The Canadian Perspectives public lectures, organized by the Associates of University of Toronto Mississauga and University of Toronto Mississauga, are designed to inform and educate, offer a historical perspective on current issues, and introduce new ideas and technologies that shape lives. Funds generated through this lecture series support scholarships for University of Toronto Mississauga students.
Update - A shuttle bus will be available in parking Lot 8 to transport attendees to and from the lecture hall. A sign will be posted in Lot 8 to indicate the shuttle pick-up point.
Time: 10 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. Lunch will be served after the lecture on May 10.
Place: Lecture Hall 110, Instructional Building, University of Toronto Mississauga, 3359 Mississauga Rd. N., Mississauga, ON L5L 1C6 (map) Please note that the lecture on May 3 will be held in lecture hall 120.
Parking: Parking will be free in Lots 8 and 4 for the duration of the event. Limited accessibility parking available beside Instructional Building.
Cost: Cost to attend each lecture is $12. Lunch after the lecture on May 10 is $8. A full series pass is available for $55 and includes lunch on May 10 (see registration button above). Students are admitted for free with a valid student card.
Spring 2012 Series Speakers
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Hana's Suitcase with Karen Levine
Thursday, April 26, 2012
In the spring of 2000, a small Holocaust education center in Tokyo received a suitcase from the Auschwitz museum. It was marked “Hana Brady, May 16, 1931, Orphan.” Fumiko Ishioka and the children at the center were determined to learn more. The heartbreaking story they uncovered — of a brave young girl killed in the Holocaust and survived only by her brother, George — was captured in Karen Levine’s book Hana’s Suitcase, published in 2002. Since then, people across the country have taken Hana into their hearts. Listen as Karen Levine shares the story behind her award winning, international best-selling children's book.
Karen Levine is a producer with CBC Radio's The Sunday Edition. In her more than 30-year career at the network, she has worked at As It Happens, Morningside and This Morning. Karen has won many awards, including two prestigious Peabody Awards. She originally produced Hana's Suitcase as a radio documentary and later wrote the book. Hana's Suitcase has taken her into classrooms and communities throughout Canada, the US, Europe, Australia, and Japan. She lives in Toronto.
This series is part of the Canadian Perspectives Lecture Series to fund student scholarships at U of T Mississauga. Copies of Hana's Suitcase, including a special 10th anniversary edition, will be available for sale at this lecture. Profits will help fund student scholarships.
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I've Got a Home in Glory Land: A Lost Tale of the Underground Railroad with Karolyn Smardz Frost, PhD
Thursday, May 3, 2012
In 1985, archaeologists digging in a downtown Toronto schoolyard unearthed the remains of a house, a barn and a mysterious cellar. This was the home of Thornton and Lucie Blackburn, fugitive slaves from Kentucky whose 1831 flight to freedom made history in both Canada and the United States. Their recapture in Detroit resulted in the Blackburn Riots of 1833, and the landmark extradition case that made Canada a safe haven at the end of the Underground Railroad. In fact, the British colonial government established our first refugee reception policies to protect the Blackburns, and these remain the foundation of Canadian law to this day.
Karolyn Smardz Frost will describe how she conducted more than 20 years of research to piece together the story of the Blackburns in slavery and freedom. Her biography of the couple, entitled I’ve Got a Home in Glory Land: A Lost Tale of the Underground Railroad (Toronto: Thomas Allen Publishers & New York: Farrar Straus & Giroux, 2007) was the first entirely original biography of a fugitive slave couple since the Civil War, and won Canada’s top literary honor, the Governor General’s Award for Non-Fiction, in 2007.
Karolyn is an archaeologist and historian with a passion for public education. She holds a PhD in the study of Race, Slavery and Imperialism from the University of Waterloo, and is an award-winning author who specializes in the study of the Underground Railroad. Her next book, Steal Away Home: Letters to a Fugitive Slave, is being published early in 2012 by Harper Collins Canada.
