MacKay Lecture Series

 2009-10

Sustainability: Past, Present, Future

• Lecture One - September 17, 2009

Potter Auditorium
Kenneth C. Rowe Management Building
7:30pm

"Sustainability and Resilience in Atlantic Canada: A Long View"

Graeme Wynn, Department of Geography, University of British Columbia

Graeme Wynn is a historical geographer and environmental historian of world renown, who in a career spanning almost forty years has made formative contributions to the study of forest exploitation, conservation, and management; histories of migration and settlement; and the intersections of environment and empire.  He has been a pioneer in the interdisciplinary field of environmental history, in which his contributions—from “Timber Colony” in 1981 through to “Canada and Arctic North America” in 2007—have been associated with distinctive and wide-ranging impacts.  “Timber Colony”, Wynn’s first book, examined the impact of commercial capital in the form of the timber trade on the environment and society of early New Brunswick. His most recent book, “Canada and Arctic North America: An Environmental History,” describes and interprets the changing material environment of half a continent over some 10,000 years.

   

• Lecture Two - October 8, 2009

Ondaatje Hall
Marion McCain Arts and Social Sciences Building
7:30pm

"Extending Environmental Justice over the Warming Planet: Climate Refugees, Cultural Sustainability and Reconciliation"

Robert Melchior Figueroa, Department of Philosophy and Religion Studies, University of North Texas

Robert Melchior Figueroa is a leading scholar in environmental justice studies at the world's most active department in environmental philosophy. He is a graduate faculty in the Department of Philosophy and Religion Studies, and Women's Studies. Figueroa is currently the founding Director of the Environmental Justice Project sponsored by the Center for Environmental Philosophy at the University of North Texas. Figueroa has brought philosophical reflection on issues of environmental racism and classism, transformative theories of justice pertaining to environmental issues, constructed a theory of environmental identity, and brought the philosophy of science and technology to bear on issues of social justice. He is author of a number of critical articles in the field and co-editor of the book Science and Other Cultures: Philosophies of Science and Technology. Figueroa has directed projects between the National Science Foundation and the American Philosophical Assoociation, and has worked closely with national and international agencies addresssing environmental justice and climate change. 

 

• Lecture Three - November 26, 2009

Potter Auditorium
Kenneth C. Rowe Management Building
7:30pm

"Stopping Global Warming and Relieving World Hunger: Must We Choose Between Them?"

Kathy McAfee, Department of International Relations, San Francisco State University

Kathleen McAfee is a geographer who has long worked for global justice as a scholar and activist. She has been a policy analyst for Oxfam and a consultant to UN agencies. She authored a book, Storm Signals: Structural Adjustment and Development Alternatives, and many articles on environment, hunger, agriculture, trade, and development. Before joining the International Relations Department at San Francisco State University, Dr. McAfee taught at Yale and held the Fulbright Canada Research Chair in Sustainability at Simon Fraser University. She won the American Geographical Society's Wrigley-Fairchild prize for her work on agricultural biodiversity and GMOs in Mexico and the U.S. Her research on sustainability focuses on "selling nature to save it": Can living things, genes, knowledge, and ecosystems be managed as marketable commodities?  Are new, global, markets in carbon sequestration and other environmental services the key to conservation, climate-change mitigation, and ending poverty? Dr. McAfee maintains ties with NGOS and farmers organizations working to end hunger worldwide. 

   

• History Lecture - October 15, 2009

Scotia Bank Auditorium
Marion McCain Arts and Social Sciences Building
7:30pm, with reception preceding at 6:30 pm

"Mapping Identities: Food and the Creation of Boundaries"

Sami Zubaida, Emeritus Professor of Politics and Sociology, Birbeck College, London

Sami Zubaida is a professor emeritus of politics and sociology at Birbeck College, London. He is also a research associate of the London Middle East Institute at The School of Oriental and African Studies, has held visiting posts in Cairo, Istanbul, Berkeley, Paris and Beirut, and was a global visiting professor at New York University Law School in 2006. His work focuses on religion, culture, law and politics in the Middle East, and on food and culture. His publications include Islam, the People and the State: Political Ideas and Movements in the Middle East (New Edition, 2009); A Taste of Thyme: Culinary Cultures of the Middle East (2000, co-edited with R. Tapper); Law and Power in the Islamic World (2003); and Beyond Islam (forthcoming 2010).

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For more information contact
Claire Campbell
Department of History/College of Sustainability
494-3668