December 1, 2025, 2-4 pm - Fellows and External Fellows - Zoom only event Orbital by Samantha Harvey (2023) Discussion Leader: Malcolm Woodland Winner of the 2024 Booker and Hawthornden Prizes, Orbital is called, by its creator, a "space pastoral.” In her rhapsodic imagining of 24 hours as the International Space Station orbits earth (with […]
November 3, 2025, 2-4 pm - Fellows and External Fellows Autocracy Inc: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World by Anne Applebaum (2024) Discussion Leader: David Milne Pulitzer prize-winning author Anne Applebaum unpacks the modern world of autocracy in a short and straightforward way. Stripping away ideological pretensions, she shows that autocratic regimes are […]
October 6, 2025, 2-4 pm - Fellows and External Fellows Fire Weather by John Vaillant (2023) Discussion Leader: Susan Pfeiffer Rather than just an intellectual exploration, this is about pressing global issues that require action, written by a Canadian author of great skill. While the Fort McMurray, Alberta, wildfires in 2016 provide a basis for […]
September 8, 2025, 2-4 pm - Fellows and External Fellows James by Percival Everett (2024) Discussion Leader: Meg Fox “With my pencil, I wrote myself into being,” writes James. The escaped slave who accompanied Huck downriver on a raft in Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Jim is brilliantly reconceived as a highly intelligent and […]
July 7, 2025, 2-4pm, - Fellows and External Fellows The Worlds I See: Curiosity, Exploration, and Discovery at the Dawn of AI by Fei-Fei Li (2023) Discussion Leader: Susan Pfeiffer The Worlds I See is part autobiography, part informative description of how our current approach to Artificial Intelligence (AI) came to be. It is the […]
"Meet Your Colleagues" Summer Sessions Thursdays 2-4pm on Zoom only - Fellows and External Fellows only June 5, 2025: Link to register: https://forms.office.com/r/zJAWKScnej The deadline to register is the morning of the event before 8:00am. The Zoom link will be sent to registrants only.
June 2, 2025, 2-4pm, - Fellows and External Fellows The Valley of the Birdtail by Andrew Stobo Sniderman and Douglas Sanderson (Amo Binashii) (2022) Discussion leader: Janet Paterson This book offers an opportunity to review Canadian history after the late 1880’s. according to the perspective of two communities in western Canada – one Indigenous and […]
"Meet Your Colleagues" Summer Sessions Thursdays 2-4pm on Zoom only - Fellows and External Fellows only May 29, 2025: Anne Urbancic Link to register: https://forms.office.com/r/tpLXDkJrCh The deadline to register is the morning of the event before 8:00am. The Zoom link will be sent to registrants only.
"Meet Your Colleagues" Summer Sessions Thursdays 2-4pm on Zoom only - Fellows and External Fellows only May 22, 2025: John Dirks Link to register: https://forms.office.com/r/UBazhDrtef The deadline to register is the morning of the event before 8:00am. The Zoom link will be sent to registrants only.
"Meet Your Colleagues" Summer Sessions Thursdays 2-4pm on Zoom only - Fellows and External Fellows only May 8, 2025: David Milne Link to register: https://forms.office.com/r/bg1NnmcQQd The deadline to register is the morning of the event before 8:00am. The Zoom link will be sent to registrants only.
May 5, 2025, 2-4pm, - Fellows and External Fellows The Odyssey by Homer, in the new poetic translation by Emily Wilson (2017) Discussion Leaders: Linda Hutcheon and Martin Revermann Homer's Odyssey is an epic poem about violence and the aftermath of war; about wealth, poverty and power; about marriage and family; about travelers, hospitality, and […]
"Meet Your Colleagues" Summer Sessions Thursdays 2-4pm on Zoom only - Fellows and External Fellows only May 1, 2025: Lynda Lange Link to register: https://forms.office.com/r/bg1NnmcQQd The deadline to register is the morning of the event before 8:00am. The Zoom link will be sent to registrants only.
