Caf茅 Historique
We're back with a new season of great history talks and fun times at Hermann’s Jazz Club! Reflecting on our 10-year anniversary, our theme this season is: “Why History Matters.” Our UVic scholars will share what they know about the strange and wonderful history of things that we often take for granted. This season we will run on the first Wednesday of each month.
Hermann’s Jazz Club – 753 View Street
Doors: 5:30 pm Start time: 7:00 pm
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Contrary to common belief in the West, Russia’s aggression against Ukraine did not begin with the full-scale invasion in 2022. The annexation of the Crimea and the fighting in the Donbas started in 2014. A full decade of warfare in the heart of Europe has transformed both Ukrainian and Russian societies, as well as the global security landscape. A longer perspective on the war offers a clearer understanding of when and how peace may be possible.
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The Weimar Republic has been a popular reference point for consideration of the achievements and limits of democracy. The kinds of crises Weimar experienced, from its proclamation in 1918 to its demise in 1933, offer a case study in the conditions under which democratic politics are sustainable. The talk will revisit the question of lessons Weimar might offer to the present by considering the kinds of stories the 1920s might tell about the 2020s. |
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Climate change is a virtually inescapable topic in our media and politics. Yet it is invariably framed as a scientific and technical problem set in the present and moving toward the future. This talk will explore the history of humans and climate change, with particular attention to how people have understood and responded to climate change in the past. In doing so, it will provide new perspective and hope on the climate challenges currently facing us.
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In September 1945, after the close of the Second World War, the Canadian government threatened over 10,000 people of Japanese descent with exile to Japan, a country that many of them had never visited. This talk explores how this attempted mass banishment came about, how Japanese Canadians fought exile, and why this story still matters today.
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It is estimated that in prehistoric societies children comprised at least forty to sixty-five percent of the population, yet by default, our ancestral landscapes are peopled by adults who hunt, gather, fish, knap tools and make art. But these adults were also parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles who had to make space physically, emotionally, intellectually, and cognitively for the infants, children and adolescents around them. The economic, social, and political roles of Paleolithic children are often understudied because they are assumed to be unknowable or negligible. Drawing on the most recent data from the cognitive sciences and from the ethnographic, fossil, primate and archaeological records, including new research on children as makers of Upper Paleolithic ceramics, this talk challenges these assumptions. (Pre)history matters and by rendering these “invisible” children visible, a new understanding will be gained of the contributions that children have made to the biological and cultural entities we are today.
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Join us for Professor Cynthia Milton’s talk: “Human rights are inalienable and universal yet only actualized locally and unenforceable globally. Called a “utopia” by some and an “invention” by others, this talk argues that despite human rights’ irresolvable contradictions, the concept has concrete meanings in its application. From the French revolutionaries of the late 18th century to present-day justice seekers in Latin America, the history of human rights is a complex story of fragility.
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