TLL Fall 2020 Webinar Program
TLL is offering TWO online series this Fall
You can register for one or both
A multi-topic series of 5 webinars (for $30) - on Thursdays in October
A single topic series of 3 webinars (for $18) - on Wednesdays in November
Click here for registration and payment
October Multi-Topic Series (5 webinars)
These webinars will take place on Thursdays from 2:00-3:30 PM
China, Surveillance and the West
Thursday Oct 1, 2020, 2:00 PM
Emile Dirks
The Chinese government is building one of the world's largest systems of surveillance and repression. Through a mixture of policing, detention, and (biometric) data collection, the Chinese government seeks to deepen its control over society and maintain its authoritarian political rule. Many of these police-led efforts are directed at Chinese citizens long viewed by authorities as political or social threats. Yet as the detention of Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor indicate, even non-Chinese citizens can find themselves targeted by China's powerful security services.
With bilateral tensions heightened due to the trial of Huawei CFO Menu Wanzhou, how should people in Canada view deepening surveillance and repression in China? And how might examining state surveillance and repression in China help us understand comparable issues of privacy and policing here in Canada and in the United States?
Emile Dirks is a PhD candidate in the Department of Political Science at the University of Toronto.
A Mandarin Chinese speaker, his writing has appeared in the New York Times, Foreign Policy, VICE, and the Globe and Mail. His co-authored report (written with Prof. James Leibold of La Trobe University) for the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, “Genomic Surveillance: Inside China's DNA dragnet”, examined a little known program of national police-led DNA data collection targeting men and boys and was the basis for a New York Times investigative report.
Canada’s Waste Crisis and What We Can Do About It: (Hint: Not Recycle More)
Thursday Oct 8, 2020, 2:00 PM
Dr. Myra Hird
Canadian municipalities, like those in other countries, all emphasize the 3R’s of waste: reduce, reuse, and recycle. Of these three, recycling is the least environmentally friendly but benefits industry and government.
Drawing upon her research on waste issues in Canada, Myra’s presentation argues that government and industry cooperate to successfully foster an ‘environmental citizenship’ based on individual and household waste diversion (e.g., recycling).
In so doing, Canadians are encouraged to focus on their own, their neighbours’, families, and friends’ recycling behaviours rather than on the much more voluminous quantities (and often toxicity) of industrial, commercial, military and agricultural waste.
These practices divert our attention from both the production of waste, and ‘upstream’ solutions.
Dr. Myra J. Hird is Professor, Queen's National Scholar, and Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in the School of Environmental Studies, Queen’s University, Canada (www.myrahird.com).
Professor Hird is Director of Waste Flow, an interdisciplinary research project focused on waste as a global scientific-technical and socio-ethical issue (www.wasteflow.ca).
Dr. Hird has published nine books and over seventy articles and book chapters on a diversity of topics relating to science studies. Hird’s forthcoming book is entitled Canada’s Waste Flows and will be published by McGill-Queen’s University Press.
Come To The Table! How Major World Events Shaped Our Food and Dining Customs
Thursday Oct 15, 2020, 2:00 PM
Dr. Laura Carlson
In this lecture, historian and writer Dr. Laura Carlson explores the history hiding on your dinner plate.
Explore how common Canadian ingredients and table manners tell a fascinating story about world history, stretching back thousands of years.
From ancient Roman trade routes to medieval political intrigue, the lecture will discuss the global events that have impacted our modern food ways and culinary customs, including, why are salt and pepper commonly placed on dinner tables? What beloved ancient food inspired both ketchup and Worcestershire sauce?
From economics to politics to warfare, we’ll dig into the surprising origins of some of our most beloved dishes and ways of eating.
Dr. Laura Carlson holds a Doc. Phil. in History from Oxford University and an M.A. from the University of Toronto. She has taught history, classics, and food studies at Queen’s University and Centennial College.
She is currently the executive producer and host of The Feast, an award-winning podcast dedicated to the great meals that made history. She works internationally as a historian, writer, researcher, and audio producer with such partners as Heritage Toronto, America's Test Kitchen, the Southern Foodways Alliance, NPR, and Bloomberg Media.
