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:

Thursday, November 1, 2018

Program Earth: From Environmental Sensing to Citizen Sensing
Time: 7:30 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.
Location: Bagnani Hall, Traill College
About: The drive to instrument the planet, to make the earth programmable not primarily from outer space but from within the contours of earthly space, has translated into a situation where there are now more “things” connected to the Internet than there are people. By sensing environmental conditions as well as detecting changes in environmental patterns, sensors are generating remote stores of data that, through algorithmic parsing and processing, are meant to activate responses, whether automated or human-based, so that a more seamless, intelligent, efficient, and potentially profitable set of processes may unfold, especially within the contours of the smart city. Yet what are the implications for wiring up environments in these ways, and how does the sensor-actuator logic implicit in these technologies not only program environments but also program the sorts of citizens and collectives that might concretize through these processes? Dr. Jennifer Gabrys is a professor in the department of Sociology at the University of Cambridge.

Friday, November 2, 2018

Peterborough Fall Open House
Time: 10:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.
Location: Trent University Symons Campus
About: Each year Trent University welcomes thousands of future students and their families to our Open House events. There's nothing quite like walking around campus and being able to picture yourself here - from your room in residence, to the classrooms you'll actually sit in, and the professors who will always take a moment to chat. Speak with professors and students at the Academic & Student Services Fair, attend mini lectures and information sessions, and tour the campus. Register online: trentu.ca/discover. 

Why the Land Means so Much to Us: Commemorating Treaty 20, 1818-2018
Time: 10:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m.
Location: The Gathering Space, Gzowski College
About: Miichi Saagig storytellers will share stories of the land in the traditional territories of the Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg. Speakers will include Gidigaa Migizi (Doug Williams), Dorothy Taylor, and Anne Taylor from Curve Lake First Nation. Storytelling will take place in the Gathering Space from 10:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. & 1:00 p.m. - 3:00 p.m.

Friday, November 2 – Sunday, November 4, 2018

43^rd Annual Elders & Traditional Peoples Gathering
Location: Gzowski College
About: The Elders & Traditional Peoples Gathering, themed Embodying Our Truth: Indigenous Leadership In Motion, provides opportunities for Indigenous knowledge to be shared through a series of presentations and workshops. More details and a full schedule of events is available online.

Thursday, November 8, 2018

Holocaust Survivor Dr. Max Eisen Speaks at Trent University
Time: 7:30 p.m. – 9:30 p.m.
Location: Wenjack Theatre
About: Holocaust survivor and Trent Honorary Degree recipient, Dr. Max Eisen will speak about his experiences in Auschwitz and his emigration to Canada in the postwar years. Max has been a key witness in two recent trials in Germany of Holocaust perpetrators, and is featured in the 2018 documentary The Accountant of Auschwitz about SS perpetrator Oskar Groening. For more than 30 years, he has devoted himself to educating Canadians about the Holocaust; telling others about what he saw and suffered through have made him one of Canada's foremost witnesses to genocide. All are welcome at this talk and copies of Max's memoir, By Chance Alone, will be available for purchase.

Thursday, November 15, 2018

Ontario’s Protected Land Shortfall
Time: 7:00 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.
Location: Thomas A. Stewart Secondary School Auditorium
About: Dr. Diane Saxe, Ontario’s environmental commissioner, will speak about the commitment Canada has made to the Convention of Biological Diversity, a major international treaty to protect at least ten per cent of its marine and coastal areas, and 17 per cent of its land by 2020. Currently, Ontario has 10.7 per cent of its land protected, with no plan to meet the 17 per cent target. This lecture is sponsored by Kawartha Land Trust and Trent University.

Reconstructing Links from within Shackles: Using Scarification and Tattoo to Uncover Origins in the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade
Time: 7:30 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.
Location: Bagnani Hall, Traill College
About: The trans-Atlantic slave trade forcibly exported 12.5 million Africans to the Americas and Europe. These men, women and children were renamed, separated from one another and dispersed through a variety of plantation societies. A symbol of their African origins was permanent body marking; a tradition that was not carried on in the Americas. By using these marks, often described in the Americas as ‘country marks’ upon African-born slaves, we can begin to trace regional origins inscribed upon those who survived the Middle Passage. Trent History professor, Dr. Katrina Keefer, will deliver this talk.

Friday, November 16, 2018

Towards a New Social Contract for the Digital Age
Time: 1:30 p.m. – 2:30 p.m.
Location: Trent Student Centre room 1.20
About: Dr. Don Tapscott, Trent University chancellor, is one of the world’s leading authorities on innovation, media and the economic and social impact of technology. Dr. Tapscott will be interviewed by Dr. Len Epp, former investment banker with a doctorate in English Literature from Oxford University, about blockchain technology. Blockchain is an open, distributed, global platform that will fundamentally transform the way we move, store and manage value online.

Tuesday, November 20 – Thursday, November 22, 2018

Cut and Paste: Understanding the Digital Revolution
Time: 4:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m., daily
Location: Trent Student Centre Event Space, room 1.07
About: The annual Ryle Lecture series in Philosophy welcomes Dr. Luciano Floridi, professor of Philosophy and Ethics of Information at the University of Oxford. Professor Floridi. The power of the digital to create the infosphere and the onlife experience is due to its ability to “cut and paste” analog realities, which we thought were either naturally inseparable but are now increasingly decoupled, like presence and location, or naturally separate, like personal information and personal identity, which are now intrinsically coupled.

Thursday, November 29, 2018

What Happens when Fish go on “The Pill” and Other Pharmaceuticals?
Time: 7:30 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.
Location: Gzowski College, room 114
About: The annual Schindler Lecture in Aquatic Science welcomes Dr. Karen Kidd of McMaster University. It appears that the pharmaceuticals that we use – pain killers, birth control, antiepileptic drugs, antibiotics, heart medications, etc. – and excrete are not completely broken down during the treatment of municipal wastewaters. These drugs are found in rivers and lakes and some affect the health of fish and other aquatic life. For example, estrogens in the birth control pills can feminize male fish, resulting in their production of eggs and reproductive failure. This talk will describe how commonly-used medications affect aquatic life and what can be done to reduce the risks they pose to our aquatic ecosystems.

For a full calendar of Trent events.