Langara Lecture Series: Fancy That!
September 16 - December 2, 2009
Wednesdays, 12:00 pm
Free Admission at the Vancouver Public Library
Main Branch - 350 W. Georgia St.
Alice MacKay Room
| September 16 Peter Prontzos |
Pandora’s Curse |
| September 23 Rachel Mines |
The Titanic: A Family Mystery |
| September 30 Cathy Sosnowsky |
The Unexpectedly Fanciful in Serious Literature, and the Unexpectedly Serious in Playful Literature |
| October 7 Alister Browne |
Advance Directives |
| October 21 Dale Beyerstein |
Romanticism’s Fancy Footwork with the Truth |
| October 28 Florence Roy |
Going Places, Seeing Things: Travel and Photography |
| November 4 Craig Keating |
Ornamentalism: Reading Homes and Gardens |
| November 18 Martin Toren |
The World of Malcolm Gladwell |
| November 25 Cathy Sosnowsky |
Romantic Love: Illusion or Delusion? |
| December 2 Denise Panchysyn |
Why Does Contemporary Art Sell? |
Pandora’s Curse
Peter Prontzos, September 16
After Pandora opened the jar and let loose all the evils in the world, she closed it just in time to prevent hope from escaping. Is hope the final evil, or is it a precious gift? In life, as in politics, wishful thinking can lead us into disaster, or provide the vision that we need to find our way. We will explore this idea.
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The Titanic: A Family Mystery
Rachel Mines, September 23
Family legend has it that my mother’s uncle David, a would-be immigrant to Canada, died on the Titanic. But without records of his death, and with the disappearance of his wife and child soon afterwards, the truth of that legend could never be established. Now, almost 100 years later, we have used modern technology – and a lot of detective work – to reconstruct David’s fascinating and tragic story, solve a mystery, and reunite a family.
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The Unexpectedly Fanciful in Serious Literature, and the Unexpectedly Serious in Playful Literature
Cathy Sosnowsky, September 30
We think of some writers as being “heavy” and some as being “light”. But often they defy our categorizations and surprise us with the whimsical in the serious, or the serious in the whimsical. All we can say is “Fancy that!” Examples will be drawn from Lewis Carroll, T.S. Eliot, and Hafiz (among others).
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Advance Directives
Alister Browne, October 7
Advance Directives allow individuals to project their health care preferences into a time whey they can no longer make decisions for themselves. What kinds of directives are there? What is their legal force? What are their risks and benefits? Who should have one and who should not? This will not be a grim talk, in fact, humour is a necessary component.
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Romanticism’s Fancy Footwork with the Truth
Dale Beyerstein, October 21
Ever since the Romantic revival in the mid 1800s, the preferred strategy for attacking reason is to offer the imagination (fancy) as a superior alternative for discovering how things really are. After all, one cannot attack reason directly without appearing obviously irrational. I grant that imagination has its uses for entertainment, but does the imagination really have much of a role to play in discovering reality? I argue that, contrary to the Romantics, the role of imagination here is very minimal.
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Going Places, Seeing Things: Travel and Photography
Florence Roy, October 28
High in the Andes, two llamas charged toward me. To my left was a rock wall. To my right was a cliff. Photo op!
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Ornamentalism: Reading Homes and Gardens
Craig Keating, November 4
A move away from function and toward a highly stylized ornamentation in building and landscape design has become a hallmark of middle class and suburban culture in North America over the last century-and-a-half. Against notions that view this development as a function of mere market demand, this lecture will examine some of the key components of this style and inquire into the relations of power (social and cultural) that it served to further.
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The World of Malcolm Gladwell
Martin Toren, November 18
Seldom has a Canadian author had three books listed by the Globe and Mail as best-sellers all at the same time. Malcolm Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point, Blink, and Outliers is the Canadian-born son of a Jamaican immigrant. He has a knack for pointing out seemingly perverse realities: SUVs are the most dangerous genre of passenger cars on the road; success in hockey seems to be determined by birth dates; the spread of fashions and ideas seems to mirror the spread of diseases; these are only three of many anomalies Gladwell explains. At the same time, he is able to relate them to the development of the human brain, the course of human history, and various sociological phenomena. A real achievement, indeed!
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Romantic Love: Illusion or Delusion?
Cathy Sosnowsky, November 25
The fact that between one third and one half of marriages end in divorce clearly indicates that something is wrong with the way we approach marriage. I suggest that the problem is our expectations of romantic love. Join me in an exploration of some of the absurdities of love.
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Why Does Contemporary Art Sell?
Denise Panchysyn, December 2
And it does! This talk was inspired by several comments and questions I received after my talk on contemporary art last fall. Most of us are completely stunned by what passes for art today. For instance, why would a collector buy a tank of water containing two basketballs for a price that would shock most of us. This talk will look beyond the artworks to consider the world of contemporary art – the art schools, dealers, auction houses, critics, magazines and art fairs. This is the world most of us don’t see that gives today’s art is imprimatur.
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