Courses and Events

Upcoming event(s)

Lunch and learn

Watch recordings of recent lectures in the Liberal Arts and 55+ Program 

• Climate Change and Your Health: Lecturer Cecilia Sierra-Heredia of SFU's Faculty of Health Sciences explores the health impacts of climate change. 
  
• Comics and Graphic Novels on the Refugee Crisis: This talk examines the history and power of graphic novels and comics in recounting the refugee experience. 

Identity and Citizenship

Watch recordings of our 2020-21 Conversation Series on Identity and Citzenship.

• Here and There: The Pilgrim’s Progress: Canadian-Iranian novelist Nazanine Hozar engages with how the unfolding of Iran’s 1979 revolution, as experienced in Aria, uncovers an urgent universal tale.
• Where Are You (Really) From?: Award-winning novelist and SFU English professor David Chariandy explores how belonging shifts across lands and time—and how fiction illuminates that journey.
• Why Can’t I Be Where I Want?: Political scientist Antje Ellermann explores the question of whether citizenship is ultimately about the right of each State to determine who belongs. 
• Why Can’t I Say What I Want?: Legal scholar Richard Moon delves into timely questions surrounding how we balance freedom of expression and hate speech. 
• Here and There: In-Between Worlds: In this wide-ranging conversation, novelist Anar Ali explores questions of identity and citizenship, and how migration places us between worlds: here and there.

Videos from our archives

Watch recordings of our past Saturday Forum lectures and other events to spark your curiosity and learn something new.

• Changing Coins in a Changing Culture: What has prompted some countries to get rid of the penny while others continue to hold on to it? This lecture considers the penny’s contributions and whether it can truly be replaced.
• Nights (and Days) at the Vancouver Opera: Vancouver Opera director James Wright shares what it takes to run a major regional opera company in North America.
• Egypt at a Turning Point: Explore how the 2011 revolution in Egypt intensified the struggle of competing groups and belief systems to define the country’s national character.
• Rome, the Eternal City: Discover art, history and treasures in the ancient city of Rome.
  
• Clothing the Son of Heaven: The Emperor’s Robe: By the 18th century, the Emperor of China’s formal wardrobe was a spectacular, highly codified costume. This lecture examines the cultural values and contradictions embodied by the Emperor’s robe.
• Crocodiles, Mummies, and Ancient Egypt: What was ancient Egypt really like? This lecture explores the role of archaeology in piecing together nearly 3,000 years of ancient history.
• The Happiest History on Earth: The Disneyland Story: Explore the ideas, experiments and changes that have taken place since the original Disneyland park’s opening.
• Social Life of Taste: Critical Geographies of Food and Consumption: Examine how food choices shape spaces, influence land use and affect the formation of communities. 
• The History of Human Desire: The world of advertising is founded on a mechanism of desire: we want to buy something because it is portrayed as desired by others. In this lecture, we explore whether desire is an illusion we use to construct our own identity.
• Staying Healthy—Bad Habits, Goals and Happiness: Learn insights from health psychology on what influences our everyday decisions on how to stay healthy. 
• The Industrial Production of Popular Culture: Industrially produced culture is all around us, yet we rarely think about what it means or how we consume it. We explore whether mass production limits what popular culture can express.  
• Albert Einstein, Most Comprehensibly Incomprehensible Rebel-Genius: Take a closer look at the life and work of Albert Einstein, the past century’s most comprehensibly incomprehensible cultural icon.
• Street Photography: The Imaginary, the Tangible and the Obvious: Watch this lecture for a colourful journey into the implications, contexts, motives and variations of street photography.
• 1960s Vancouver: Music, Mini-Skirts and Revolution: What was Vancouver’s contribution to the political and social change of the 1960s? In this lecture, we explore the city’s vibrant and rebellious past.
• Christmas Trees in Myth, History and our Daily Lives: An affinity for trees spans the globe and touches nearly every culture. Explore how trees have shaped our lives and histories.