The Impressionists’ “Bold Manner of Seeing Things”
By Wendy O’Brien, who is leading Impressionism: From Seeing to Feeling at Toronto Pursuits 2020 Bonne année, mes amis! I’m writing you from Paris where I’ve come to celebrate the holidays and explore the city as I think about the impressionists — their project and their influence. I’m getting ready […]
Reading Some of the World’s Most Familiar Stories with Fresh Eyes
By Mandy Burton, who will be leading In Remembrance of Me: Jesus Before Christianity at Toronto Pursuits 2020 When I started teaching at a major public university after a lifetime of studying and working at smaller schools, I found that I had to adjust my expectations about the rhythms of […]
Where Words Unfreeze: The Terra Incognita of Rabelais
by Denise Ahlquist, leading Seriously Funny: The Fantastical Worlds of François Rabelais “When they were upon the open sea, feasting, singing and holding discreet intercourse in fair discourse…” Imagine you are there, enmeshed in one of the worlds of words created by Rabelais—a world we will bring to life in […]
“Three things extremely hard”
by Gary Schoepfel, leader of the 2020 Toronto Pursuits seminar The Proper Study of Mankind is Man You’ll read it on tattooed bodies. It makes an appearance in the Matrix films. It was a Delphic maxim echoed by Aeschylus, Socrates and Plato. It shows up in political writings, paintings, anatomical […]
From (19th-century) Russia, with Love
by Sean Forester, leader of our September 2019 trip to Moscow and St. Petersburg For many of us, the images we have formed of Russia are rooted in Soviet times: We picture a tyrannical and bureaucratic country full of dreary buildings. Or maybe our images come from Hollywood and its […]
Beyond the Femme Fatale
by Joyce Wayne, novelist and leader of Toronto Pursuits 2020 seminar Women Spies in Cold War Fiction A remarkable study showing that 70 percent of the world’s fake news and digital media manipulation emanates from Russia was recently published by The Economist. The finding takes me back to the Cold […]
Philosophy in the World: Interview with Toronto Pursuits Leader Wendy O’Brien
We are very happy to welcome new leader Wendy O’Brien to Toronto Pursuits. Participants in her seminar The Second Sex 70 Years Later dig deep into this major work—and into their own lived experience—of what it means to be a woman or a man. Classical Pursuits director Melanie recently talked […]
Chekhov Three Ways
[Editor’s note: We warmly welcome back Sean Forester, a longtime seminar leader, to Toronto Pursuits. Sean will serve up a delicious blend of literature, art, and film in his seminar on one of the most important playwrights and short story writers in world literature.] It will come as no surprise […]
Medieval Stories, Modern Pilgrimages
[Editor’s note: We warmly welcome Denise Ahlquist back to Toronto Pursuits. A senior consultant at the Great Books Foundation, Denise has been a longtime leader of discussion groups for children and adults. Join her on an unforgettable journey in her seminar on Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales.] “When April comes and with […]
Art à la Mode
[Editor’s note: Every year Betty Ann Jordan brings colour and style to Toronto Pursuits, and 2019 will be no exception. Join her for Seeing Through Clothes, a seminar that weaves art and history into a larger exploration of what clothes say about us.] Lingering in front of a historical portrait, […]