Hirotani, director of the Centre for Cognitive Neuroscience: Language and Brain (CCN.LaB), is looking for volunteers to participate in research that will help scientists understand how brain structure and wiring changes and evolves with age.

Volunteers must be between the ages of 55 – 65 years, native English speakers with no history of speaking or hearing difficulty or a sign of neurological disorder. Participants must also be right-handed.

While this last requirement may seem odd, right or left handedness is controlled by the brain’s hemispheres. In this case, Hirotani and her team of researchers will be zeroing in on the left side of the brain which controls both language and the right side of the body.

Participants will be asked to listen to computer generated sounds and then respond to the sounds they hear using a gamepad. The experiment itself is a half hour long, although volunteers will spend a total of two hours in the lab for preparation and de-briefing.

If you meet the criteria and are interested in volunteering please contact carleton.ca/lbl

If one of the items on your bucket list includes attending an archaeological field school, but your budget precludes a trip to Greece, an opportunity exists a lot closer to home.

Paul Thibaudeau, a professional archaeologist and adjunct research professor of sociology and anthropology is rounding up volunteers for a dig this summer.

Through his company, Intermesh Enterprises, Thibaudeau has been working on a pre-contract Aboriginal site located in Casselman, Ontario.

The property “is along the South Nation River which is a well-known trade route for Aboriginal peoples, and has likely been used for thousands of years,” said Thibaudeau.

Amateur and fledgling archaeologists may volunteer on the site during weekdays beginning in May or June.

The field school will teach students how to properly excavate an archaeological site, the methods for cleaning and analyzing artifacts as well as mapping and site-recording.

Thibaudeau says no experience is required; however, volunteers would need to provide a consistent time commitment to ensure they were properly trained.

Interested? Send an email to paul_thibaudeau@carleton.ca

Photo credit Jerry Bauer

By Nicole Findlay

This spring the circus will alight in theatres across North America when Sara Gruen’s vision of the big tent spectacles of yesteryear will be made into a film.

Reese Witherspoon and Robert Pattinson will star in the screen version of Water for Elephants. The book has been on The New York Times’ and Globe and Mail bestseller lists for 101 weeks—and counting.

Gruen, BA/93, her husband and children all had cameos in the film.

“There, laid out before me, was the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth,” said Gruen, of her first visit to the movie set. “I was nearly speechless. I remember thinking, five years ago this was all in my head, and here it is, real. Well, Hollywood real. But still.”

Set in a traveling circus during the Great Depression, the poignant love story is Gruen’s third novel. It’s one she hadn’t set out to write.  She’d been working on another book when she came across an old photograph of a circus in her newspaper.
“I knew shamefully little about the Depression, and even less about the circus, so I immersed myself in months of research before I ever wrote a thing.”
Once completed, the genre-defying story came close to never being sold at all. Publishers didn’t know what to call it, and large bookstores were reluctant to purchase or promote a book they couldn’t classify within traditional genres.

“Fortunately it was embraced by independent bookstores who hand-sold it and recommended it to book clubs, to the point that chain stores could no longer ignore it,” explained Gruen.

They haven’t made the same mistake twice. Gruen has recently released her fourth novel, Ape House, another New York Times bestseller, to critical acclaim.

A former student of English literature at Carleton, Gruen will return to campus to teach a master class in creative writing to undergraduate students.

While she agrees with the truism “write what you know,” her advice to aspiring writers is to go ahead and explore new themes.

“You’d just better know a hell of a lot about it by the time you start to write!”

Originally printed in FASSinate Spring 2011

A group of Gender and Sexuality ArtsOne students are bringing sex to the big screen. They’ve developed and launched a new film festival, Reel Sex that explores themes in sexuality.

Reel Sex Film Festival

Students enrolled in Jennifer Evans seminar Global History of Sexuality produced the lineup in partnership with Divergence Movie Night (DMN), a not-for-profit film series.  DMN promotes education and discussion about gay, lesbian, bysexual, trans, two-spirit and queer (GLBTTQ) issues.

“My hope was to acquaint students with on and off-campus organizations working on sexuality issues,” said Evans, a professor of history.

To put theory into practice, the students met with DMN to learn about the organization’s vast film collection.

After they had identified which audience they hoped to reach, they set about selecting films based on themes that explore sexuality, while also determining what would be appropriate and inappropriate in the university setting.

