Lumberjacks and Jills back at Mac
Get out your plaid lumber jackets and steel-toed boots and head out to Macdonald Campus to take in the 49th annual Intercollegiate Woodsmen Competition on Jan. 31. The event, in which some 180 lumberjacks and Jills from eastern Canada and the U.S. compete for woodsy supremacy has become a popular fixture on the winter events calendar. The competition consists of 14 events, including sawing, chopping, pole climbing, log-rolling, snowshoeing, axe throwing, water boiling and more.
Intercollegiate Woodsmen Competition, Saturday Jan. 31, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., Watson Field, Macdonald Campus of McGill University, 21,111 Lakeshore Rd., Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue, Quebec. Spectators are welcome. Admission and parking are free. For more information contact Lise Wood at 514-398-7789 or lise.wood@mcgill.ca.
Recognizing our legal roots
The McGill Law Journal welcomes leading Canadian philosopher and prize-winning author John Ralston Saul to the Faculty of Law to deliver the Annual McGill Law Journal Lecture. Drawing from the research outlined in his recent book, A Fair Country, Mr. Saul will challenge his audience to think of Canadian law as far more than the local implementation of foreign legal traditions.
While Canada has freely borrowed from various legal traditions, the application of law in Canada has been a unique process intimately tied to Canadian history. Mr. Saul calls on us to recognize a distinctly Canadian legal tradition, one that has grown out of Aboriginal law and subsequent local experience while being influenced by, but by no means limited to, Common Law and Civil Law traditions.
John Ralston Saul – The Roots of Canadian Law in Canada, Tuesday, Feb. 3, 5 p.m., Chancellor Day Hall, Maxwell Cohen Moot Court, 3644 Peel St. The lecture will be delivered in English and French. Students, alumni, and faculty from all disciplines, as well as the public, are welcome. A reception will follow in the Atrium. For more information contact the McGill Law Journal at 514-398-7397 or journal.law@mcgill.ca.
Neoliberalism: dead or alive?
A number of commentators, from Naomi Klein to Eric Hobsbawm and Joseph Stiglitz, have suggested that the current global economic crisis is helping sound the death knell for neoliberalism as an ideological project. In his public lecture, “Neoliberalism: Dead or Alive?,” Professor Jamie Peck, Canada Research Chair in Urban and Regional Political Economy and Professor of Geography at the University of British Columbia, will explore the character of contemporary neoliberalization processes and their historical precedents, suggesting that reports of the death of neoliberalism may be exaggerated. This lecture is presented by the Department of Geography in collaboration with the Faculty of Science and the Department of Sociology and is supported by a grant from the Beatty Memorial Lectures Committee.
Neoliberalism: Dead or Alive? Friday, Jan. 23, 3:00 p.m.; Room 1B45 (basement floor), Burnside Hall, 805 Sherbrooke Street West. The public is welcome. Admission is free. For more information, contact Sébastien Breau, 514-398-3242, sebastien.breau@mcgill.ca.
Music from the heart
The Montreal Heart of the City Music Program is a branch of a national organization that provides free music lessons to inner-city kids by bringing volunteers into their schools. The Montreal branch, which began giving lessons in November 2007 and is entirely run by McGill University Schulich School of Music students, operates at two schools: St Gabriel’s and École Champlain.
The branch is hosting a benefit concert in hopes of raising money to purchase keyboards, music, theory books and other materials to enable the program to expand. The concert will feature performances by Schulich School of Music students and distinguished faculty, as well as local Montreal musicians, and will encompass genres such as jazz, classical, world and more. The concert will be followed by a reception and silent auction at 9:30 pm.
Montreal Heart of the City Benefit Concert, Tuesday, Feb. 3., 7:30 p.m., Tanna Schulich Hall, 555 Sherbrooke St. West, Montreal, QC. Tickets are $15 and $20 and are available at the door or by contacting heartofthecitybenefitconcert@gmail.com, 514-998-6707, 514-515-4813, or 514-576-8188.
Honouring a POT pioneer
McGill’s School of Physical and Occupational Therapy (POT) presents the inaugural lecture dedicated to the memory of Prof. Edith Aston-McCrimmon on Jan. 25. Considered a pioneer in the development of the physical therapy profession in Canada, Professor McCrimmon taught some 15,000 students over a 50-year career before her death in 2005. She served as the Associate Director of McGill’s Physical Therapy program from 1988 to 2001. The School of Physical and Occupational Therapy is honouring her memory with an annual lecture, the first of which, Edith’s Legacy: The Importance of Leadership, will be delivered by Dr. Martha C. Piper, a visionary leader in education and research, physical therapist and Past President and Vice-Chancellor of the University of the University of British Columbia.
Edith Aston-McCrimmon Lecture; Sunday Jan. 25, 10-11 a.m.; R. Palmer Howard Amphitheatre, McIntyre Medical Building, 6th Floor, 3655 Promenade Sir William Osler, Montreal, QC. For more information, please contact admincoord.pot@mcgill.ca.