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.
The 2023/24 Public Humanities Noted Scholar Lecture Series has concluded, stay tuned for announcements about the 2024/25 series.
For announcements about upcoming PHH events, visit this webpage.
Past events
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