With all this in mind, the class whittled its choice down to four films.  Then, split into four groups they began work on the actual screenings.

“Each group is responsible for introducing the film and structuring the discussion afterwards,” explained Evans.  The students sought out Ottawa-based experts to garner their advice on the subject matter each film explores.  The results of this research will help them moderate the audience discussion following each screening.

Once they’d figured out what they were showing and to whom, they had to switch gears – shedding their roles as producers to become marketers.  Students promoted the Reel Sex Film festival through a combination of PR tactics.  These have included class room visits, posters and media pitches and interviews.

“They have acquired a greater sense of the way to craft messaging around sexuality themes, to create a safe and intellectual space for critical discussion,” said Evans.

Each Thursday throughout March will explore a different theme of sexuality.

Stay tuned for upcoming Reel Sex Film Festival screenings…

March 3: Persecution in the Ottawa Community
Stand Together 2002, the first comprehensive documentary about the persecution of Ottawa’s gay community, will be shown in Room 208 in the Tory Building at 6:30 p.m.

History master’s student Grant Burke will be the guest speaker.

March 10: GLBTQ Youth
As part of the Reteaching Gender and Sexuality national campaign, this event will include a screening of the group’s first pilot documentary “Put This on the Map!” The award-winning film showcases the lives of 26 young people growing up in Seattle’s eastside suburbs.
The film will be shown in Room 180 of the University Centre at 6:30 p.m. It will be followed by a discussion with the filmmaker.

March 17: Lecture by Judith “Jack” Halberstam
Prof. Judith Halberstam, director of the Center for Feminist Research at the University of Southern California, will present a lecture entitled “The Killer in Me is the Killer in You: Homosexuality and Fascism” in Room 301, Azrieli Theatre at 8 p.m.

March 24: Inter-sex-tionality
Offering viewers a complex and multifaceted image of face, sexuality and trans-identity, “Still Black – A Portrait of Black TransMen,” explores the lives of six black transgender men living in the United States. The film will be shown in Room 180 of the University Centre at 6:30 p.m.

March 30: Prostitution
A collection of short films hailing from Canada, France, India and the United States, “La Putain De Compile” is an eye-opening collection that presents alternative discourses and representations about sex work. Location to be announced.

For more information and updated locations, please visit: http://www.carleton.ca/~jevans/jevans/Events.html

Teenage girls who end up on the opposite side of the law are often in the wrong place at the wrong time, and more importantly with the wrong person.

Leigh Greiner, a forensic psychology doctoral student, has recently conducted research that examined the factors that lead some young women into criminal behavior.

She became interested in the field after meeting Shelley Brown, an associate professor in the Department of Psychology. Brown’s expertise focused on female offenders, gender and crime.

“For years, girls and women have been neglected in research in the criminal justice realm,” said Greiner. “Now we are merely trying to catch up to research on males.”

Under Brown’s direction, Greiner examined the relationship between peer groups, delinquency and gender. Working through three Ontario young offender facilities, she conducted a questionnaire of 21 girls and 31 boys.

She found that while peer pressure accounted for some of the misbehavior, the greater influence came from a wayward older boyfriend.

“Girls had a larger number of older male peers and older boyfriends compared to boys, whose peers were primarily male, and typically the same age,” said Greiner. “I found this interesting as it is in line with prior research that has found that male peers, particularly older male romantic partners may be to blame for girls’ delinquency in adolescence.”

The adverse effects of peer relationships and romantic entanglements might be reduced through peer mentorship programs offered through schools Greiner says.

Society’s greater challenge is how to prevent girls who have dropped out of school from following a bad boyfriend into a life of crime.

Higher Learning at TIFF Bell Lightbox is hosting Sanogo’s talk, “The Lumière Brothers and Africa.”  The lecture will examine the work of the Lumiere brothers in and on Africa from 1896 to 1903. This Lumiere Africa Corpus, made of about 100 of the 1425 films currently restored, will be examined in relation to the historiography of early cinema. The talk will take place on Friday, February 4 at 10 am.

Sanogo’s second talk is entitled “A Sembenian Century: Ousmane Sembene and his times” will focus on the significance and resonance of Ousmane Sembène’s films and include screenings of La Noire de…and Borom Sarret. The lecture will take place prior to the screening and an audience Q&A session will follow the films. The event is scheduled for Saturday, February 5, at 6:30 pm.

