Faculty of Lesser-Known Arts and Sciences takes on the fringe
Drew Anderson | CBC News | Posted: January 18, 2017 3:19 AM | Last Updated: January 18, 2017
Evenings can include supernatural sing-a-longs to more academic presentations on outlandish science
It's a little bit serious, a little bit aluminum hats.
The Faculty of Lesser-Known Arts and Sciences hosted its third colloquium on Tuesday, discussing hexes and hoaxes in Canada.
"The Faculty of Lesser-Known Arts and Sciences is a group of armchair 'academics,' per se, and they are interested in bringing fringe arts and science topics to a general audience," said dean Claudia Bustos.
The group covered cryptozoology and "smuggling and bootleggery" in its previous two talks, with presentations running the gamut of serious academic presentations to supernatural sing-a-longs.
'80 per cent seriousness and 20 per cent questionable'
For hexes and hoaxes, there will be talks on Piltdown Man — once thought to be proof of a missing link between apes and humans — to how to remove a hex and a discussion on references to witchcraft in the Canadian Criminal Code.
Bustos said they have a balance somewhere in the realm of "80 per cent seriousness and 20 per cent questionable," and that there's a bit of diversity in the crowd as well.
"We've been finding that about 95 per cent of people are in on the joke with us, and the other five per cent is definitely more of the aluminum-hat-wearing community," she said, adding they welcome that community with open arms.
The group will be launching what it calls a scholarship program for its dedicated fans and is creating a "non-peer-reviewed journal" where the public can submit contributions on fringe topics.