About Our Lectures and Workshops
Our engaging lecture and workshop series offer meaningful learning opportunities without required readings, assignments, or tests. Participants can attend with friends or family members, and enjoy interacting with experts and other lifelong learners through both in-person and online formats (see for yourself why participants love our fully supported online events).
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About Our Late Fall 2023 Programming
From November to December, we are offering ten engaging series with some of our program’s fan favourites. With two online and three in-person lecture series, as well as a mix of workshop and gallery series, you are sure to find something that piques your interest.
Below are the details for our Late Fall 2023 session.
Late Fall Lecture and Workshop Series:
ONLINE LECTURE SERIES:
Film Music: The Sounds of Hollywood
Rock in the Late 1960s and 1970s
IN-PERSON LECTURE SERIES:
Renaissance Venice: Art and History
IN-PERSON WORKSHOP SERIES:
The Personal Journal: A Springboard for Memoir
Writing the Stories of My Life: Remembering My Father
(Section A) Italian for Travelers – Level 1, Part I
(Section B) Italian for Travelers – Level 1, Part I
IN-PERSON GALLERY SERIES:
Muses and Makers: Women in Art at the National Gallery
ONLINE LECTURE SERIES
Film Music: The Sounds of Hollywood
Lecturer: Keith McCuaig
Series description: Music is a crucial component of virtually all Hollywood films. The sensation of suspense or joy or sadness that a film audience might feel is not only reflected in the music, but often dictated by the music. This course will cover the use of music in film from the silent era to the present. Film techniques and their relation to the score or soundtrack will also be discussed, as will some of the most prominent Hollywood composers. Each class will feature plenty of examples from films.
- Days: Thursdays, November 2, 9, 16, 23, 30, December 7
- Time: 10:00 am – 12:00 pm Eastern Time
- Format: Online
- Location: Zoom (This lecture series is offered via Zoom, which can be used on computers and mobile devices. We recommend you use a computer/laptop with high-speed internet. A camera and microphone will enable you to participate more fully, but they are not required. See our Support Page for details.)
- Lecture Series Outline
- Fee: $150.00 (plus HST)
- Enrolment Capacity: 150 participants
- Registration: Closed
Lecturer biography: With an MA in Music and Culture, and over twenty years’ experience as a musician, Keith McCuaig is dedicated to all things music and art. He loves exploring the histories of popular music, especially the interconnectedness of genres, and the socio-cultural significance of music.
Keith has extensive experience in researching, writing and teaching a variety of music-related topics; he has taught courses through Carleton University and the University of Ottawa, and presented at international musicology conferences. From performing, writing, and recording, to lecturing, giving music lessons, and working with community music programs, Keith’s life and passion is music. Keith is a popular Lifelong Learning Program lecturer who has taught over a dozen offerings in the last three years.
Rock in the Late 1960s and 1970s
Lecturer: Keith McCuaig
Series description: By the mid-to-late 1960s, rock music had solidified its place as a respected artform. No longer dismissed as disposable teen pop, it was widely recognized for its musical and cultural significance. This course focuses on rock music from 1967-1980, including sub-genres such as psychedelic rock, blues rock, progressive rock, and early punk. The social and historical context of this music, its major figures, and descriptions of musical characteristics and sounds will be explored. Discover the various sounds and cultural influences of this exciting era of rock music!
- Days: Wednesdays, November 1, 8, 15, 22, 29, December 6
- Time: 10:00 am to 12:00 pm Eastern Time
- Format: Online
- Location: Zoom (This lecture series is offered via Zoom, which can be used on computers and mobile devices. We recommend you use a computer/laptop with high-speed internet. A camera and microphone will enable you to participate more fully, but they are not required. See our Support page for details.)
- Lecture Series Outline
- Fee: $150.00 (plus HST)
- Enrolment Capacity: 150 participants
- Registration: Closed
Lecturer biography: With an MA in Music and Culture, and over twenty years’ experience as a musician, Keith McCuaig is dedicated to all things music and art. He loves exploring the histories of popular music, especially the interconnectedness of genres, and the socio-cultural significance of music.
Keith has extensive experience in researching, writing and teaching a variety of music-related topics; he has taught courses through Carleton University and the University of Ottawa, and presented at international musicology conferences. From performing, writing, and recording, to lecturing, giving music lessons, and working with community music programs, Keith’s life and passion is music.
Keith is a popular Lifelong Learning Program lecturer who has taught over a dozen offerings in the last three years.
IN-PERSON LECTURE SERIES
Renaissance Venice: Art and History
Lecturer: Adriane Aboud
Series description: Explore the power of animation as a creative, conceptual, and imaginative medium. Learn how to critically explore the animated feature’s sourcebook of visual art, literature, storytelling, and performance, in order to better understand animation’s historical and contemporary role as a powerful and potentially subversive aesthetic form and tool of sociocultural analysis.