Sanogo’s research interests include African cinema, documentary, world cinema, colonial cinema, and the relationship between film form, history and theory. He is also a film curator, and has curated programs at the Smithsonian Institution and the Pan-African Film Festival of Ouagadougou.

Tickets are available on a first-come, first-served basis through the TIFF Bell Lightbox Office an hour before the event begins. Students and faculty must show valid university ID.

More information on “The Lumière Brothers and Africa”

For information regarding La Noire de . . . and Borom Sarret

In the Militant Intellection Complex, Adesanmi discusses the impact of Africa’s public intellectuals on the public’s perception of the continent, and their role in shaping narratives of Africa.

In his discussion of what he refers to as the Mercy Industrial Complex, Adesanmi takes a look at the motives that drive Western notions of charity, military action, and celebrity advocacy toward Africa.

According to Michael Wohl’s research, symptoms of pathological gambling appear in approximately one quarter of the first year student population.

A professor of psychology, Wohl’s research on gambling, risk-taking and our beliefs about personal luck was recently featured in the Discovery Channel’s Daily Planet.

Wohl’s addictions lab recreates the virtual slot machines many people play from the comfort of their homes or offices every day – wiling away their time and money.  The gaming industry makes use of psychological tricks to keep players hooked on the idea that the next hand will be a winning one.

“Slot machines are considered the crack cocaine of gambling,” said Wohl.

Watch the full segment here

The faculties also co-produce a weekly electronic newsletter, This is Your BA.  Launched this January, the newsletter replaces the undergraduate version of This Week @ FASS and has been expanded to include content representing FPA.

This is Your BA covers the stories, news, events and accomplishments of FASS and FPA students and professors. The CUBA website is the central repository within which newsletter content is posted and archived.

Come visit CUBA www.carleton.ca/cuba.

Arguments over Facebook and privacy have been raging ever since the site opened its virtual doors and invited in the world.

While the concept of privacy matters a great deal to some and less to others, everyone should at least be aware of how much of their information seeps through the cracks and into the public domain. I take my students to http://youropenbook.org and type in something a student might post. Let’s take, “I hate my prof” or “I cheated on the test”. Facebook is porous (despite the privacy settings), and you would be astounded to see the number of people who act as if it were completely walled off. This usually has the desired effect of getting the students to at least look at their privacy settings.

But what’s the value of that information?  What are you really giving away when you use Facebook? What and where is the harm in posting some pictures, updating your status, or “liking” a band?

You may or may not formally give Facebook your information forever – there is quite a debate over what the real implications of Facebook’s Terms of Service are. It is one that likely won’t be resolved without some court battles.  Once information is posted on Facebook or anywhere on-line for that matter, it’s not going away, ever.  What does Facebook do with that information?

Facebook is easy; it lets you connect with people, and share information. But that’s not Facebook’s business. Facebook’s business is making money – and you just gave it the keys to the kingdom by giving away for free your personal data that it sells to marketers.

Goldman Sachs, the investment bankers, tried to buy into Google’s IPO because they recognized the value of all the personal information that Google collects over time. Google recognized that its fortune and value was built on an implicit contract with its users: “use our service, and we won’t connect your surfing habits to your actual identity”. Because of that recognition, Google rebuffed Goldman Sachs: they would offer their IPO to everyone, regardless, because everyone made them successful.

Facebook is in many respects the Anti-Google, especially when it comes to privacy issues. For Facebook, there is no privacy (they see all and know all, even if you put up walls between ‘friends’), and they act as if they own all of your personal information (and perhaps they really do). Accordingly, Facebook has arranged a sweetheart deal with Goldman Sachs with regard to their upcoming IPO. Goldman Sachs opened a fund for investing in Facebook where the smallest investment allowed is $2 million.

Facebook took your information, and isn’t giving the vast majority of people any chance at earning something from it.

Are you on Facebook? If you are, a part of you is now owned by the wealthiest people in the world, who can do with your information what they will.

And you gave it to them for nothing.

http://www.wordle.net/show/wrdl/2969093/Facebook_Terms_of_Service

Comments expressed in this piece reflect only the individual opinions of the author, and do not represent the position of Carleton University or members of its senior administration on the subjects discussed.