The Massey Lectures is an annual five-part series of lectures given in Canada by distinguished writers, thinkers, and scholars who explore important ideas and issues of contemporary interest. Created in 1961 in honour of Vincent Massey, a former

Governor General of Canada The governor general of Canada () is the federal representative of the . The monarch of Canada is also sovereign and head of state of 14 other Commonwealth realms and resides in the United Kingdom. The monarch, on the Advice (constitutional la ...

and coordinator of the 1951 Massey Report, it is widely regarded as one of the most acclaimed lecture series in the country. Notable Massey lecturers have included Northrop Frye,

John Kenneth Galbraith John Kenneth Galbraith (October 15, 1908 – April 29, 2006), also known as Ken Galbraith, was a Canadian-American economist, diplomat, public official, and intellectual. His books on economic topics were bestsellers from the 1950s through the ...

Noam Chomsky Avram Noam Chomsky (born December 7, 1928) is an American professor and public intellectual known for his work in linguistics, political activism, and social criticism. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics", Chomsky is also a ...

, Jean Vanier,

Margaret Atwood Margaret Eleanor Atwood (born November 18, 1939) is a Canadian novelist, poet, literary critic, and an inventor. Since 1961, she has published 18 books of poetry, 18 novels, 11 books of nonfiction, nine collections of short fiction, eight chi ...

, Ursula Franklin, George Steiner, Claude Levi Strauss, and Nobel laureates Martin Luther King Jr., George Wald,

Willy Brandt Willy Brandt (; born Herbert Ernst Karl Frahm; 18 December 1913 – 8 October 1992) was a German politician and statesman who was leader of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) from 1964 to 1987 and concurrently served as the Chancellor ...

, and Doris Lessing. In 2003, novelist Thomas King was the first person of

Cherokee The Cherokee (; , or ) people are one of the Indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands of the United States. Prior to the 18th century, they were concentrated in their homelands, in towns along river valleys of what is now southwestern ...

descent to be invited as a lecturer.

Sponsorship

The event is co-sponsored by CBC Radio, House of Anansi Press and Massey College in the

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public university, public research university whose main campus is located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park (Toronto), Queen's Park in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It was founded by ...

. The lectures have been broadcast by the CBC Radio show '' Ideas'' since 1965. Prior to 1989, the lectures were recorded for broadcast in a CBC Radio studio in Toronto. From 1989 to 2002, the lectures were delivered before a live audience at the University of Toronto. Since 2002, the lectures have been presented and recorded for broadcast at public events in five different cities across Canada. The lectures are broadcast each November on ''Ideas'' and published simultaneously in book form by House of Anansi Press. Many of the lectures can be listened to online on the Ideas website, while others can be purchased on various sites. In addition to the print version for each individual year, several of the earlier lectures are available in compilations, including The Lost Massey Lectures.

Massey lecturers

*1961 – Barbara Ward, ''The Rich Nations and the Poor Nations'' *1962 – Northrop Frye, ''The Educated Imagination'' *1963 – Frank Underhill, ''The Image of Confederation'' *1964 – C. B. Macpherson, ''The Real World of Democracy'' *1965 –

, ''The Underdeveloped Country'' *1966 – Paul Goodman, '' The Moral Ambiguity of America'' *1967 – Martin Luther King Jr., '' Conscience for Change'' *1968 – R. D. Laing, ''The Politics of the Family'' *1969 – George Grant, ''Time as History'' *1970 – George Wald, ''Therefore Choose Life'' *1971 – James Corry, ''The Power of the Law'' *1972 – Pierre Dansereau, '' Inscape and Landscape'' *1973 – Stafford Beer, ''Designing Freedom'' *1974 – George Steiner, ''Nostalgia for the Absolute'' *1975 – J. Tuzo Wilson, ''Limits to Science'' *1976 – No Lecture *1977 –

Claude Lévi-Strauss Claude Lévi-Strauss ( ; ; 28 November 1908 – 30 October 2009) was a Belgian-born French anthropologist and ethnologist whose work was key in the development of the theories of structuralism and structural anthropology. He held the chair o ...

, ''Myth and Meaning'' *1978 – Leslie Fiedler, ''The Inadvertent Epic'' *1979 –

Jane Jacobs Jane Isabel Jacobs (''née'' Butzner; 4 May 1916 – 25 April 2006) was an American-Canadian journalist, author, theorist, and activist who influenced urban studies, sociology, and economics. Her book ''The Death and Life of Great American Ci ...

, ''Canadian Cities and Sovereignty Association'' *1980 – No Lecture *1981 –

, ''Dangers and Options: The Matter of World Survival'' *1982 – Robert Jay Lifton, ''Indefensible Weapons'' *1983 –

Eric Kierans Eric William Kierans (2 February 1914 – 10 May 2004) was a Canadians, Canadian economist and politician. Early life Eric Kierans was born on 2 February 1914, in Montreal to Irish Canadians, Irish immigrant parents. He grew up in a working- ...