April 7, 2025, 2-4pm, - Fellows and External Fellows The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin (1974) Discussion Leader: Molly Wills Successful both as literature and as a thought experiment, this classic of speculative fiction illuminates different sides of human nature in two opposing political and economic worlds. On the planet of Urras an ancient […]
March 3 2025, 2-4pm, - Fellows and External Fellows Homelands: A Personal History of Europe by Timothy Garton Ash (2023) Discussion Leader: David Milne Winner of the 2024 Gelner Prize, Homelands was chosen as the best book in international affairs by the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy. Taking his subject from the […]
February 3 2025, 2-4pm, - Fellows and External Fellows Mapping the Darkness: The Visionary Scientists who Unlocked the Mysteries of Sleep by Kenneth Miller (2023) Discussion Leader: Daphne Maurer The history and findings of research on sleep, told through the work of four central characters. Hard to put down, and of course relevant to everyone. […]
January 6, 2024, 2-4pm, - Fellows and External Fellows Fifteen Dogs by André Alexis (2015) Discussion Leader: Meg Fox André Alexis offers “an utterly compelling and affecting look at the beauty and perils of human consciousness “in this amusing but serious novel that was shortlisted for Canada Reads 2017 and won the 2015 Giller Prize. […]
December 2, 2024, 2-4pm, - Fellows and External Fellows Culture: The Story of Us from Cave-Art to K Pop by Martin Puchner (2023) Discussion Leader: Meg Fox Harvard literary historian Martin Puchner demonstrates that culture is never, as we too often assume, a possession, differentiated and marked by geographic boundaries, rooted in clearly delineated histories of inheritance […]
November 4, 2024, 2-4pm, - Fellows and External Fellows Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right by Jane Mayer (2017) Discussion Leader: John David Stewart Rated by the New York Times as one of the 10 best books of the year in 2017, this story by investigative […]
October 7, 2024, 2-4pm, - Fellows and External Fellows Regenesis: Feeding the World without Devouring the Planet by George Monbiot (2022) Discussion Leader: Sara Shettleworth This book by an award-winning writer on environmental issues documents the ways in which the world’s system of agriculture and food distribution is exacerbating the effects of climate change. His […]
September 9, 2024, 2-4pm, - Fellows and External Fellows Hag-Seed by Margaret Atwood (2016) Discussion Leader: Linda Hutcheon A modern retelling of Shakespeare’s The Tempest the novel was commissioned by Random House as part of its Hogarth Shakespeare series. This very funny, satiric tale “centres on theatre director Felix who loses his job with Makeshiweg Theatre and […]
July 8, 2024, 2-4pm, - Fellows and External Fellows Alex Ross, The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century (2007) Discussion Leaders: Linda Hutcheon, Michael Hutcheon Have you ever felt uneasy about (or even alienated by) the directions classical music took in the twentieth century? Well, then, this is the book for you. Writing […]
"Meet Your Colleagues" Summer Sessions Thursdays 2-4pm on Zoom only - Fellows and External Fellows only June 27, 2024: George Steiner Topic: “I will not make this a high science talk. Rather, it will focus more on how I got to be where I am. It will include how, with my parents, I escaped Europe in 1939, why […]
"Meet Your Colleagues" Summer Sessions Thursdays 2-4pm on Zoom only - Fellows and External Fellows only June 20, 2024: John Kennedy John Kennedy is a psychologist with interests in perception and representation. His research on pictures, metaphor, symbols and illusions has led him to ask blind people to make drawings, which they do quite well, often to […]
"Meet Your Colleagues" Summer Sessions Thursdays 2-4pm on Zoom only - Fellows and External Fellows only June 13, 2024: Jonathan Dostrovsky Jonathan Dostrovsky Jonathan Dostrovsky will present a biographical illustrated account of his many activities which highlight several serendipitous events that significantly shaped his life and career and led to his setting up his research laboratory in […]
