The Ninth Annual University of Dundee Culture Day
Wednesday 16 October 2013
Baxter 1.36, first floor, Tower Building
1.45 Welcome
2pm Graeme Stevenson (Music) – Bach’s Coffee Cantata
The Coffee Cantata is about the closest Bach came to opera. Written to be performed in Zimmermann’s Coffee House in Leipzig it tells the tale of Herr Schlendrian and his daughter Lieschen. She is addicted to coffee and her father is trying to persuade her to give up the “evil drink”. Our soloists are Jill Harrison (soprano), Mike Towers (tenor) and Alister Allan (bass) and the band is made up of students led by Beth Wyllie.
2.30pm Neil Paterson (Botanic Garden) - Eat at your peril!: taste, poison and mimicry in evolution
A very long time ago, the Plant Kingdom made a momentous decision to adopt a sedentary lifestyle. This means that plants have evolved chemical defences against animals and other plants leading to bad tastes and poisons. Unpalatability also features as a defence mechanism in the Animal Kingdom leading to the evolution of the amazing phenomenon of mimicry.
2.45pm Jackie Malcolm (Design, DJCAD) – Food as a Trigger for Memory
Our food is driven by our culture and it can offer us a rich source of information about life as it is has been lived and is being lived. This talk will provide insights into life in Dundee, through natural conversations recorded with elderly people, at four sheltered housing locations in the city. Looking back to the 1950s we will observe just how much our food has changed.
3pm Break
3.20pm Trevor Harley (Psychology) - Living to a budget
How much do we need to spend on food to live healthily? How easy it is to stick to a budget? What can be done to make it more likely that we will follow our budget and our good intentions? I review my recent attempt to live economically for a month.
3.35pm Caroline Brown (Archive Services) – Chicago, Dundee and Paris: the passions and prejudice of a 19th century Dundonian
John James Dalyell was born in France in 1835 but lived most of his life in Dundee and Angus. Using one of his many letter books held by the University Archives this talk will examine his interests and concerns over a period of four years between 1868 and 1872. Dalyell was a keen cricketer and golfer, with an interest in foreign affairs, particularly in America and France. Sadly in 1872 Dalyell began suffering with severe head pains which were to lead to his admission to Sunnyside Asylum in Montrose where he stayed until his death.
3.50pm Brian Hoyle (English) - In America they wash their Oysters. It kills the taste: Food, Sex and Death in European Cinema
This talk will examine references to food and eating in the work of some of the great European filmmakers, ranging from mouth-watering feasts the pepper the films of Claude Chabrol; to the cibophobia of Jan Svankmajer; to the surreal, scatological world of Luis Bunuel.
4.05pm Break
4.30pm Dominic Smith (Philosophy) - The Appetite for Paradox: Critical Reflections on Contemporary Internet Culture
Since the dawn of philosophy with Plato, paradoxes have been emphasised as important provocations for thought and creativity. This talk will examine how contemporary online culture relates to this. Does the Internet expose us to too few paradoxes, or to too many?
4.45pm Annie Tindley (History) - Appetites of the Flesh: scandal, money and inheritance in the British Aristocracy, 1880-1895
In September 1892, the 3rd Duke of Sutherland, one of Britain’s richest patrician landowners, died, leaving his multi-million pound inheritance to his second wife, the Duchess Caroline. His son, the 4th Duke, was forced to take her to court for his inheritance, a process that saw one of them jailed, and was finally settled out of court. This talk will explore this episode, feverishly followed by the media, and will consider the nature of sensation and celebrity gossip in the high Victorian age.
5pm The JOOT Theatre Company will perform the Seven Deadly Sins scene from Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus
5.30pm Finish
Admission is free and visitors are welcome to attend as much of the event as they choose. The programme is also available online at www.dundee.ac.uk/museum/exhibitions/caf.