, ''Globalism and the Nation State'' *1984 – Carlos Fuentes, ''Latin America: At War with the Past'' *1985 – Doris Lessing, '' Prisons We Choose to Live Inside'' *1986 – No Lecture *1987 – Gregory Baum, ''Compassion and Solidarity: The Church for Others'' *1988 –

, '' Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic Societies'' *1989 – Ursula Franklin, ''The Real World of Technology'' *1990 – Richard Lewontin, ''Biology as Ideology: The Doctrine of DNA'' *1991 – Charles Taylor, ''The Malaise of Modernity'' *1992 – Robert Heilbroner, ''Twenty-First Century Capitalism'' *1993 – Jean Bethke Elshtain, ''Democracy on Trial'' *1994 – Conor Cruise O'Brien, ''On the Eve of the Millennium'' *1995 – John Ralston Saul, ''The Unconscious Civilization'' * 1996 – No Lecture (see Notes below) * 1997 – Hugh Kenner, ''The Elsewhere Community'' * 1998 – Jean Vanier, ''Becoming Human'' * 1999 – Robert Fulford, ''The Triumph of Narrative'' * 2000 – Michael Ignatieff, ''The Rights Revolution'' * 2001 – Janice Stein, ''The Cult of Efficiency'' * 2002 – Margaret Visser, ''Beyond Fate'' * 2003 – Thomas King, ''The Truth About Stories'' * 2004 – Ronald Wright, '' A Short History of Progress'' * 2005 – Stephen Lewis, '' Race Against Time: Searching for Hope in AIDS-Ravaged Africa'' * 2006 – Margaret Somerville, ''The Ethical Imagination'' * 2007 –

Alberto Manguel Alberto Manguel (born March 13, 1948, in Buenos Aires) is an Argentine Canadian, Argentine-Canadian anthologist, translator, essayist, novelist, editor, and a former director of the National Library of Argentina. He is a cosmopolitan and polyglo ...

, ''The City of Words'' * 2008 –

, '' Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth'' * 2009 – Wade Davis, ''The Wayfinders: Why Ancient Wisdom Matters in the Modern World'' * 2010 – Douglas Coupland, '' Player One: What is to Become of Us'' * 2011 – Adam Gopnik, '' Winter: Five Windows on the Season'' * 2012 – Neil Turok, ''The Universe Within: From Quantum to Cosmos'' * 2013 – Lawrence Hill, ''Blood: The Stuff of Life'' * 2014 – Adrienne Clarkson, ''Belonging: The Paradox of Citizenship'' * 2015 – Margaret MacMillan, ''History's People: Personalities and the Past'' * 2016 – Jennifer Welsh, ''The Return of History: Conflict, Migration and Geopolitics in the Twenty-First Century'' * 2017 – Payam Akhavan, ''In Search of a Better World: A Human Rights Odyssey'' * 2018 – Tanya Talaga, '' All Our Relations: Finding the Path Forward'' *2019 – Sally Armstrong, ''Power Shift: The Longest Revolution'' *2020 – Ronald J. Deibert, ''Reset: Reclaiming the Internet for Civil Society'' (shortlisted for the 2020 Donner Prize) *2021 – Esi Edugyan, ''Out of the Sun: On Art, Race and the Future'' *2022 – Tomson Highway, ''Laughing with the Trickster: On Sex, Death and Accordions'' *2023 – Astra Taylor, ''The Age of Insecurity: Coming Together as Things Fall Apart'' *2024 – Ian Williams, ''What I Mean To Say: Remaking Conversation in our Time''Vivian Rashotte
"'Politeness constrains us': Massey lecturer Ian Williams on developing our own opinions amid cancel culture"

CBC News CBC News is the division of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation responsible for the news gathering and production of news programs on the corporation's English-language operations, namely CBC Television, CBC Radio, CBC News Network, and CBC ...

, April 10, 2024.

Notes

For Lawrence Hill's Massey Lectures in 2013, the CBC Radio website featured a visual narrative to accompany that year's theme ''Blood: The Stuff of Life''. The story included full-screen images of blood, animations that visually demonstrated historical attitudes towards blood and videos of people affected culturally by it. 1996 did not feature a lecture because ''Ideas'' producers and the selected Lecturer Robert Theobald could not agree on an appropriate

manuscript A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand or typewritten, as opposed to mechanically printed or reproduced in some indirect or automated way. More recently, the term has ...

for the programme. The theme was to have been on the future of work. Theobald later published his manuscript as ''Reworking Success: New Communities at the Millennium'' (1997).

References

External links

CBC Ideas siteCBC Massey Lectures Archive
{{University of Toronto 1961 establishments in Ontario CBC Radio One programs Canadian talk radio programs Massey College, Toronto University and college lecture series 1960s Canadian radio programs 1970s Canadian radio programs 1980s Canadian radio programs 1990s Canadian radio programs 2000s Canadian radio programs 2010s Canadian radio programs 2020s Canadian radio programs Recurring events established in 1961

Sponsorship

Massey lecturers

Notes

See also

References

External links