June 3, 2024, 2-4pm, - Fellows and External Fellows Helen Macdonald, H Is for Hawk (2014) Discussion leader: Peter Alberti Are you ready for a strange but compelling read? Already a classic of nature writing, this award-winning work is also the unflinchingly honest memoir of a young British poet and historian who retreats from the […]
"Meet Your Colleagues" Summer Sessions Thursdays 2-4pm on Zoom only - Fellows and External Fellows only May 30, 2024: Susan Pfeiffer Anthropology is the study of humans at the broadest of levels, both culturally and biologically; this includes their origins. I am a biological anthropologist, which means that my focus is human evolution. Most people look puzzled […]
May 6, 2024, 2-4pm – Fellows and External Fellows Siddhartha Mukherjee, The Song of the Cell: An Exploration of Medicine and The New Human (2022) Discussion Leader: William Logan Mukherjee is an accomplished and engaging writer and an oncologist who won a Pulitzer Prize for his earlier book on cancer. Here he presents the history […]
Speaker: Rafaël Newman, Comparative Literature, Zurich Title: “The Work of Art in the Age of Neural Machine Translation” Abstract: “But the instant the criterion of authenticity ceases to be applicable to artistic production, the total function of art is reversed. Instead of being based on ritual, it begins to be based on another practice – […]
April 1, 2024, 2-4pm – Fellows and External Fellows William Carlsen, Jungle of Stone: The Extraordinary Journey of John L. Stephens and Frederick Catherwood and The Discovery of the Lost Civilization of the Maya (2017) Discussion Leader: Jim Gurd This book by journalist and Pulitzer Prize finalist William Carlsen, who follows in the footsteps of […]
March 4, 2024, 2-4pm – Fellows and External Fellows Ed Yong, An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us (2022) Discussion Leader: Sara Shettleworth This book is filled with strange creatures and strange experiments; Yong is interested in what animals perceive, what they might communicate to us if they could. Humans […]
February 12, 2024, 2-4pm - Fellows and External Fellows Alistair MacLeod, No Great Mischief (1999) Discussion Leader: Meg Fox The first (and only) novel by a great Canadian short story writer, No Great Mischief (1999) was published when Alistair MacLeod was in his mid-sixties. Chronicling the lives of several generations of Scottish immigrants on Cape […]
January 8, 2024, 2-4pm – Fellows and External Fellows Kevin Rudd, The Avoidable War: The Dangers of a Catastrophic Conflict between US and Xi Jinping's China (2022) Discussion Leaders: Max Nemni and David Milne This book written by China expert and well-known former Australian PM Kevin Rudd is widely regarded as the best analysis of […]
December 4, 2023, 2-4pm – Fellows and External Fellows Jennifer Raff, Origin: A Genetic History of the Americas (2022) Discussion Leader: Susan Pfeiffer Where did the Indigenous people of the Americas come from and what were the patterns of migration by which they came to populate the continents? Although the title refers to genetics, such […]
November 6, 2023, 2-4pm – Fellows and External Fellows Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species (1859) Discussion Leader: Sara Shettleworth Widely regarded as one of the most important books ever published, ‘The Origin’ sold out on the day of publication. It sold 3800 copies in its first year and in Darwin’s lifetime was reprinted […]
Book Club: October 2, 2023, 2023, 2-4pm – Fellows and External Fellows - Zoom only. Tom Stoppard, Arcadia (1993) Discussion leader: Alexander Leggatt Even if you haven’t read a play for a while (Shakespeare, perhaps?), the Book Club’s first dramatic work, Arcadia, will prove an absorbing and hilarious bringing together on stage of the past […]
Book Club: September 11, 2023, 2023, 2-4pm – Fellows and External Fellows - Zoom only. David Graeber and David Wengrow, The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity (2021) Discussion Leaders: Daphne Maurer, Susan Pfeiffer. This book is a trailblazing account of humans through time, challenging our most fundamental assumptions about our remote ancestors […]
"Meet Your Colleagues" Summer Sessions Thursdays 2-4pm on Zoom only - Fellows and External Fellows only July 27: Suzanne Hidi Link to register: https://forms.office.com/r/SgaVxd0CzZ The deadline to register is the morning of the event before 8:00am. The Zoom link will be sent to registrants only.
