For a quick food stop prior to a Revolutionary Speakers’ Series lecture by Sue Johanson (of Sunday Night Sex Show fame), we opted to try Marco’s Famous in the Students’ Union Building on campus (8900 114 Street). We always walk by the “flagship” Whyte location with intentions to stop, but timing has never worked out. [...]
With The Crucible and Death of a Salesman as evidence, I thought Arthur Miller’s last play, After the Fall, would have had similar oomph. Boy, was I wrong. From the Studio Theatre website: “Miller’s After the Fall (1964) is a strongly autobiographical work, which deals with the questions of guilt and innocence, examining failed relationships, [...]
On Wednesday, May and I attended a lecture by Maher Arar at the Winspear Centre sponsored by the University of Alberta Political Science Department. I know it’s a formality at such events to have people of high academic ranking precede the main speaker to, in a sense, soften up the topical ground with grand introductions [...]
Mack and I attended the Narratives of Citizenship Conference this weekend, put on by the Graduates Students of English Association at the University of Alberta. The conference was divided into three sections – academic, artistic, and communal, though really, the concentration was on paper presentations. We were originally asked a few months ago to be [...]
Sometimes an event is witnessed that shouldn’t be reduced to text because it deserves the sensory justice of an in-the-moment experience. This was one of those nights. My APT English professor first exposed me to the work of Art Spiegelman, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Maus. It was my first brush with graphic novels, and [...]
After dinner, Dickson and I headed to the Second Playing Space in the Timms Centre for the New Works Festival, an event that features various student-created productions. The first show we watched, Flap, tells the story of a young couple who unite over their quest to save a dying bird. Dickson sarcastically commented afterwards that [...]
I ventured out late this afternoon for another International Week session titled, “Gender, Education and the HIV/AID Pandemic in Rural Malawi.” Presenting were Dr. Anne Fanning, a retired physician, and Rachel Maser, who just recently returned from a ten-month volunteer stint in Malawi with Engineers Without Borders. Dr. Fanning began the session with a whirlwind [...]
After months of self-flogging as punishment for missing Stephen Lewis’s keynote address in 2006, I made sure to take time out of my regularly scheduled workday this afternoon to attend Ronald Wright’s opening lecture for the University of Alberta’s annual International Week. Wright’s address was excerpted from his award winning Massey Lecture, A Short History [...]
I opened the Edmonton Journal this morning to read that my favorite professor, Dr. Bruce Stovel, passed away last week at 65 years young. From the Journal: “Joseph Bruce Stovel was born in Montreal. His father became the chief executive of a major manufacturing company and the family moved frequently, even settling in New York [...]
I finally took the time to read the latest edition of New Trail, the magazine for University of Alberta alumni. Featured were several graduates now working in Africa, for causes such as the rehabilitation of child soldiers, education, and HIV/AIDS treatment. Their stories are powerful, and it does amaze me that at one time, these [...]
