Past Events
Travel Group March 11, 2021
Vietnam and Cambodia: Bicycling up the Mekong from Saigon to Luang Prabang
On March 11 Claire Weeks, emerita Rehab Medicine and Peter Wing, emeritus Spinal Orthopaedics will share their experiences on a trip through Vietnam, beginning independently in January 2019 as they took the train from Hanoi through the northern and middle regions en route to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon). There they met a group of Vancouver-based friends who had arranged an organized bike tour through the southern region, exploring the Mekong Delta and then travelling up the Mekong into Cambodia and Laos. All in all, they travelled for nearly a month, learned a great deal of history, were introduced to several related cultures, enjoyed fantastic food and experienced the hottest temperatures (low 40s!) they had ever had to contend with when biking. They survived, gaining new perspectives on the Vietnam war (aka the American war) and learning about some of the regional challenges.
If you are currently not on the email list of the EC travel interest group and wish to receive our mailings, please contact Paul Steinbok at psteinbok@cw.bc.ca.
A zoom link will be sent out 2 days before each meeting.
Thursday, 11 March 2021 - 4:00pmCouncil Meeting - March 10
The Council will meet online.
Wednesday, 10 March 2021 - 10:30am to 12:30pm
Photo Group February 2021
The theme for the February meeting will be “Shape and Colour”. Please submit three photos, plus (if you wish) “before and after” versions of one or two of them, to show how you changed the original out of camera photo to get the result you were looking for.
Send the photos to richard@rhspencer.ca. You can send them as email attachments, zip files, or downloads from an online site. If you include them in the body of an email, you should avoid letting your software reduce the size of the photos to any resolution less than about 1000 x 800 pixels (within reason, bigger is generally better!).
If you would like to join, please contact Richard Spencer for the zoom-link at richard@rhspencer.ca
Friday, 26 February 2021 - 4:00pm
Film Group February 24, 2021
Series Eleven – Filmed Intellectuals
The films can be screened via the Kanopy streaming site of the Vancouver Public Library
Zoom discussions of each film will take place on: Jan. 27, Feb. 24 and Mar. 31 at 4pm
Hosted by John LeBlanc
Series Eleven: Films featuring intellectuals face serious difficulties in presenting such complex and unique individuals in a medium that often relies on formulaic structures within its standard two hour limit. Film director Margarethe von Trotta, has addressed this problem by attempting to engage intimately with her subjects, requiring that she identify to some degree with them (for example, as a woman railing against male oppression) as well as trying to discover the real person through their letters, close associates and places they inhabited. The two hour time limit also requires identifying a representative moment in the individual’s life. These three films, all by women directors, feature, in the first two films, internationally known intellectuals and, in the third film, a fictional thinker, offering an additional difficulty of creating what a contemporary intellectual might look like. All three films share a focus on intellectuals as figures of exile, not only mental because of their advanced ideas but also physical, suffering displacement that shows they are not merely mind but also flesh and blood.
Feb. 24 - Stefan Zweig: Farewell to Europe (2016) – directed by Maria Schrader - focuses on this Austrian Jewish writer (very popular in the 1920s and 30s Europe), featuring his journey of exile from the Nazis that ends up in Brazil. For Zweig (played by German actor Joseph Hader), a cosmopolitan multi-lingual who did not identify with Zionism or even with Jewish heritage, Brazil, with its relaxed mixing of races, represented the possibility of and a model for a race-free transnational future. However, unlike Hannah Arendt, Zweig had difficulty engaging with the lived Brazilian culture of his exile there and it is speculated that he may have moved on to other harbours.
Travel Group February 18, 2021
Beverley Green and Paul Steinbok will talk about their individual experiences with cruising in the Galapagos. Beverley was on the National Geographic "Endeavor II,” a luxury expedition ship with a maximum of 95 guests. She did the Eastern Galapagos circuit, while Paul was on the Coral 2, a luxury yacht with 12 passengers, which did the Western Galapagos circuit.
If you are currently not on the email list of the EC travel interest group and wish to receive our mailings, please contact Paul Steinbok at psteinbok@cw.bc.ca.
A zoom link will be sent out 2 days before each meeting.
Thursday, 18 February 2021 - 4:00pm
General Meeting February 17, 2021
PROSPECTS FOR INTERNATIONAL POLITICS AFTER TRUMP
The last four years have seen many of the norms of international politics disrupted by the outgoing American administration. What are the prospects for the future: a return to the status quo ante, more of the same, or the emergence of a new set of dynamics governing world politics? And how do Canada and Canada-US relations fit into this changing world?
In a discussion moderated by Professor Emeritus Ken Carty (Political Science), Professors Richard Price and Allen Sens (Political Science) will address these questions, considering the shape of international relations in the next decade and questions of security, conflict, and the future of NATO.
Allen Sens (PhD, Queen’s) specializes in international relations, with a research and teaching focus on international security. He has a particular interest in armed conflict and conflict management, especially peace
operations, nuclear weapons and arms control, European security, and Canadian foreign and defence policy.
Richard Price (PhD, Cornell) specializes in international relations. His research interests focus on the role of norms in world politics, particularly norms limiting warfare; constructivist international relations theory; normative international relations theory; the politics of international law; and ethics in world politics.
Time line
1:30pm Business Meeting
1:45pm Panel: Prospects for International Politics after Trump: Richard Price & Alan Sens
2:30pm Q&A
3:00pm End of Meeting