Nearly 80 book, music and culture lovers gathered this past July for our annual “salon in the sun,” Toronto Pursuits. At our longtime oasis, Victoria University in the University of Toronto, we read and looked and listened, ate and drank, laughed and debated, greeted friends old and new. Most of […]
You undoubtedly have a mental picture of a “mad scientist.” If you visited a costume shop and saw that label on a package, you could predict the contents: likely a white lab coat, a bushy fright wig, some thick-framed eyeglasses or goggles, and some test tubes or other instruments. We […]
[Editor’s note: Learn more about Wendy’s work in our free April 20 webinar.] I live in wonder. Okay, I know that sounds like a strange thing for someone who considers themselves to be a “serious academic” to say. But when asked what it is that I do, it’s true. See, […]
by Rosemary Gould, leading And Take Upon Us the Mystery of Things: The Poetry of King Lear at Toronto Pursuits 2020 When I was in graduate school, I had the great privilege of teaching as an assistant to the extraordinary Shakespeare scholar, Arthur Kirsch. When I listened to his lecture […]
by John Riley, leading Putting the Post in Post-Modernism at Toronto Pursuits 2020 Friedrich Nietzsche was a very, very sick man for the last twenty years of his life. His body racked by the long-term effects of dysentery and diphtheria along with brain illness consistent with syphilis, he produced no […]
by Mark Cwik, leader of our 2020 Toronto Pursuits seminar The Great (R)evolution: Darwin’s On the Origin of Species Upon first reading Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, the great 19th-century biologist Thomas Henry Huxley—later to be known as “Darwin’s Bulldog”—is reported to have told friends, “How extremely stupid […]
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 […]
by Rick Phillips, leader of our 2020 Toronto Pursuits seminar on Beethoven The major anniversaries of the births and deaths of great composers are always lauded and celebrated. They give us a chance to honour and re-evaluate the roles these figures play in our modern world. Remember 1985 and the […]
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 […]
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 […]