"Meet Your Colleagues" Summer Sessions Thursdays 2-4pm on Zoom only - Fellows and External Fellows only July 20: Hugh Gunz Link to register: https://forms.office.com/r/s2rY2Yskk2 The deadline to register is the morning of the event before 8:00am. The Zoom link will be sent to registrants only.
"Meet Your Colleagues" Summer Sessions Thursdays 2-4pm on Zoom only - Fellows and External Fellows only July 13: Ed Barbeau Link to register: https://forms.office.com/r/vLA1kTqY79 The deadline to register is the morning of the event before 8:00am. The Zoom link will be sent to registrants only.
"Meet Your Colleagues" Summer Sessions Thursdays 2-4pm on Zoom only - Fellows and External Fellows only July 6: Cynthia Smith Link to register: https://forms.office.com/r/0V3kxt5Vvm The deadline to register is the morning of the event before 8:00am. The Zoom link will be sent to registrants only.
July 3, 2023, 2-4pm, - Fellows and External Fellows Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince (1532) Discussion Leader: David Milne The most famous book on (the dark art of) politics ever written, […]
"Meet Your Colleagues" Summer Sessions Thursdays 2-4pm on Zoom only - Fellows and External Fellows only June 29: Deanne Bogdan Link to register: https://forms.office.com/r/gduNzVa4mt The deadline to register is the morning of the event before 8:00am. The Zoom link will be sent to registrants only.
June 23, 2023 Speaker: Daniel Lang Title: 'The Carnegie Foundation and University of Toronto Faculty Pensions: An "Undenominational", Un-tax-funded History”’ Abstract: When the Carnegie Foundation was established in 1905, universities in Canada and Newfoundland were eligible for grants, on strict conditions that were seen by some as “colonial,” “continentalist,” or “imperial” intrusions on autonomy; for […]
"Meet Your Colleagues" Summer Sessions Thursdays 2-4pm on Zoom only - Fellows and External Fellows only June 22: Peter Alberti Link to register: https://forms.office.com/r/FVfARcAbDF The deadline to register is the morning of the event before 8:00am. The Zoom link will be sent to registrants only.
"Meet Your Colleagues" Summer Sessions Thursdays 2-4pm on Zoom only - Fellows and External Fellows only June 15: Carl Baar Link to register: https://forms.office.com/r/uitNEJK1XT The deadline to register is the morning of the event before 8:00am. The Zoom link will be sent to registrants only.
June 14, 2023 Speaker: Ella Striem-Amit Title: “Drawing with Your Feet: Learning about Brain Plasticity and Function from People Born without Hands” Abstract: We perform most of our daily actions with our hands, and vast portions of the brain are dedicated to them. What does this system do in people born without hands who use […]
June 7, 2023 Speaker: Katherine Corcoran Title: “In the Mouth of the Wolf: A Murder, A Cover-up, and the True Cost of Silencing the Press” Abstract: Katherine Corcoran will discuss her investigations as Associated Press Mexico bureau chief that led to her recently published book, In the Mouth of the Wolf: A Murder, A Cover-up, […]
June 5, 2023, 2-4pm, - Fellows and External Fellows Steven Johnson, The Ghost Map: The Story of London’s Most Terrifying Epidemic – and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World (2006) Discussion Leader: William Logan The Ghost Map is a gripping multi disciplinary account of London’s cholera epidemic in the 1850s and how […]
Wednesday Talk: May 31, 2023, 2-4pm - Zoom only (non-Fellows can participate for $10) Speaker: Geoff Rayner-Canham Title: “Chemistry and Inuit Life and Culture” Introducer: Linda Hutcheon Abstract: Inuit have lived and thrived for millennia in one of the most challenging environments on the planet. How is this possible? It is chemistry which, in many aspects, provide the underlaying explanations for […]
Wednesday Talk: May 24, 2023, 2-4pm - Zoom only (non-Fellows can participate for $10) Speaker: Lawrence Wiliford Title: "Charting a New Path: Classical Vocal Music and Canadian Visual Media Distribution” Introducer: Linda Hutcheon Abstract: During the COVID-19 pandemic, opera companies and other performing arts organizations embraced film and video production to enable artists to continue their craft while also […]
