February 2, 2026, 2-4 pm - Fellows and External Fellows The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917-2017 by Rashid Khalidi (2020) Discussion Leaders: David Milne and Jon Allen, former Canadian ambassador to Israel (guest speaker) While the Palestine question is invariably front-page news, we have an urgent need […]
March 2, 2026, 2-4 pm – Fellows and External Fellows Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders (2017) Discussion Leader: Lisa Steele The “bardo” is a Tibetan Buddhist concept referring to an intermediate state between death and rebirth. Set in 1862, the early years of the American Civil War, the novel opens with President Abraham […]
April 6, 2026, 2-4 pm – Fellows and External Fellows Every Valley: The Desperate Lives and Troubled Times that Made Handel’s “Messiah” by Charles King (2024) Discussion Leaders: Linda Hutcheon and Michael Hutcheon George Frideric Handel’s (1741) Messiah is an oratorio that has been called “the greatest piece of participatory art ever created.” Choirs and orchestras perform […]
May 4, 2026, 2-4 pm – Fellows and External Fellows Silent Spring by Rachel Carson (1962) Discussion Leader: Sara Shettleworth Published only 64 years ago, Silent Spring already qualifies as a classic. As an accessible popular account of the damage being done to the environment by substances such as the then-common pesticide DDT, it was […]