with the Department of History and the Holocaust Education Committee.
January 23, 2023: “If We Had Followed the Rules, I Wouldn’t Be Here” with David Schaffer, Miriam Libicki, Dr. Andrea Webb, and Dr. Richard Menkis.
In partnership with Hillel BC and the Embassy of Israel.
November 19, 2022: “Making Space: Banning Cantonese BBQ Meats” with Dr. Imogene Lim, Christy Fong, and Denise Fong.
In partnership with Museum of Vancouver and Heritage Vancouver Society.
October 26, 2022: “Lifting from the Centre: Health and Culture in Anishinaabe Communities – talk and reception” by Dr. Tim Frandy, Assistant Professor of Nordic Studies, UBC.
Co-sponsored with the Department of Central, Eastern & Northern European Studies and the Faculty of Arts.
September 20, 2022: “Plagued to Death by Systemic Ableism: What the COVID-19 Pandemic and the Expansion of Eligibility for MAID Reveal About the Lethal Dangers of Systemic Ableism in Canada” by Dr. Heidi Janz, Associate Adjunct Professor with the John Dossetor Health Ethics Centre at the University of Alberta.
Co-sponsored with the Department of Physical Therapy, Canadian Institute for Inclusion and Citizenship, and the Department of Educational Studies.
August 30, 2022: “Critical Diversity Literacy: A View from Europe” by Dr. Alisha M.B. Heinemann, Professor for diversity education and learning passages at the University of Bremen, Germany.
Co-sponsored with the Department of Educational Studies, Department of Central, Eastern & Northern European Studies, and Centre for Culture, Identity & Education.
2021-2022
April 19, 2022: “Frigid, Inscrutable: The Racial and Sexual Politics of Unfeeling” by Dr. Xine Yao, Lecturer in American Literature to 1900 at University College London.
Co-sponsored with the Department of English Language & Literatures.
April 7, 2022: “Speculative Futures: Artificial Intelligence Symposium” moderated by Dr. Melissa Karmen Lee (Director of Education and Public Programs, Vancouver Art Gallery) and Dr. Kavita Philip (UBC President’s Excellence Chair in Network Cultures and Professor of English). View the full Vimeo Showcase here.
- Dr. Ramon Amaro, University College London Department of History of Art: “On Machine Learning and the Aspirations of Black Being”
- Dr. Safiya Noble, Professor of Gender Studies and African American Studies at the University of California Los Angeles: “Taking on Big Tech: New Paradigms for New Possibilities”
- Panel: “Telling it like it is: Spec Fic Writes Worlds”
- Prof. Nalo Hopkinson, Professor in the School of Creative Writing at the University of British Columbia and recipient of the Ontario Arts Council Foundation Award, the John W. Campbell and Locus Awards, the World Fantasy Award, Canada’s Aurora Award, the Sunburst Award for Canadian Literature of the Fantastic and the Octavia E. Butler Memorial Award
- Dr. Larissa Lai, Canada Research Chair in Creative Writing at the University of Calgary and recipient of the Jim Duggins Novelist’s Prize, the Lambda Literary Award, the Astraea Award, and the Otherwise Honor Book
- Ken Liu, American author of speculative fiction and a winner of the Nebula, Hugo, and World Fantasy awards
- Jiayang Fan, staff writer at The New Yorker Magazine: “The Question of Taste”
Presented with the Vancouver Art Gallery and co-sponsored by the University of British Columbia’s Library and the School of Information, the English Language & Literatures Department, the President’s Excellence Chair in Network Cultures and the School of Creative Writing, with additional media support from Canadian Literature.
November 3, 2021: “Civil Discourse in an Uncivil Age/Uncivil and Unwell in America,” Alexander Heffner, Author and Host of PBS The Open Mind.
Co-sponsored with the Department of English Language & Literatures, School of Public Policy & Global Affairs, and Political Science.
