[Editor’s note: Betty Ann Jordan is the founder of Art InSite cultural tours and a Toronto-based arts commentator. She operates whenever possible at the intersection between art, architecture and literature. We are thrilled to have her the leader of Memoirs of Hadrian: Power Embodied in July 2018.] In our politically […]
Guest Blog
Learning to See: Invisible Man and the Power of Imagination
Each time I plunge back into this book, I feel the battering that Invisible Man endures when he is thrust into the “battle royal.” Our unnamed narrator, thinking he has arrived at a meeting of his town’s white business and civic leaders to receive a prestigious scholarship, is thrown into […]
Genius and Cultural Kitchens: Savouring the Flavours of Renaissance Florence
[Editor’s note: We are very happy to welcome Stuart Patterson back to Toronto Pursuits. His seminar promises to be a literary and visual feast of the richness of Florence from the 14th through the 16th centuries. In true Renaissance spirit, it brings together works by four thinkers whose interests and […]
Strange Eyes for Strange Landscapes
[Editor’s note: We are thrilled to welcome Mandy Burton as a Toronto Pursuits leader. Her imaginative, multi-genre seminar will take us into realms both ancient and futuristic, where a cast of non-human characters helps us consider with piercing clarity those questions we as humans yearn so deeply to answer: Who […]
Rosemary Gould on Poetry as Painting of the Mind
[As part of our celebration of National Poetry Month, we bring you an interview with Toronto Pursuits leader Rosemary Gould. In her seminar Imaginary Gardens: The Nature Poetry of Hopkins, Moore & Frost Rosemary and participants will consider three poets who wrote about nature as a projection of their own […]
Room for Greatness: A Week of Women and the Arts
[Editor’s note: Veteran Toronto Pursuits leader and arts writer Betty Ann Jordan is eager to take on the issue of women’s under-representation in the arts with participants, and keen to highlight the possibilities for change. We hope you will join her for this eye-opening week of women and the arts.] […]
What Price Certainty? Four Great Playwrights on Doubt
[Editor’s note: Only a few places remain in longtime Toronto Pursuits leader Gary Schoepfel’s seminar Benefit of the Doubt. If you’ve never taken part in a discussion led by Gary, you are in for a rare treat. His questions open up new ways for participants to examine their beliefs about […]
Great Books Chicago 2017: Her Own Accord
Gary Schoepfel, a longtime discussion leader at Classical Pursuits and program director at the Great Books Foundation, invites you to the foundation’s annual event, Great Books Chicago. This year’s theme Her Own Accord: Who we are and who we desire to be explores works by and about American women writers. We at […]
See Naples with New Eyes
[Editor’s note: Our first Naples departure is full! To reserve a place on our second departure, please call our travel partner Worldwide Quest at 1-800-387-1483. We hope you will join leader Nella Cotrupi on this unique literary adventure.] Buon giorno, I recently learned that Francesca Siniscalchi, who has established a […]
Edith Wharton’s Republic of the Spirit
[Editor’s note: We are so happy to have Great Books Foundation senior editor Nancy Carr at Toronto Pursuits. Her seminar Innocence, Experience and Wisdom: Edith Wharton will immerse participants deep in a world both strange and familiar, where characters look to find meaning in a complex and quickly changing world. […]