Upcoming Events
Travel Group November 26
We plan to have short presentations and informal discussions about places visited during the pandemic, focusing not only on what to see and do, but also on safety issues during the pandemic, such as those related to activities, accommodations and meals.
If you would like to join the meeting and are not on the regular email list for the travel interest group, please contact Paul Steinbok at psteinbok@cw.bc.ca to be added to the email list and receive the Zoom-link.
Thursday, 26 November 2020 - 3:00pm
Senior Scholars' Series - November
"Workplace exposures, motherhood, and bicycling: Paths to and through academia"
Kay Teschke in conversation with Jerry Wasserman
Kay Teschke
Professor Emerita of Population and Public Health (2017)
After a degree in economics, Kay tried law school but was bored and broke, so found a job in a local factory. Blue collar working conditions were a shock and inspired a clear research focus for the next 33 years: assessing hazardous industrial exposures. Through the years, she typically biked to work. After her daughter was born, she noticed that the hierarchy of work exposure controls she taught to students was completely upside down for bicycling, with the emphasis on helmets instead of crash prevention engineering. This inspired a new program of research on bicycling injury prevention.
Jerry Wasserman
Professor Emeritus of English and Theatre (2017)
Jerry Wasserman retired in 2016 after 44 years teaching at UBC. Jerry is also an actor and theatre critic with Lifetime Achievement awards from the Canadian Association for Theatre Research and the Greater Vancouver Professional Theatre Association. He is a member of the BC Entertainment Hall of Fame.
Co-sponsors: Emeritus College and Green College
Thursday, 26 November 2020 - 5:00pm to 6:30pm
Virtual Common Room Nov 27
Connection and camaraderie are foundation stones of the UBC Emeritus College.
College members are connected to our university by a number of threads that can be as slender or robust as we make them individually. These connections bring a parcel of benefits to us all, from library and email access to support for continuing scholarly activities. But interpersonal connections and the camaraderie that stems from familiarity, shared experiences and interests, and trust are also vital to a happy retirement, and precisely because they are less institutional, they are more vulnerable to attenuation in this time of COVID-19, when it is difficult for us to meet in person in groups of any size.
To combat this, we are opening a Virtual Common Room for Emeritus College members. It will be open – on Zoom – in term one, from 3:30 to 5 pm each Friday afternoon from September 18th to December 4th. Participation will be capped at 20. There will be no agenda. The intent is that you drop in (as some might once have to the Faculty Club of yore) to see who is there and share thoughts and conversations. One week we might talk about books – or about how the Canucks (almost) won the Stanley Cup; another about global affairs or the challenges of exercising during a COVID winter. Just show up and join in. Make new acquaintances, meet old friends, and (if you will) raise a glass to postretirement life (secure in the knowledge that you don’t have to drive – or cycle – home).
Register in advance for these meeting (at any point in the term).
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting. There is no commitment to attend regularly or frequently. But only those who register as above will receive instructions for the Zoom meeting We will send an email reminder with registration details every couple of weeks.
I look forward to seeing you on my screen.
Graeme
Film Group November 30
After a COVID-19 imposed hiatus, we will re-activate the Film Group by taking advantage of the European Film Festival.
The films (with links to each film description and information on how to purchase each movie, viewing dates and the time of the planned Zoom discussion also indicated):
Helene (Finland – directed by Antti Jokinen, 122 minutes): Nov 29-30 – Zoom: Monday, November 30 at 4pm
You will need to purchase the film yourself for $12 and watch the film within the indicated 48 hour window. Click on the link of the movie and you will find more information on how to purchase the movie. You can also buy a pass. More information is available on the EU website.
When: November 19, 23 and 30 at 4pm
Where: Zoom – Please register by email at manager@emerituscollege.ubc.ca
November 30 – Helene
Talented veteran filmmaker Antti Jokinen’s exquisite period piece is a biographical drama about groundbreaking Finnish painter, Helene Schjerfbeck (1862 – 1946). Set in 1915, the film finds the then 53-year-old Helene, now largely a forgotten artist, living in the countryside with her elderly mother. Her last exhibition was years ago, but Helene has continued to paint for herself out of a deep commitment to art.
Her quiet, reclusive life changes when she is visited by an art dealer, who discovers Helene and her many impressive paintings and wants to organize a large solo exhibition. This leads to an even bigger change. As a result of this new interest in her work, Helene meets amateur painter Einar Reuter, who is a passionate admirer of Helene's art. Their friendship blossoms, as Einar soon becomes Helene's close confidante and, perhaps, the love of her life. Given that he is 19 years her junior, however, can their relationship last?
A fascinating commentary on the role of women artists in the early 20th century, Helene is also an evocative portrait of a Finnish society in transition against the distant backdrop of World War I. An elegant and artful film, Helene also features a marvellous performance by Laura Birn in the title role.