October 14, 2021: “Religion, Law & Society Roundtable,” UBC panel moderated by Dr. Sabina Magliocco, Professor of Anthropology & Director of Program in the Study of Religion at UBC
- Dr. Carole Blackburn, UBC Anthropology: “Defending Grizzly Bear Spirit in Canadian Courts: Ktunaxa First Nation v. British Columbia“
- Dr. Robert Daum, Fellow, Wosk Centre for Dialogue, Simon Fraser University: “Harmful Speech: Aspects of Rabbinic teachings about intent, impact and culpability”
- Dr. Julen Etxabe, Assistant Professor and Canada Research Chair (Tier 2) in Jurisprudence and Human Rights, Allard School of Law: “What’s the scandal? The tension between religious autonomy, human rights and the state”
- Prof. Hoi Kong, The Rt. Hon. Beverley McLachlin, P.C., UBC Professor in Constitutional Law Peter A. Allard School of Law: “What’s Law Got to Do With It? Religion Through the Lens of Law”
- Discussant: The Honourable Geoffrey B. Gomery, Justice, Supreme Court of British Columbia
Co-sponsored with the UBC Program in the Study of Religion.
2020-2021
March 2, 2021: “A Fireside Chat with Margaret Price,” Associate Professor of English at The Ohio State University
Co-sponsored with the Women’s Health Research Cluster.
November 3, 2020: “Working in Public: Generosity and the Knowledge Commons” by Dr. Kathleen Fitzpatrick, Director of Digital Humanities and Professor of English, Michigan State University
Co-sponsored with the UBC Library as part of the “Open Scholarship in Practice” series
November 2, 2020: “Screening of The New Corporation: The Unfortunately Necessary Sequel and Q & A with Co-Director Joel Bakan,” Professor, Allard School of Law, UBC
Co-sponsored with Allard School of Law’s International Justice & Human Rights Clinic and Centre for Business Law.
October 27, 2020: “Religion and the U.S. Presidential Election,” a UBC panel moderated by Dr. Paul Quirk, Phil Lind Chair in U.S. Politics and Representation at UBC
- Dr. Leslie Paris, History: “Young Adult Voters, Religion, and the Culture Wars”
- Dr. Richard Menkis, History: “Antisemitism in the Age of Trump”
- Dr. Sunera Thobani, Asian Studies: “Islamophobia: The Politics of Hate in the U.S. Elections”
- Dr. Tony Keddie, Classical, Near Eastern, and Religious Studies: “Trumpvangelicals, the Bible, and Christian Nationalism”
- Dr. Sabina Magliocco, Anthropology, Director of Program in the Study of Religion: “Magic and Politics in the 2020 Election”
Co-sponsored with the Program in the Study of Religion, and Centre for the Study of Democratic Institutions at the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs
2019-2020
May 14, 2020: “CityLife: A Community Storytelling Project” by Prof. Tessa McWatt, Author of Shame on Me: An Anatomy of Race and Belonging and Professor of Creative Writing, University of East Anglia
Co-sponsored with UBC Creative Writing and the Centre for Community-Engaged Learning
January 28, 2020: “Exploring Environmental Humanities Through Media-Rich Visualizations” by Dr. Aleksandra Dulic, Director of the Centre for Culture and Technology and Associate Professor of the Department of Creative Studies, UBC-Okanagan
Co-sponsored with the Department of Language and Literacy Education
January 8, 2020: “George Luks, Mark Twain, and the Comic Grotesque” by Dr. Jean Lee Cole, Professor and Faculty Director of Community-Engaged Learning and Scholarship, Loyola University Maryland
Co-sponsored with the SFU Department of English and the UBC Department of English Language and Literatures and History
November 14-15, 2019 : Lightning Talks on Public Scholarship
- Dr. Jason Groves, Assistant Professor of Germanics, “Exposed: Public Environmental Humanities”
- Dr. Leigh Mercer, Associate Professor of Spanish and Comparative Literature, Cinema, and Media, “Hispanic Film Programming and the Film Festival Phenomenon
- Dr. Chelsea Grimmer, Lecturer, English, “Poetry as Public Scholarship: Activist Poetics in the Time of Social Media”
- Isaac Rivera, PhD student, Geography, “Digitizing the Sacred: Water, Struggle, and the Digital Geographies of the Ocetia Sakowin”
Co-sponsored with the UW-Simpson Center for the Humanities
October 24, 2019: “Why Humanity Needs the Humanities Now: Five Ways to Move the Humanities Into Public Space and Public Action” by Dr. Paul Yachnin, Tomlinson Professor of Shakespeare Studies, McGill University
Co-sponsored with the Department of English Language and Literatures