- Days: Mondays, October 30, November 6, 13, 20, 27, December 4
- Time: 10:00 am – 12:00 pm Eastern Time
- Format: In-person
- Location: Carleton University Teraanga Commons
- Parking: Parking is not included in the series fee. A parking discount link and code will be emailed within two weeks of the series start date
- Lecture Series Outline
- Fee: $150.00 (plus HST)
- Enrolment Capacity: 50 participants
- Registration: Closed
Lecturer biography: Adriane Aboud received a Bachelor’s degree in History and Art History from McGill University in Montreal, and a Master’s degree in Art History from the University of Nottingham in England. She lived in Europe for two years during which time she traveled extensively. Upon her return to Canada she briefly took a job at the National Gallery of Canada before accepting her current post as a CEGEP teacher in Gatineau.
Adriane has taught many LLeaP lecture series, including Famous Artists of the Italian Renaissance, French Art of the 18th and 19th Centuries, and Art of the Modern World. Adriane previously taught this lecture series under the title, Serenissima Repubblica: The Art and History of Renaissance Venice.
Dante’s Divine Comedy
Lecturer: Dr. Gregory MacIsaac
Series description: In this series, we will read and discuss Dante’s Divine Comedy: Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso. The poem is an image of the Medieval Christian afterlife, as well as an allegory of our moral lives here on earth. The focus will be on Dante’s use of philosophical ideas from Plato and Aristotle, and will be illustrated with images by Gustave Doré, William Blake, Amos Nattini, as well as Late-Medieval and early Renaissance images. This series assumes no previous instruction in Philosophy or familiarity with Ancient Greek culture. The text of Dante’s Divine Comedy: Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso is highly recommended, but not mandatory. Participants are responsible for acquiring a copy of the text should they wish to read it.
- Days: Mondays, October 30, November 6, 13, 20, 27, December 4
- Time: 1:30 pm – 3:30 pm Eastern Time
- Format: In-person
- Location: Carleton University Paterson Hall
- Parking: Parking is not included in the series fee. A parking discount link and code will be emailed within two weeks of the series start date
- Lecture Series Outline
- Fee: $150.00 (plus HST)
- Enrolment Capacity: 90 participants
- Registration: Closed
Lecturer biography: Dr. Gregory MacIsaac is Associate Professor of Humanities at Carleton University. He has taught in the B.Hum program since 1998. He spent the academic year 1994-95 visiting the Hoger Instituut voor Wijsbegeerte (Higher Institute of Philosophy) at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium, studying Neoplatonism and Contemporary Continental Philosophy. In 2005-06 he was a Chercheur Étranger at the École Pratique des Hautes Études and C.N.R.S., Paris.
In 2011-12 he was a visiting research at the Plato Centre, Trinity College Dublin, and at the Institute of Classical Studies, University of London. In 2019-20 he was Chercheur Associé, at the Laboratoire ‘Logiques de l’Agir’, Université de Franch-Comté, Besançon, France.
Professor MacIsaac spent twenty years working on aspects of the soul’s knowledge in the Neoplatonist Proclus. More recently, he has begun working on Plato, with a major research project on the dialogues Theaetetus, Parmenides, and Sophist.
Women and Islam
Lecturer: Dr. Monia Mazigh
Series description: This series is an introduction to contemporary issues related to Women in Islam. Participants will be exposed to a broad range of fiction, non-fiction books, articles, and videos treating of the question of women in Islam written by mainly Muslim authors. It will focus on historical, social, media and political representations of Muslim women, while avoiding the trap of easy media representation or sensationalism centered on the orientalist discourse of passive Muslim women in need to be saved. Instead, the series will examine a more nuanced and multidimensional approach to tackle the issues of women in Islam: it will look at Women and Islam not as a homogenous entity, but it would emphasize on the heterogeneity of “Women” and of “Islam”. Issues such as women’s role in Islam, veiling, polygamy, Islamic traditions, as well as Islamic feminism will be discussed.
- Days: Tuesdays, October 31, November 7, 14, 21, 28, December 5
- Time: 9:30 am – 11:30 am Eastern Time
- Format: In-person
- Location: Carleton University Southam Hall
- Parking: Parking is not included in the series fee. A parking discount link and code will be emailed within two weeks of the series start date
- Lecture Series Outline
- Fee: $150.00 (plus HST)
- Enrolment Capacity: 50 participants
- Registration: Closed
Lecturer biography: Monia Mazigh is an academic, author and human rights advocate. She was the former National Coordinator of the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group. Mazigh was born and raised in Tunisia and immigrated to Canada in 1991. She was catapulted onto the public stage in 2002 when her husband, Maher Arar, was deported to Syria where he was tortured and held without charge for over a year. She campaigned tirelessly for his release.
