Events

Ethics Center Events in the Community

Screening of BURD at the Canadiana Festival

September 19, 1-2 PM

Arcadia Creek Festival Place

The Ethics Center will be opening the Canadiana Festival with the world premiere of BURD. This 26-minute documentary features 110-year-old WWII vet Burdett "Burd" Sisler—the oldest Canadian. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with BURD's director and producer. 

BURD confronts the physical and cognitive reality of living to 110. Rather than offering lifestyle strategies for longevity, it explores memory, family, love, conflict, and the weight of outliving all of your contemporaries. 

As Burd reflects on war, marriage, grief, and the family that sustained him, larger questions emerge: What does it mean to become one of the final witnesses to history? What details disappear when a person dies? What can cinema preserve before that moment arrives?

Note: BURD touches briefly on the topic of physician-assisted suicide. The post-film Q&A will include Tyler Gibb from the Homer Stryker School of Medicine. Tyler will field questions about the changing landscape of assisted suicide in Michigan and in Canada.

Tickets for this event are available here. 

Cocked and Boozy

September 22, 7-8 PM

ONE WELL Brewing

“Boozy,” “Bowz’d,” “Piss’d in the Brook,” or “Drunk as a Wheel-Barrow”... Those are just a few of the 200+ terms Benjamin Franklin included in his 1736 Drinker’s Dictionary.

Eighteenth-century Americans consumed a staggering amount of alcohol compared to us today, including some of the most famous names from the founding generation. Join us for an evening with historian Brooke Barbier, author of Cocked and Boozy: An Intoxicating History of the American Revolution. Brooke will dish on what Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and others liked to imbibe. She'll also talk about how drink influenced their relationships, politics, and the American Revolution. 

By the end of the evening, you'll have discovered which revolutionary you'd be most likely to drink with: will it be Abigail Adams, John Hancock, Paul Revere, or another storied American? 

Tickets for this event are available here.