Recently, she has been featured as a lecturer for Hot Doc’s Curious Minds lecture series and has appeared on CBS Sunday Morning.
Bats: Why We Love Them, Why We Need Them And How They Fit Into Covid-19
Thursday Oct 22, 2019, 2:00 PM
Dr. Dan Riskin
Bats are wonderful creatures worthy of our respect, admiration and conversation dollars. They eat mosquitoes, pollinate the plants that give us tequila and disperse seeds to help damaged rain forests come back after logging.
Bats are getting a lot of attention right now because of the virus behind the current global pandemic likely came from them.
Dan Riskin holds a PhD from his work on this often-misunderstood mammal. He’ll give an overview of the animals he loves, talk about how they fit into the story of COVID-19, and explain why, now more than ever, they need our support and appreciation.
Dr. Dan Riskin is a biologist, TV presenter and author. He is best known in Canada as the co-host of Daily Planet on The Discovery Channel, as the best-selling author of Mother Nature is Trying to Kill You, and as CTV’s Science and Technology Specialist appearing regularly on CTV national and local news broadcasts.
Dan’s first scientific love is bats and he has spent decades travelling the world studying the biomechanics of how they move.
Dan holds an adjunct professorship at the University of Toronto Mississauga and leads yearly wildlife tours around the world (to see bats and more) with Quest Nature Tours. He was featured on CNN’s recent special on bats with Anderson Cooper.
The Next American President and the Future of World Order
Thursday Oct 29, 2020, 2:00 PM
Dr. Aaron Ettinger
The 2020 US presidential election has been called a contest for the soul of America. It is also a battle for the future of world order.
For four years, Donald Trump has been openly hostile to the system of US leadership that has preserved the longest period of peace and prosperity in human history. Joe Biden promises a return to normalcy.
But in 2020, “normal” is no longer an option. In this lecture, Dr. Aaron Ettinger will discuss the foreign policy positions of the two presidential candidates and what it means for world order.
Dr. Aaron Ettinger is an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at Carleton University, specializing in US foreign policy and International Relations.
His research focuses on continuity and change in US foreign policy since 2001 and its implications for global politics. He is especially interested in the ideas that underpin American foreign policy.
His published research addresses US and Canadian foreign policy, the private military industry, and the teaching of International Relations.
As a lifelong sports fan, he also dabbles in the politics of sports. In the classroom, Dr. Ettinger has taught politics courses on world order, US and Canadian foreign policy, the politics of war, transatlantic defence, globalization, and human rights. Before joining the Department of Political Science at Carleton, he taught at the University of Waterloo, Dalhousie University, and Queen’s University.
November Single Topic Series (3 webinars)
These webinars will take place on Wednesdays from 1:00-2:30 PM
Adam Nayman is a critic, lecturer and author based in Toronto. He writes on film for the Ringer and teaches at the University of Toronto. He has written three books on cinema; his fourth, Masterworks: The Films of Paul Thomas Anderson, will be published this October by Abrams. Check out Adam’s book The Coen Brothers: This Book Really Ties the Films Together
The Evolution of the Hollywood Musical
Adam Nayman
Adam Nayman did a webinar on the Coen brothers last spring to rave reviews. So we invited him back for a 3 part series on Hollywood Musicals.
In this three-part lecture series, film critic and author Adam Nayman will analyze the history, evolution, major figures and prevailing aesthetics of screen musicals, beginning with the inception of sound recording for motion pictures in the 1920s and all the way into our digital streaming present tense.
Films that will be looked at include The Jazz Singer, The Wizard of Oz, Singin' in the Rain, Cabaret, 8 Mile and La La Land.
Wednesday Nov 4, 1:00 PM: “Over the Rainbow”
Wednesday Nov 11, 1:00 PM: “Trouble with a Capital T”
Wednesday Nov 18, 1:00 PM: “In the Musicals”