Curious Public

Presenting with Precision is a free, half-day workshop, on building and delivering presentations.

I recently co-authored this article in The Conversation (and a paper in the Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement) about reimagining how academic institutions show up in the broader social ideascape.

What happens to the craft of writing when the de facto global platform for sharing text no longer reinforces or recognizes the role or rights of authorship?

"The truth about stories is that’s all we are," said Thomas King. And maybe we should add: the truth about research is that it is a story, too.

Going off camera to get on task

"Repressive forces don’t stop people expressing themselves but rather force them to express themselves." - Gilles Deleuze

Thought experiment. Suppose you grew up as a feral child in the wild, marooned on some deserted island and raised by another species of benevole…

The power to push an agenda rests in the power to define the problem.

What if everything we pursue is an unconscious diversion from the insurmountable problem of death?

And the story of racism is everywhere.

Tracing back the origin of the phrase invites new perspectives on the concept.

Another perspective on the metaphor of the mountaintop.

Humans generate mountains of data as we describe ourselves to one another, but who are we when we are not describing ourselves?

To be a human being is to have a mind enmeshed in the zeitgeist of society and language, not transcendent of it.

All is managed and coordinated in the world of synchronous remote activity.

In today’s revisionist history thought experiment: Vitruvius prefigures the “form versus function” debate.

Proposition: functionalism shaped ideas about simplicity and ideas about simplicity significantly informed the thinking of the functionalists.

The clarity comes from the conviction one is doing the right thing. The liberation comes in accepting that this is enough. (In conversation with Jeremy Nathan Marks, Matt Ross, AnnaLise Trudell, and Leslee Whiteye.)

If I am not willing to be personally uncomfortable, do I have the right to claim that I am listening? (In conversation with Arielle Kayabaga, Tracy Langelaan, Patrick Rhone, and Javeed Sukhera.)

Tanaz Javen, Gracen Johnson, Kate Graham, Sameer Vasta, and Thomas Peace explore some of the ideas and questions that emerge at the intersection of leadership and uncertainty.

Kendra Ferris, Janet Frood, Melissa Malony, Maxwell Smith, and Julian Summerhayes discuss leadership and uncertainty. As a leader, how do you engender a sense of legitimacy and accountability when you do not have a clear sense about the way forward?

A conversation with Mojdeh Cox, Scott Hill, Paul Nesbitt-Larking, Heenal Rajani, and Susan Toth about uncertainty—touching on predictability, social class, privilege, and some of the limitations of describing uncertainty as opportunity.

This is the first episode in a series of informal conversations exploring the intersection of leadership and uncertainty. Thanks to Melanie-Anne Atkins, James Chan, Jinal Shah, and Sienna Taylor for such a compelling discussion.

In this episode, Jeremy Nathan Marks and I discuss reading The Colonizer and the Colonized by Albert Memmi for our book club.

This conversation was prompted by imaging responses to the comment, “I’m not doing anything wrong, so why should I worry about privacy?” This episode was recorded at Innovation Works on Thursday, May 24, 2018, with Emma Blue, Stuart Clark, Laura Camarra, Chris Gittings, and Jim Rule.  

In this conversation, Jeremy Nathan Marks and I discuss his new endeavour to crowd-source a pamphlet — and a broader dialogue — about the nature of peace.

This is a podcast about ‘reconciliation’ in Canada. We’re thinking about reconciliation in quotation marks because we want to critically analyze the narratives, power dynamics, potential pitfalls, practices, and consequences unfolding around us.

What is on the horizon for feminism? How has a heightened awareness of LGBT2Q+ experiences shifted our understanding about the nature of gender? Does the men’s rights movement reflect coherent concerns about masculine identity? What have been the ongoing consequences of movements like #metoo?

Curious Public goes on the road to visit the Middlesex-London Health Unit to talk with Christopher Mackie (Medical Officer of Health) and Ana Ning (Associate Professor in Sociology) about psychoactive substances in our community.

Four Londoners share their reflections about participating in One Book One London