Thinking Out Loud

Leonard Cohen: A Crack in Everything is a touring exhibition featuring a collection of new work commissioned from and created by local and international artists inspired by Leonard Cohen’s style and recurring themes. The exhibition was first shown at the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal (MAC) and is the first to be devoted to Cohen’s imagination and legacy. Join host Richard Burnett in conversation about Leonard Cohen. pop music, contemporary art and literature with journalist Norman Ravvin, writer Alexandra Pleshoyano, curator Dominic Molon and academic and writer Chantal Ringuet. Each of the guests on the podcast participated in the twelfth Max and Iris Stern International Symposium, a gathering of cultural historians and museum professionals who presented the latest research on the life and work of this seminal artist at Concordia, in partnership with the MAC. For Cohen fans, old and new.

Leonard Cohen’s art washing, Darth Vader and the Iraq war, eBay collecting as a form of artistic research and the deep intercultural understandings that people reach when they cook and eat together. We can only be talking about the multisensory art practice of Jewish Iraqi-American artist Michael Rakowitz. Recorded at Studio C as part of the Faculty of Fine Arts Wild Talks series, featuring Michael Rakowitz, Tammer El-Sheikh (Professor, Studio Arts), Sanaz Sohrabi (PhD student), and David Howes, (Professor of anthropology and Director of the Centre for Sensory Studies). Their conversation refers to Rakowitz’s work as part of the Leonard Cohen exhibition at the Musee d’Art Contemporain (MAC) in Montreal.

Digital disruption, new and old tech, and the things that hold our attention - excerpts from a conversation between William Gibson (author) and Fenwick McKelvey (Professor, Communications & internet researcher), moderated by journalist Erin Anderssen (The Globe and Mail). Freshly cut from the TOL 2015 TOL live events series in Montreal.

Maker culture is a form of DIY culture that encourages individuals to create their — mostly technology-based — inventions. Tinkering, 3D printing, community-building and more - are you a maker? This episode features a talk by Ann-Louise Davidson (Concordia University Research Chair in Maker Culture), followed by a conversation with journalist Aphrodite Salas. Recorded at This is Concordia NOW in Montreal in collaboration with TOL.

Digital currencies – overhyped confusion or promising future? How do blockchain and the dark web intersect (in a soon to be major film)? This episode features a talk by voting systems and cryptocurrency expert Jeremy Clark (professor, Concordia Institute for Information Systems Engineering), followed by a conversation with journalist Sudha Krishnan. Recorded at This is Concordia NOW in Montreal in collaboration with TOL.

Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) is much more than checking behaviours - anxiety, doubt, and the confidence you have in your own memory all play a role. OCD is often called the doubting disease but it really isn't about doubt - new research suggests memory is key to understanding OCD. This episode is about anxiety, doubt, memory and the latest on OCD. Featuring excerpts from a talk by Adam Radomsky (Professor, Psychology and Research Chair in Anxiety and Related Disorders) and a conversation with journalist Aphrodite Salas. Recorded at This is Concordia NOW in collaboration with TOL.

The film Swift Current tells the story of former NHL hockey player Sheldon Kennedy who was sexually abused by his junior hockey coach. This conversation between Sheldon Kennedy and Sandi Curtis (professor of Music Therapy) took place following a screening of Swift Current in Montreal. Child abuse, prevention, advocacy and the public health implications - this conversation is moderated by journalist Elysia Bryan-Baynes.

In this second episode devoted to talks on our digital futures, we explore how to make technology work for us. We ask about our roles and responsibilities when we engage with it and how to leverage artificial intelligence to serve our needs, and not the other way around. Three renowned experts help us unpack these questions and also help us break down what is actually meant by AI. Featuring: Shannon Vallor (Professor of Philisophy, Santa Clara University in California); Yoshua Bengio (Montreal Institute for Learning Algorithms and Professor of Computer Science at l' Université de Montreal); Safiya Noble (Assistant Professor, Annenberg School of Communications, University of Southern California).

What is our digital future? AI, gaming, storytelling, a changed workforce and learning environment? In this episode, we explore how the digital revolution is transforming our lives. This is the first of two best of episodes featuring excerpts from the President’s Conference Series on Digital Futures held at Concordia University – the series featured thought leaders on the digital revolution touching on workforce, learning and much more. What is your digital future? Featuring: Marie Josée Lamothe (Managing Director, Google Canada – Quebec); Michelle d’Auray (Ambassador and Canadian Representative to the OECD); Félix Lajeunesse, (Co-founder, Félix & Paul Studios); Francis Baillet (Vice-President Corporate Affairs Ubisoft).

