Past events
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March 4, 2026Perspectives on Ethical Policing
In 1919, German sociologist Max Weber defined the state as “a human community that successfully claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of violence within a given territory.” Weber’s definition can be interpreted as follows: Physical violence may only be used legitimately by the state itself; all…
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March 2, 2026Who Should Care? A Health Equity Film Screening and Discussion
Many social and structural factors make it difficult for some people to reach their fullest health potential. Health equity means that all people, regardless of social, economic, or environmental conditions, can access and act on opportunities needed to do so. In a politically uncertain…
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February 26, 2026Scorrete lagrime mie: Can a Trombone Weep as Well as a Voice?
Scorrete lagrime mie; flow, my tears. Tears of sorrow, of joy, of penance, of self-pity; pious tears, passionate tears, tears of longing, of betrayal; tears shed for God; because “faith is dead” or “the stars have no pity”; tears as one's only sustenance, or as a sole refuge of solace. Tears of…
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February 25, 2026Power of Play
Play and sport can be deeply social forces that shape who feels welcome, who is seen as belonging, and who is pushed to the edges. In this session, we explore the transformative power of play: how play can build community, create openings for joy and identity, and also reveal the rules about who…
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February 23, 2026Knowing When You Are: Time and Navigation in the History of Science
The history of science is a rather obscure field that examines how we have come to know the world through scientific inquiry. It is concerned with the chronology of discoveries and innovations, but also more deeply with the social and philosophical context of scientific work. In this talk, Michael…
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February 12, 2026Getting Into, and Branching Out From, Immunology: A UBC Career of Research, Teaching, Mentoring, and Leadership
For Dr Mike Gold, being a UBC faculty member has been a rewarding career spanning over three decades. He led a research laboratory and trained the next generation of scientists, engaged students in multiple courses, mentored students and junior faculty members, took on leadership roles, and…
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February 11, 2026Lives of Archivists and Scholars
This second event of the ‘Living Archives’ series looks at how archives are a vehicle for historical and personal discoveries, and how we can creatively engage with scholarly texts in fiction and poetry. Aislinn Hunter’s novel The World Before Us features an archivist in a small London museum…
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February 10, 2026"Heaven Has Eyes": Canadian Book Launch
Philip Holden’s short story collection Heaven Has Eyes spans three cities—Singapore, Vancouver, and London—exploring belonging across space, language, culture, and time. Its new North American edition contains new stories that consider the place of the past in the present, and which are also…
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February 9, 2026Green College and the Origins of the Semiconductor Industry
Semiconductors make the world go round. As the foundation of modern electronics, semiconductor chips power everything from smartphones, automobiles, and artificial intelligence. An engineering miracle, these small but powerful chips operate behind the scenes as one of the defining industries of our…
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February 5, 2026AI and Co-researching: Hallucinations are a Feature of LLMs—Let’s Use Them
AI confabulations are integral to how large language models (LLMs) work. They are a feature, not a bug. LLMs are trained on texts, not truths. Each text bears traces of its context, including its genre, voice, audience, and the history and local politics of its place of origin. A correct sentence…