Every week new and exciting things are happening at Trent University. Come and be inspired through a range of events, public lectures, panel discussions and debates, all open to the community. Here’s what’s on at Trent University this month:

Monday, October 1, 2018

Alexander The Great’s Ill-Fated Court Historian
Time: 5:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.
Location: Trent Student Centre room 2.02
About: All are invited to a talk by Frances Pownall, professor at the University of Alberta. Professor Pownall is the author of Ancient Macedonians in the Greek and Roman Sources:  From History to Historiography, and a number of extensive historical commentaries on fragmentary Greek historians in Brill's New Jacoby, she has published widely on Greek history and historiography of the classical and Hellenistic periods.

Wednesday, October 3, 2018

Paving the Road to Hell: Archaeology of Violence in Ethiopia and Spain (1935-1941)
Time: 6:30 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.
Location: Bagnani Hall, Traill College
About: What did Ethiopia and Spain have in common in the 1930s? Both were sites of a new mode of war that combined totalitarian ideologies, cutting-edge technologies and preindustrial landscapes. They were thus a prelude to the sort of violence that would prevail in many theaters of the Second World War. In this talk, Dr. Alfredo Gonzalez-Ruibal, of the Council of Advanced Research in Spain, will draw on archaeological projects that he has conducted in the two countries since 2006. He looks at the conflicts from an archaeological point of view, showing what the material remains of the past can tell us about total war and the people–soldiers and civilians, women and men - who experienced it. 

Canadian Labour Congress President Hassan Yussuff
Time: 7:00 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.
Location: Peterborough Public Library, 345 Aylmer St N.
About: Hassan Yussuff, president of the Canadian Labour Congress will address one of the most pressing concerns of our time for educational workers and students: the growth of precarious work in Canada.

Power, Politics and Justice in the World Food Economy
Annual David Morrison Lecture in International Development
Time: 7:30 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.
Location: Market Hall, 140 Charlotte Street
About: Dr. Jennifer Clapp, Canada research chair in Global Food Security & Sustainability at the University of Waterloo. Recent mergers among some of the world’s largest agrifood companies underline the extent to which just a handful of giant firms have come to dominate the global food system. As the power of transnational agrifood corporations has grown, debates have intensified over what it means for efforts to promote more just and sustainable food systems around the world. This lecture explores how corporate power in the global food system is being expressed in new ways, its implications for world food security and sustainability, and the politics of efforts to resist it.

Wednesday, October 10, 2018

Aging Studies Late Life Homelessness: Aging on the Streets, in Shelters, and Long-Term Care
Time: 5:30 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.
Location: Bagnani Hall, Traill College
About: Dr. Amanda Grenier, McMaster University, discusses the results of her four year ethnographic study on homelessness in Montreal, Quebec. Key findings highlight a shift in the age profile of homelessness in Canada, the lack of recognition of older people in strategies on homelessness, length of stay of older men compared to younger men, and insights from stakeholders and older people. Professor Grenier outlines the contradictions that exist between planning for older people and older people who are homeless; most notably, underlining how older people with experiences of homelessness experience unequal aging in locations that are not only misaligned with frameworks of health and well-being in late life, but also considered ‘undesirable.’

Thursday, October 11, 2018

The Endless Everyday: How People Fight and Nourish Apocalyptic Thought
Time: 7:30 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.
Location: Scott House Senior Common Room, Traill College
About: Drawing off the work of Frank Kermode, Ian Reader, and Benjamin Zeller, PhD candidate Joe Yang looks at how doomsday cults like Aum Shinrikyo and Heaven’s Gate understood the everyday and how they actively incorporated everydayness to legitimize group catastrophization. This talk also looks at how everydayness as both a quasi-practice and an idea persists outside of organized doomsday cults, mainly in popular media.

For a full calendar of Trent events.