- Montreal: On the Stream of LanguagesOctober 27 - December 5, 2010
- Human Rights Day May 28, 2010
- Every Breath You Take November 4, 2009
- Understanding Desire April 6, 2009
The inaugural edition of the Concordia President’s Conference Series, which takes place on Monday, April 6, 2009, will focus on the complex physiological and neurological relationships between humans’ desires, self-identity and behaviour. Three separate sessions will take place as part of this day.
Time: 10:00 a.m.-11:30 a.m.
Location: J.A. de Sève Cinema
Researchers: Drs. Shimon Amir, Uri Shalev and Jane Stewart
Opening Statement: Concordia President Dr. Judith Woodsworth
Moderators: Drs. Louise Dandurand and Graham Carr
Shimon Amir, Uri Shalev and Jane Stewart of Concordia’s Department of Psychology and Center for Studies in Behavioral Neurobiology will discuss the relationship between the brain and reward by exploring the links between the physiological impulses that control appetite, anticipation and addiction. The systems of the brain upon which drugs of abuse act are known to have much in common with those underlying normal reward seeking behaviours such as feeding, drinking and sexual behavior. Drs. Amir, Shalev and Stewart will explore how and when these systems are normally activated and what happens to these systems when they are abnormally engaged by events such as exposure to drugs of abuse.
Time: 1:00 p.m.-2:30 p.m.
Location: D.B. Clarke Theatre
Researchers: Drs. Bart Simon and Bill Bukowski
Moderator:Dr. David Graham, Felicia Meyers, Elizabeth Miller and Sarah Barrable Tishauer
In the afternoon session, Bart Simon of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology and Bill Bukowski of the Department of Psychology and the Centre for Research on Human Development will discuss our increasing dependence on technologies such as video games and the internet. Focusing in particular on youth culture this session will explore the extraordinary roles of the internet as a site of social networking and of video games as a leading source of personal entertainment in today’s society. As technoculture and the cyberworld become more and more a part of daily reality, we need to examine why youth invest so much time, emotion and thought in virtual worlds. And we need to ask what impact those encounters have on human development.
Time: 7:00 p.m.-9:00 p.m.
Location: D.B. Clarke Theatre
Researchers: Drs. Viviane Namaste, Marc Lafrance, Jim Pfaus
Opening Statement: Concordia President Dr. Judith Woodsworth
Moderator: Dr. Donald Boisvert
Our sexual identity is a complicated blend of physiology, social influences, and self-image. Although humans are all born with a biological identity and undergo physiological and psychological transformations as they grow older, we are also socialized by gender norms. What does the complex interplay of these factors mean to how we perceive love, desire and ourselves? The presentations in this session will explore the relations between sexuality, self, and society, examining questions such as cosmetic surgery, HIV prevention, and how the interaction of physiology and environment are modeled when studying mechanisms of sexuality in animals.
Page Title: Understanding Desire - April 6, 2009 - Concordia University - Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Page URL:http://www.concordia.ca/presidentsconferences/understandingdesire/index.php...
Date Printed: Thu May 24, 2012