Series Description: In the modern media we often hear remarks about the unprecedented nature of many things: political disputes, government actions, violence, social changes, and more. Yet how far are these really new? Join Langara faculty as we explore some fascinating events, personalities, and writings from the past, which also allow us to reflect on how far what we see in the world today is truly without precedent.
Lectures will take place at Old Hastings Mill Store Museum, 1575 Alma St, Vancouver, BC V6R 3P3, on the specified dates (Friday evenings), at 7:00 p.m. Entry is open to all and by donation.
February 26: Niall Christie (History)
Shajar al-Durr: From Slave to Sultana of Egypt
In May 1250, a former slave woman named Shajar al-Durr (“spray of pearls”) was elevated to the position of sultana (ruler) of Egypt. Even before then she had already become an influential figure in the country, having married a previous sultan, helped him to run the state, and swiftly taken over its defence against crusaders when her husband died in 1249. Shajar al-Durr’s reign was brief, lasting less than three months, but she continued to be a pivotal figure in the sometimes literally cut-throat politics of Egypt until her death in 1257.
Although not the first woman to rule a Muslim state during the middle ages, she was the first of slave origins to do so, and thus her rise was unprecedented. In this presentation we will explore the origins, rise, demise, and later memory of this remarkable woman.
March 12: Stefan Haag (English)
A (Somewhat) Humorous Look at Cheating in the Campus Novel and Today’s Illegitimate Uses of A.I.
Starting in the 1950s, the campus novel has accompanied universities and colleges in their trials and tribulations. I’d like to look at select examples of cheaters in the campus novel to probe attitudes (of the cheaters and of those who catch them) and how they may have changed over time and especially today vis-à-vis illegitimate uses of A.I. Having taught for over 35 years in post-secondary institutions, I’d also like to draw on my experience with cheaters. The humour comes in because the campus novels often satirize encounters with cheaters, while the real-world encounters at times seem closer to satire than reality.
April 9: Shannon Page (English)
“Heaped with Bloody Slaughter”: Lucan’s Bellum Civile and the Ancient Origins of Horror
Left unfinished due to the poet’s untimely death in 65 CE at just 25 years old, Lucan’s narrative of the Roman civil war between Caesar and Pompey breaks all the rules of the epic tradition. Gone are the gods and heroes of Homer’s Iliad or Virgil’s Aeneid; here one finds only graphic depictions of dismembered bodies, headless corpses, and necromantic witches. The poem’s combination of sinister supernational omens and gruesome violence paints an image of martial conflict that is more nightmare-inducing than noble. Though horror is most often regarded as a modern genre with beginnings in 18th-century Gothic literature, scholars of Greek and Roman literature have noted that the emotional “grammar” of violence, death, and fear it employs is far older. Taking this view of horror as an affective category, rather than a genre, this presentation explores Lucan’s convention-spurring epic as an early example of a literary work whose purpose is to evoke fear, disgust, and suspense in its audience. That Lucan was also a favourite of later literary heavyweights, such as Percy Shelley – husband of Mary Shelley, whose novel Frankenstein revolutionized both horror and science fiction – hints at the wide-sweeping but under-explored influence of Bellum Civile on modern horror.
