Canadian Voices - Speakers

	Heather Menzies
	No Time: Stress and the Crisis of Modern Life Date Recorded: Apr 20th, 2005 Recorded At: Vancouver Public Library, Vancouver, BC Recorded By: Thomas Hicks, Necessary Voices Society Duration: 58:00
Topic Background
Media culture guru Marshall McLuhan warned that “the scale and pace of technology could amputate the rest of our lives by numbing our sensibilities”. Ottawa-based author Heather Menzies has embraced this concept in her articles, courses and books over the past 20 years. Menzies penned a 1996 bestseller Whose Brave New World? , and has since gained reputation as an internationally known researcher and critic on technology impacts in Canadian society. Starting with the single observation that no one seems to have time anymore, in her new book, No Time, Menzies pulls the connecting threads to unravel the crisis of meaning and accountability threatening to paralyse society today. She draws the link between various diseases of our times -- from stress and depression among adults to Attention Deficit Disorder in kids – and is convinced that what is happening to people is also happening to institutions and society at large: the same inner disintegration of focus, and the same chopping up and abbreviation of relationships. In this edition of Canadian Voices, Heather Menzies discusses these themes from her new book, and highlights what being stretched and scattered means to us as individuals, institutions and as a society.
Speaker Biography
Heather Menzies is an award-winning, Ottawa-based writer and lecturer. The author of seven books, including the 1996 best-seller, Whose Brave New World?, Menzie’s most recent book, No Time, is a piece of speculative non-fiction. Heather is a long-time activist in the women's movement, social justice and cultural politics. She has served on the board of the National Council of the Writer's Union on three occasions and is currently co-Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee. Her other books include Fastforward and Out of Control: How Technology is Changing your Life, Whose Brave New World? The Information Highway & the New Economy, and Canada in the Global Village. Menzies has given lecture series and taught courses in women’s studies, Canadian studies and communications at a number of Canadian universities. As an adjunct professor and contract lecturer at Carleton University in Ottawa, Heather looks at how Canada and Canadians are being shaped by and are responding to the social, political and economic trends associated with post-industrialism, post-modernism and globalization. For more information about Heather Menzies visit www.heathermenzies.ca

Heather Menzies

Topic Background

Speaker Biography