New courses expand your mind in just one day

Topics range from Cohen prose to Mayans

University of B. C. professors will offer special one- day courses this fall to share their interest in a range of topics, such as the Japanese tea ceremony, fashion history, Leonard Cohen, erotic art, horror movies, fevers and ancient Mayan predictions of a December cataclysm.

The courses are part of a unique effort by UBC Continuing Studies to promote liberal arts and lifelong learning, marketing manager Tanya Reid explained. “As far as we know, no other university in Canada or the U. S. is offering one- day courses, taught by their own faculty at their own campuses, as an access program for the wider community.”

At 30, the number of courses offered this year is twice what it was in previous years and more faculty members are teaching the Continuing Studies courses than ever before, Reid said. The key was asking them what they would like to teach that might appeal to others.

One result was a course titled Nightmare on Elm Street — The Anatomy of a Horror Movie Franchise, taught by Rachel Talalay, an assistant professor in UBC’s Department of Theatre and Film. Talalay is also a producer and a director and worked on the first six films in the Elm Street series.

“I have so much history in my head and have done so many partial interviews, I became excited about the opportunity to use all my insider knowledge to delve more deeply into the series. It’s a treasure trove of film history and especially effects techniques,” Talalay said.

Another course will explain the Japanese tea ceremony, delving into history, culture, kimono, Zen philosophy, Japanese gardens and Japanese architecture. It will also give students a rare experience inside the tea house in the Nitobe Memorial Garden on campus.

Instructor Millie Creighton, a Japan specialist with the UBC Department of Anthropology and Sociology, said she thinks a lot of people will be interested in learning about the garden and the tea ceremony, especially given recent interest in matcha. “That has sort of hit the trendy coffee shops — instead of coffee, people are having their matcha lattes. The tea ceremony actually was the original matcha drink.”

Leonard Cohen fans, especially those who plan to attend his Vancouver performance in November, might be drawn to a new course about his poetry, prose and passion, taught by his biographer, English professor Ira Nadel.

Fashion buffs, meanwhile, can learn about the “symbolic and message-bearing aspects of clothing and adornment” through a class taught by Tara Mayer from the university’s history department. The lesson will include references to art history, economic development, colonialism and costume history.

Art historian Marvin Cohodas will lead a review of Mayan history, art and culture in a course called The Cyclic Apocalypse in Ancient Maya Thought, which will examine suggestions that the Mayan calendar predicts a cataclysmic event for the world on Dec. 21.

In another course, an assistant professor in the UBC School of Population and Public Health, Stephen Hoption Cann, will review the history and purpose of fever in living organisms and how it should be managed appropriately.

Other titles include First Nations Languages of British Columbia: Loss and Revitalization; An Introduction to Food History; How to Read, Understand, Analyze, Enjoy and Talk About Poetry; The Genome Owner’s Manual; Probability and Statistics in the World Around Us; The Crisis of the Eurozone; and The Organization of Violence.

The courses cost $ 75 each and run from 9: 30 a. m. to 4 p. m. on one Saturday from September to December.

Reid says it’s too early to predict how popular each course will be.

“What’s so great about this is that these are really top academics ... and these are topics that they are passionate about,” she said. Class sizes of about 30 students guarantees a lot of interaction, she added.

For more information on the courses, see cstudies. ubc. ca.