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A New Vision of Aging for Canada with Moses Znaimer
Thursday, May 10, 2012
In the 1970s, long before Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and MySpace became worldwide phenomena, Moses anticipated the popularity of viewer-generated content.His groundbreaking concepts such as Speaker’s Corner (a video equivalent of Letters To the Editor), Videography (first-person, hand-held TV reportage), and the Streetfront/Studioless Television Operating System were at the core of some two dozen popular and independent stations and channels he co-founded and operated,
including CityTV, Bravo!, and CablePulse24, not to mention MuchMusic and MusiquePlus, which served to define a generation of Canadian youth in both official
languages.
To permanently commemorate his visionary contribution to Toronto’s urban landscape, the City of Toronto designated the famous downtown stretch in front of the former Citytv
building at 299 Queen Street West – MOSES ZNAIMER WAY.
In February 2008, Moses emerged as a champion of the Baby Boomer generation and announced A New Vision of Aging for Canada’s 14.8 million 45plus Zoomers (Boomers with a Zip!). Moses is President of CARP, Canada’s largest non-profit Advocacy Association for Canadians as we age, with 350,000 members nationwide. He is also the Founder/CEO of ZoomerMedia Limited (TSX-V: ZUM) a multi-media organization uniquely devoted to serving Zoomers’ needs and interests. ZoomerMedia publishes ZOOMER Magazine, the largest paid circulation magazine in Canada for the 45plus; operates a suite of e-newsletters and websites including the key property www.50plus.com; and produces the ZoomerShow in Toronto and Vancouver, Canada’s first large scale consumer trade show and lifestyle expo for Zoomers.
ZoomerMedia also operates The New Classical 96.3 FM & 103.1 FM, English Canada’s
only commercial All-Classical Radio Stations; The New AM740 – Zoomer Radio, the last
music service playing “The Best of The Best” adult standards and The Original Rock ‘n
Roll left on the AM dial in the GTA; MZTV P&D, a boutique independent television
production and distribution company; Toronto's prestigious ideaCity Conference featuring
50 presenters, each of whom has 17 minutes to Speak and Stimulate on a dazzling range of subjects; and the ZoomerLifeConference, a mini-ideaCity featuring talks on aging, longevity and life extension.
June 2010 marked Moses’ official return to television as ZoomerMedia Limited closed on
the acquisition of the broadcasting assets of the Vision TV Group, comprising VisionTV,
Canada’s only multi-faith, multicultural and family oriented entertainment specialty service in over 10 million homes; One: the Body Mind, Spirit and Love Channel, a digital television service about self-actualization and self-transformation available in over 1 million homes; plus two over-the-air (OTA) television stations JoyTV10 (Vancouver) and JoyTV11 (Winnipeg).
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A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Political Satire with Tom Stanley
Thursday, May 17, 2012
A sleepover at 24 Sussex Drive, skinny-dipping with Bob Rae, throwing Rick Hansen off a bridge - all capers featured on The Rick Mercer Report and all at least partly the handiwork of Tom Stanley, currently the show's Supervising Producer. Tom will take us behind the scenes of Canada's premier comedy show.
Born and raised in Mississauga, Ontario, Tom is a graduate of Erindale Secondary School and Queen's University at Kingston, where he studied history and was president of the Alma Mater Society. He has been with the CBC since 2003 except for brief intervals with MTV Canada.
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The War of 1812: Why Canada is Not a U.S. State with Ken Weber
Thursday, May 24, 2012
Who won this war? Everybody and nobody, but the native people had the most to lose and lost it all. What the war did do was shape forever the way Canada and the U.S. relate to each other, and the way the two nations conduct themselves today. Most Canadians know very little about the War of 1812 and Americans even less, yet it can be argued that for Canada, this conflict was the first important step in becoming a nation that is distinguished from its southern neighbour not just by a border but by a very different value system and a different view of life.
A passion for history has taken Ken Weber into a most enjoyable theird career: convincing Canadians through Power Point lectures that their history is fascinating. Ken retired from the University of Toronto in 1996 as one of the youngest professors ever to be awarded the title 'Emeritus'. The students at his faculty also named him Teacher of the Year. His fiction series, Five Minute Mysteries, became a bestseller in Canada, the U.S. and Japan, and is now published in twenty-two different languages, having sold millions have copies.
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