Hello and welcome to Classical Pursuits 2014. I am Rick Phillips and I’ll be leading the seminar Impressionism in Music. I have been at Classical Pursuits for years now, and it’s a highlight of every summer. I’m really looking forward to this seminar. Perhaps it’s a crude analogy and a […]
Author: Melanie Blake
GUEST BLOG — Exploring the Dynamics of a Diaspora with Julia Zarankin
Dear All, I am very much looking forward to delving into the world of Caribbean literature, under the guidance of two masterful novels by prize-winning writers Jamaica Kincaid and Edwige Danticat. Here are a few tips to help in your reading and preparation for our discussions. Please make sure you’ve […]
CLASSICAL TRIVIA! — Battle of the Bard
We just can’t get enough Shakespeare at Classical Pursuits! In this latest blog post, Katherine Barber, founding editor-in-chief of the Canadian Oxford Dictionary, has a lively discussion with educator and Travel Pursuits leader extraordinaire Gary Schoepfel about our February 25 email blast on words coined by Shakespeare. Katherine is the […]
Religion in Dubai
[Editor’s note – Ann has been sending dispatches on her experiences in Dubai, and I am compiling these into blog posts and putting them on Facebook and Twitter. We’d love to hear your thoughts on her trip. – Melanie Blake] The Emirates Literary Festival is wrapping up, and as I […]
Beyond the Glitz of Dubai, Lots of Questions
‘s note – Ann has been sending dispatches on her experiences in Dubai, and I am compiling these into blog posts and putting them on Facebook and Twitter. We’d love to hear your thoughts on her trip. – Melanie Blake] In this latest update, just a few words about my […]
Impressions of a Multicultural Dubai
[Editor’s note – Ann has been sending dispatches on her experiences in Dubai, and I am compiling these into blog posts and putting them on Facebook and Twitter. We’d love to hear your thoughts on her trip. – Melanie Blake] I thought Toronto was a diverse city. But it is […]
GUEST POST — Getting Into the Spirit of the Story with the Mahabharata
Dear friends, The Mahabharata comes in many sizes and languages. The author of the version we will use at Toronto Pursuits, William Buck, worked from a 5,800-page Sanskrit version. His goal was not to translate it, but rather to retell it: “I thought how nice to tell the story so […]
GUEST POST — Seeking the Centre with Nella Cotrupi
Hello, I am really looking forward to our conversations about these important books and hope you are also getting fired up for the exchange. Chinua Achebe’s novel begins with a quote from Yeats that I will repeat here as it brings us immediately to what I suspect may turn out […]
CLASSICAL TRIVIA! Literary Villains
As literature PhD candidate Adam Burgess notes, “One of the best parts about reading classic literature is discovering, and often falling in love with, great characters. Talented writers have the ability to craft characters in such a way as to make us, the readers, imagine we could know these people […]
GUEST POST — Exploring the Sounds of a Shared Style with Tom Jones
Dear Friends, My impulse in creating this seminar was to share with others the type of experience I had when first reading the poetry of Du Fu, an experience that stayed with me through my career as a composer and conductor. One of the greatest ways to be exposed to […]