The Alternative is an international party based in Denmark with a focus on creating a new political culture - mixing art, culture, engagement and politics in a new way. And in a first, they are the political party in residence at Concordia University’s Faculty of Fine Arts in Montreal. They are working with students on a year-long project about how the arts can influence political decision making. In this episode Uffe Elbæk (leader of The Alternative), Indra Adnan (The Alternative – UK) and Rebecca Duclos (Dean, Faculty of Fine Arts, Concordia University) talk about politics, the arts, soft power and remaking political culture. Recorded at Studio C in Montreal.

Irish drag performer and gay rights activist Panti Bliss first made headlines for calling out media personalities for being homophobic. Emer O’Toole, assistant professor in the School of Canadian Irish Studies, has brought Bliss to Concordia to speak about the experience – during one of the visits this conversation was recorded in front of a live Thinking Out Loud audience. They talk about drag, gender performance and how what we wear can reflect much more than personal style and fashion. Moderated by Erin Anderssen.

Award winning singer/artist Tanya Tagaq and Concordia University’s Heather Igloliorte (Assistant Professor, Aboriginal Art History) in a wide ranging conversation about arts and culture and creating and celebrating indigenous communities/experience. Moderated by Craig Offman.

The technology that will replace needles, diversity and film, why you need to move…..some of the topics by 10 PhD candidates doing short talks (5 minutes each).the birds-eye view of what’s next….featuring Concordia University’s first cohort of Public Scholars — Erin O’Loughlin, Desirée de Jesus, William Robinson, Lisa Ndejuru, Rocco Portaro, Nadia Naffi, Leanne Keddie, Alexander McClelland, Lucas Hof, and Gonzalo Quintana Zunino. Moderated by Lucinda Chodan, in collaboration with the Montreal Gazette.

Kathy Reichs is best known for writing that weaves what she calls good old fashioned murder mysteries with science – but how do fictional portrayals of science in novels and television – think Bones, CSI – measure up in the lab, with the real science? A conversation on the ways crime, chemistry and fiction intersect, and the real deal on Bones-style science and crime featuring Kathy Reichs (forensic anthropologist, author), and Cameron Skinner (Professor, Chemistry and Biochemistry), and PhD student Brigitte Desharnais (Chemistry/Biochemistry). Moderated by André Picard.

Jorge Cham makes graduate students and academics laugh – he is the creator of PhD Comics, a comic strip that is part tribute, part send up of the challenges of academic life. He stopped in to Concordia’s Studio C for a conversation with one of his fans, Professor Paula Wood-Adams (Dean of Graduate Studies, Concordia Research Chair on the Physics of Advanced Materials). They talk communicating science, comics, and graduate school.

What does an Indigenous future mean? How does technology play a role? Jason Lewis tells us about projects that connect the imaginary, and notions of an Indigenous future to new technologies.

Yeast is the answer? Research Malcolm Whiteway tells us how his work with yeast can help develop a new generation of drugs with fewer side effects - particularly for those with compromised immune systems. Healing faster with yeast?

How does rethinking laboratory research support cancer research? It’s all about microfluidics — also known as lab-on-chip technology - or hand-held biology/chemistry labs. Researcher Steve Shih, an engineer with a background in biology, tells us about what it means to develop new technologies that could one day cure cancer and end fuel shortages.

The heart is at once of the most personal of organs, and yet it is transferrable. Every year, about 5,000 people worldwide receive someone else’s heart. What does it mean to have another person’s heartbeat keeping you alive? Will heart transplants be even more common 50 years from now? In this episode, artist Ingrid Bachmann tells us about the art of the heart transplant.

The heart - a giant pump, the most machine-like and yet the most human of organs. Every minute, it pumps about five litres of blood through a system of blood vessels nearly 100,000 kilometres long - that's about 7,500 litres of blood every day. But could a mechanical device do the job just as well? In this episode, Lyes Kadem tells us about what it means to engineer mechanical hearts, and about what might replace the pacemaker of the future.