Mazigh holds a PhD in finance from McGill University. In 2008, she published a memoir about her pursuit of justice, Hope and Despair, shortlisted for the Ottawa Book Award. In 2014, she published her first novel, Mirrors and Mirages. It was short listed for the Book Trillium Award and for the Ottawa Book Award. Her second novel, Hope Has Two Daughters, was published in January 2017 by Anansi House.
IN-PERSON WORKSHOP SERIES
The Personal Journal: A Springboard for Memoir
Lecturer: Dr. Anna Rumin
Series description: Hemingway said, “in order to write about life, you must live it”. Whether we call ourselves writers or not, writing gives clarity to our lived experiences. This is a workshop for those who are interested in pausing, looking back and honouring their lives through focused journal writing. While the goal of this writing workshop is to gather the memories and stories, participants can expect to learn about writing as a craft and how it is we go from writing for ourselves to writing for others.
“There are writers who write for fame. And there are writers who write because we need to make sense of the world we live in; writing is a way to find clarity, to interpret, to reinvent. We may want our work to be recognized, but that is not the reason we write. We do not write because we must; we always have a choice. We write because language is the way we keep a hold on life. With words we experience our deepest understandings of what it means to be intimate. We communicate to connect, to know community. Even though writing is a solitary act, when I sit with words that I trust will be read by someone, I know that I can never be truly alone.” – bell hooks
- Days: Tuesdays, October 31, November 7, 14, 21, 28, December 5
- Time: 1:30 pm – 4:00 pm Eastern Time
- Format: In-person
- Location: Carleton University Nicol Building
- Parking: Parking is not included in the series fee. A parking discount link and code will be emailed within two weeks of the series start date
- Lecture Series Outline: Provided to registered participants only
- Fee: $195.00 (plus HST)
- Enrolment Capacity: 12 participants
- Registration: Closed
Lecturer biography: Dr. Anna Rumin is a native Montrealer whose identity has been shaped by the political landscape of her home province, her Russian roots, a passion for lifelong learning that has been woven both formally in academia and informally through travel, voracious reading and writing, and a love for the stories hidden in our natural world.
Her interest in narrative inquiry stems from her belief that not only do we all have a story to tell but that our stories help us to better understand who we were, who we are and who we are becoming. She has now designed nine memoir-based writing workshops that invite participants to think of themselves as the narrators of their lives, as seen and written through a particular lens. Anna is committed to supporting those with whom she works by providing them with opportunities to set and meet their goals. In her spare time, Anna writes short fiction and has been the recipient of numerous awards.
Writing the Stories of My Life: Remembering My Father
Lecturer: Dr. Anna Rumin
Series description: We all have a story to tell. However, knowing where to begin can become so overwhelming that we put off writing the story at all. This is an invitation to re-collect, record and share the stories from your life through the memories of your father. How do we capture our father in a single story and is that even possible? What are the stories we want to remember, share and honor? We will work at isolating the small, rare and authentic stories that most effectively show who he was/is. What made/makes him laugh? What were/are his secret pleasures and how do you know? What was/is outside his bedroom window? Did/Does he sing, read, dance, play cards, govern, teach, draw, design, write, administer, research – what did/does he keep in his top drawer and what was/is his favourite sweater? How might writing about our fathers give us a glimpse into who we are, who we were and who we have become?
Please prepare for this course by collecting photographs and “artifacts” (shirts, ties, shoes, scarves, books, spoons, pens, cameras…) that you associate with your father. Bring your own writing instruments and photographs to a safe environment where you will experiment with writing strategies using prompts, share your writing with others, and begin your collection of life-stories.
- Days: Thursdays, November 2, 9, 16, 23, 30, December 7
- Time: 9:30 am – 12:00 pm Eastern Time
- Format: In-person
- Location: Carleton University Nicol Building
- Parking: Parking is not included in the series fee. A parking discount link and code will be emailed within two weeks of the series start date
- Lecture Series Outline: Provided to registered participants only
- Fee: $195.00 (plus HST)
- Enrolment Capacity: 12 participants
- Registration: Closed
Lecturer biography: Dr. Anna Rumin is a native Montrealer whose identity has been shaped by the political landscape of her home province, her Russian roots, a passion for lifelong learning that has been woven both formally in academia and informally through travel, voracious reading and writing, and a love for the stories hidden in our natural world.
Her interest in narrative inquiry stems from her belief that not only do we all have a story to tell but that our stories help us to better understand who we were, who we are and who we are becoming. She has now designed nine memoir-based writing workshops that invite participants to think of themselves as the narrators of their lives, as seen and written through a particular lens. Anna is committed to supporting those with whom she works by providing them with opportunities to set and meet their goals. In her spare time, Anna writes short fiction and has been the recipient of numerous awards.
