Vanier College’s 2018 Humanities Symposium explores “Beauty”

Vanier College is pleased to announce that this year, the Humanities Department has chosen to explore the theme of “Beauty” during the 7th annual Humanities Symposium. From February 5th to the 9th, writers, artists, scholars, philosophers and others will explore the meaning and presence of beauty throughout history and in our modern society.

The Symposium is an opportunity for students hear and think about complex issues and ideas that are new to them.  In a society often dominated by the oversimplification of issues, the Symposium allows students to discover and explore history and political realities from a variety of new points of view.

The Symposium will feature keynote speaker Charmaine Nelson from McGill and Harvard Universities whose Keynote address I am the Only Woman: Race, Sex and Female Beauty in 18th and 19th Century Anglo-Caribbean Art will focus on the idealization of white women as beautiful and feminine in the colonial culture of the Caribbean. The address will take place on Thursday, February 8th at 11:30 am.

Other speakers include: Crispin Sartwell, from Dickinson College, presenting a Defense of Beauty (Feb. 8, 10 am), Heba Mostafa, from Toronto, speaking on Beauty and the Feminine in Early Islamic Art ( Feb. 9, 8:30 am), Jonathan Sterne, from Sound Studies at McGill University, who will make a presentation entitled Mastering Mastering: Artificial Intelligence, Standardization and the Sound of Music, (Feb. 9, 1 pm) Rachel Zellars, from the University of Vermont, exploring Bias and Beauty,(Feb. 5, 1 pm), Mike Tilli from Vanier College discussing Mathematical Beauty: Seeing Numbers as Beautiful and Understanding Beauty Numerically, (Feb. 6 at 8:30 am), and others.

All events take place in the Vanier Auditorium, A-103. Open to the public.  See the full program for details.