May 1, 2023, 2-4pm – Fellows and External Fellows Kyle Harper, From Shame to Sin: The Christian Transformation of Sexual Morality in Late Antiquity (2013) Discussion Leader: David Milne It is rare event for the Book Club to favour two books by the same author in its Program. Here the honour goes to the remarkable […]
February 6, 2023, 2-4pm - Fellows and External Fellows Erna Paris, Long Shadows: Truth, Lies and History (2000) Discussion Leader: Monique Nemni We can all read official narratives about certain horrible events that took place in some countries. But how do ordinary people, […]
January 9, 2023, 2-4pm – Fellows and External Fellows Maggie O’Farrell, Hamnet (also published as Hamnet and Judith) (2021) Discussion Leader: Molly Wills Winner of the National Book Critics Circle award and a New York Times bestseller, this is a fictionalized version of the love and family of Shakespeare (who is never named!) and Anne […]
Colloquium: December 8, 2-4pm - Fellows & External Fellows Only - Zoom Only Title: "How can we better protect our environment?" Chair: Giuliana Katz
December 5, 2022, 2-4pm – Fellows and External Fellows Yasha Mounk, The Great Experiment: Why Diverse Democracies Fall Apart and How They Can Endure (2022) Discussion Leader: Max Nemni In this most interesting, well-researched and well-written book noted political philosopher Yasha Mounk, asks two questions: 1) why are many democracies falling apart and 2) how […]
Colloquium: November 17, 2-4pm - Fellows & External Fellows Only - Zoom Only Title: " Is democracy the best for governance? If so, how can we strengthen its positive features and minimize its weaknesses?" Chair: TBA
November 7, 2022, 2-4pm – Fellows and External Fellows Suzanne Simard, Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest (2021) Discussion Leader: Daphne Maurer Several recent books describe how trees in the forest communicate with each other through underground networks of fungal filaments. This one is from a Canadian who was one of […]
This will be a 60-minute meeting at which you will be able to talk, via video connection, with other members of Senior College who opt to join the meeting. No agenda, no specific objective, just friendly conversation. Registration for the coffee break is open to Fellows, External Fellows, and all other Members of Senior College. […]
This will be a 60-minute meeting at which you will be able to talk, via video connection, with other members of Senior College who opt to join the meeting. No agenda, no specific objective, just friendly conversation. Registration for the coffee break is open to Fellows, External Fellows, and all other Members of Senior College. […]
October 3, 2022, 2-4pm – Fellows and External Fellows Tom Wolfe, From Bauhaus to Our House (1981) Discussion Leader: Lisa Steele After critiquing and infuriating the art world with The Painted Word, award winning author Tom Wolfe shared his less than favourable thoughts about modern architecture in this insightful and witty book. In an examination […]
September 12, 2022, 2-4pm - Fellows and External Fellows Dorothy L. Sayers, Gaudy Night (1935) Discussion Leader: Germaine Warkentin This distinguished and beautifully written mystery-cum-novel – beloved by academics – is the second-last of Dorothy L. Sayers' eleven mysteries and many stories centering on Lord Peter Wimsey, brilliant second son of a ducal family, shell-shocked hero of […]
Book Club July 4, 2022, at 2-4pm – Fellows & External Fellows Only Steven Price, Lampedusa (326 pp, available in e-book and audio-book format). Discussion leader: David Milne Brief background discussion leaders: Giuliana Katz (on Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa’s posthumously published 1958 novel, Il gattopardo ) & Linda Hutcheon (on Luchino Visconti’s 1963 film adaptation: […]