(Section A) Italian for Travelers: Level I, Part I
Lecturer: Carla Bonora
Series description: This workshop will provide participants with the skills to feel comfortable while communicating during a trip to Italy or in an Italian environment. This workshop will teach you how to introduce yourself, make hotel reservations, make a phone call, write an email, order in a restaurant, and shop for food. One field trip will familiarize participants with Italian food products in an Italian shop. Audiovisual materials about Italian culture, music, and daily life will also be a part of the workshop. Vi aspettiamo!
- Days: Tuesdays and Thursdays, October 24, 26, 31, November 2, 7, 9, 14, 16, 21
- Time: 10:00 am – 12:00 pm Eastern Time
- Format: In-person
- Location: Carleton University Paterson Hall
- Parking: Parking is not included in the series fee. A parking discount link and code will be emailed within two weeks of the series start date
- Fee: $290.00 (plus HST)
- Enrolment Capacity: 19 participants
- Registration: Closed
Lecturer biography: A native of Naples, Italy, Carla Bonora has a Masters in History and Philosophy from the University of Naples. She is an experienced teacher, having worked both in Naples and here as an Italian teacher. She has taught Italian for Travellers successfully at the Carleton University Lifelong Learning Program. She has also taught Language and Culture at “Retraite en Action” in Ottawa. She is a journalist, and a correspondent for “ Il Cittadino Canadese” an Italian newspaper of Montreal.
In the past, Carla Bonora worked at the European Commission in Brussels, as well as for “Il Mattino”, the main newspaper of Naples. She also worked as an Ottawa correspondent for the Toronto based Italian-Canadian newspaper “Il Corriere Canadese”. Finally, Carla is a member of the Board of Ottawa’s “Dante Alighieri Society”, is a passionate traveller and loves to cook Italian food.
(Section B) Italian for Travelers: Level I, Part I
Lecturer: Carla Bonora
Series description: This workshop will provide participants with the skills to feel comfortable while communicating during a trip to Italy or in an Italian environment. This workshop will teach you how to introduce yourself, make hotel reservations, make a phone call, write an email, order in a restaurant, and shop for food. One field trip will familiarize participants with Italian food products in an Italian shop. Audiovisual materials about Italian culture, music, and daily life will also be a part of the workshop. Vi aspettiamo!
- Days: Mondays and Wednesdays, November 13, 15, 20, 22, 27, 29, December 4, 6, 11
- Time: 10:00 am – 12:00 pm Eastern Time
- Format: In-person
- Location: Carleton University Paterson Hall
- Parking: Parking is not included in the series fee. A parking discount link and code will be emailed within two weeks of the series start date
- Fee: $290.00 (plus HST)
- Enrolment Capacity: 19 participants
- Registration: Closed
Lecturer biography: A native of Naples, Italy, Carla Bonora has a Masters in History and Philosophy from the University of Naples. She is an experienced teacher, having worked both in Naples and here as an Italian teacher. She has taught Italian for Travellers successfully at the Carleton University Lifelong Learning Program. She has also taught Language and Culture at “Retraite en Action” in Ottawa. She is a journalist, and a correspondent for “ Il Cittadino Canadese” an Italian newspaper of Montreal.
In the past, Carla Bonora worked at the European Commission in Brussels, as well as for “Il Mattino”, the main newspaper of Naples. She also worked as an Ottawa correspondent for the Toronto based Italian-Canadian newspaper “Il Corriere Canadese”. Finally, Carla is a member of the Board of Ottawa’s “Dante Alighieri Society”, is a passionate traveller and loves to cook Italian food.
IN-PERSON GALLERY SERIES
Muses and Makers: Women in Art at the National Gallery
Lecturer: Angela Marcus
Series description: Join LLeaP lecturer Angela Marcus at the National Gallery to consider women in art: women as inspiration for male artists, and as brilliant makers of their own art, working against cultural odds to achieve their artistic aims. This small-group series will reference European, Canadian and American artworks in the National Gallery, as well as other sources. You will begin with Renaissance representations of the Virgin Mary and follow female artistic participation and accomplishment in art up to the modern era and evolving feminism.
- Days: Wednesdays, November 1, 8, 15, 22, 29, December 6
- Time: 10:30 am to 12:30 pm Eastern Time
- Format: In-person
- Location: National Gallery of Canada
- Parking: Parking is not included in the lecture fee (see the National Gallery of Canada website for more details)
- Lecture Series Outline
- Fee: $182.00 (plus HST)
- Enrolment Capacity: 15 participants
- Registration: Closed
Lecturer biography: Angela Marcus (BA Hons/78 MA/93) has taught in Art History and Art Appreciation for over two decades. She is an independent researcher, art writer, and curator, and has taught for several years for the Lifelong Learning Program.