When: Monday, November 30 at 4:00 pm
Where: Zoom link by request to manager@emerituscollege.ubc.ca
UBC Emeritus College Conversations - December 1, 2020
Writing lives: A Conversation
Seeking to encourage and sustain engagement among Emeritus College members and a wider audience, when even moderately-sized in-person gatherings are impossible, the UBC Emeritus College invites you to join one of our upcoming conversations on a topic of broad and current importance. Convened every month, on the Zoom platform, conversations will be interactive and moderated. They will begin with three short presentations from Emeritus colleagues, offering different perspectives on the chosen topic. After a short discussion among panelists, audience members will be invited to join the conversation.
In Waterland, English novelist Graham Smith insisted that humans – and only humans – are story-telling animals and observed that “As long as there's a story, it's all right.” Stories of lives lived fascinate (or appall) inspire, guide and help us to understand that we are not alone. Whether as biography, autobiography, memoir or diary, telling the story of a life is a profoundly humanistic endeavour. This conversation carries us into these realms as we hear from:
Sherrill Grace (English) about her recently published biography of Timothy Findley
Sneja Gunew (English and the Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice) about the ways in which refugees and immigrants have rewritten the aesthetic and conceptual scaffolding of the traumascapes that constitute their lives (Behrouz Boochani),
Philip Resnick (political scientist and poet) about his venture into autobiography with Itineraries.
Our moderator is the noted biographer and literary critic, Ira Nadel.
Please find relevant supplementary material by clicking on the link.
Speakers:
Sherrill Grace
University Killam Professor Emeritus of English (2014)
Sherrill Grace, OC, FRSC is a UBC University Killam Professor Emerita. She has published extensively on Canadian Literature and Culture with books on Malcolm Lowry, Sharon Pollock, Tom Thomson, the two World Wars, the Canadian North, and most recently Tiff: A Life of Timothy Findley (2020).
Sneja Gunew
Professor Emerita of English and the Social Justice Institute (2014)
Sneja Gunew (FRSC) is Professor Emerita of English and the Social Justice Institute at UBC. She has published widely on multicultural, postcolonial and feminist critical theory and is the author of Framing Marginality: Multicultural Literary Studies (1994) and Haunted Nations: The Colonial Dimensions of Multiculturalisms (2004). She has also edited and co-edited eleven books. Her most recent book is titled: Post-Multicultural Writers as Cosmopolitan Mediators (2017).
Philip Resnick
Professor Emeritus of Political Science (2013)
In Itineraries, Philip Resnick focuses on a number of currents that have shaped his intellectual development. His memoir is thematic in character and touches on a broad range of themes including religion, nationalism, socialism and the left, the writing of poetry, academic freedom, Canadian identity, B.C. regionalism, and the passage of time. All this in trying to answer the question “What was it all about?”
Moderator
Ira Nadel
Professor Emeritus of English (2020)
Ira Nadel (FRSC), Professor of English Emeritus (2020), has written biographies of Leonard Cohen, Tom Stoppard, David Mamet and Leon Uris. His other publications include Biography: Fiction, Fact & Form, Joyce and the Jews and Modernism’s Second Act. Philip Roth, A Counterlife will appear in the spring of 2021. His new work involves Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes.
Privacy and Consent to Recording
Please note that this event will be recorded via Zoom and posted publicly. The recording may contain attendees’ names and images. We recognize that this may be undesirable for some participants. If you do not wish for your name or image to be used in the video, please leave your video turned off during the event. You may also change your name to something generic like “Participant” or “Anonymous” in the Zoom meeting room by selecting yourself from the participants list and editing your name. By registering for this event and clicking the Zoom link that will be emailed to you, you consent to being recorded. If you do not want to participate in the live session, the recording will be posted at a later date to our YouTube channel.
Tuesday, 1 December 2020 - 2:30pm to 3:30pmVirtual Common Room Dec 4
Connection and camaraderie are foundation stones of the UBC Emeritus College.
College members are connected to our university by a number of threads that can be as slender or robust as we make them individually. These connections bring a parcel of benefits to us all, from library and email access to support for continuing scholarly activities. But interpersonal connections and the camaraderie that stems from familiarity, shared experiences and interests, and trust are also vital to a happy retirement, and precisely because they are less institutional, they are more vulnerable to attenuation in this time of COVID-19, when it is difficult for us to meet in person in groups of any size.
To combat this, we are opening a Virtual Common Room for Emeritus College members. It will be open – on Zoom – in term one, from 3:30 to 5 pm each Friday afternoon from September 18th to December 4th. Participation will be capped at 20. There will be no agenda. The intent is that you drop in (as some might once have to the Faculty Club of yore) to see who is there and share thoughts and conversations. One week we might talk about books – or about how the Canucks (almost) won the Stanley Cup; another about global affairs or the challenges of exercising during a COVID winter. Just show up and join in. Make new acquaintances, meet old friends, and (if you will) raise a glass to postretirement life (secure in the knowledge that you don’t have to drive – or cycle – home).
Register in advance for these meeting (at any point in the term).
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting. There is no commitment to attend regularly or frequently. But only those who register as above will receive instructions for the Zoom meeting We will send an email reminder with registration details every couple of weeks.
I look forward to seeing you on my screen.
Graeme