The Massey Lectures is an annual five-part series of

lectures A lecture (from Latin ''lēctūra'' “reading” ) is an oral presentation intended to present information or teach people about a particular subject, for example by a university or college teacher. Lectures are used to convey critical inform ...

given in

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

by distinguished writers, thinkers and scholars who explore important ideas and issues of contemporary interest. Created in 1961 in honour of

Vincent Massey Charles Vincent Massey (February 20, 1887December 30, 1967) was a Canadian lawyer and diplomat who served as Governor General of Canada, the 18th since Confederation. Massey was the first governor general of Canada who was born in Canada after ...

, the former

Governor General of Canada The governor general of Canada (french: gouverneure générale du Canada) is the federal viceregal representative of the . The is head of state of Canada and the 14 other Commonwealth realms, but resides in oldest and most populous realm, ...

, it is widely regarded as one of the most acclaimed lecture series in the country. Some of the most notable Massey Lecturers have included

Northrop Frye Herman Northrop Frye (July 14, 1912 – January 23, 1991) was a Canadian literary critic and literary theorist, considered one of the most influential of the 20th century. Frye gained international fame with his first book, '' Fearful Symm ...

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 t ...

Noam Chomsky Avram Noam Chomsky (born December 7, 1928) is an American public intellectual: a linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, historian, social critic, and political activist. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics", Chomsky i ...

Jean Vanier Jean Vanier (, September 10, 1928 – May 7, 2019) was a Canadian Catholic philosopher and theologian. In 1964, he founded L'Arche, an international federation of communities spread over 37 countries for people with developmental disabilities a ...

, Margaret Atwood,

Ursula Franklin Ursula Martius Franklin (16 September 1921 – 22 July 2016) was a German-Canadian metallurgist, research physicist, author, and educator who taught at the University of Toronto for more than 40 years.Lumley, Elizabeth (editor) (2008), ''Canadi ...

George Steiner Francis George Steiner, FBA (April 23, 1929 – February 3, 2020) was a Franco-American literary critic, essayist, philosopher, novelist, and educator. He wrote extensively about the relationship between language, literature and society, and the ...

, Claude Levi Strauss, and Nobel laureates

Martin Luther King Jr. Martin Luther King Jr. (born Michael King Jr.; January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American Baptist minister and activist, one of the most prominent leaders in the civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968 ...

, 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 served as the chancellor of West Ge ...

and Doris Lessing. In 2003, novelist Thomas King was the first person of Cherokee descent to be invited as a lecturer.

Sponsorship

The event is co-sponsored by

CBC Radio CBC Radio is the English-language radio operations of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. The CBC operates a number of radio networks serving different audiences and programming niches, all of which (regardless of language) are outlined below ...

, House of Anansi Press and

Massey College Massey College is a graduate residential college at the University of Toronto that was established, built and partially endowed in 1962 by the Massey Foundation and officially opened in 1963, though women were not admitted until 1974. It was mo ...

in the

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public university, public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park (Toronto), Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 ...

. The lectures have been broadcast by the

show ''

Ideas In common usage and in philosophy, ideas are the results of thought. Also in philosophy, ideas can also be mental representational images of some object. Many philosophers have considered ideas to be a fundamental ontological category of being. ...

'' 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 Barbara Mary Ward, Baroness Jackson of Lodsworth, (23 May 1914 – 31 May 1981) was a British economist and writer interested in the problems of developing countries. She urged Western governments to share their prosperity with the rest of th ...

, ''The Rich Nations and the Poor Nations'' *1962 –

, ''The Educated Imagination'' *1963 –

Frank Underhill Frank Hawkins Underhill, SM, FRSC (November 26, 1889 – September 16, 1971) was a Canadian journalist, essayist, historian, social critic, and political thinker. Biography Frank Underhill, born in Stouffville, Ontario, was educated at ...

, ''The Image of Confederation'' *1964 – C. B. Macpherson, ''The Real World of Democracy'' *1965 –

, ''The Underdeveloped Country'' *1966 –

Paul Goodman Paul Goodman (1911–1972) was an American writer and public intellectual best known for his 1960s works of social criticism. Goodman was prolific across numerous literary genres and non-fiction topics, including the arts, civil rights, decen ...

, ''

The Moral Ambiguity of America ''Like a Conquered Province: The Moral Ambiguity of America'' is a book of Paul Goodman's Massey Lectures for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (french: Société Radio-Canada), branded as CBC/R ...

'' *1967 –

, ''

Conscience for Change ''Conscience for Change'' is a book of transcribed lectures by Martin Luther King Jr. that includes five talks King gave in late 1967 for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's Massey Lectures. First published by the CBC, the book was later repub ...

'' *1968 –

R. D. Laing Ronald David Laing (7 October 1927 – 23 August 1989), usually cited as R. D. Laing, was a Scottish psychiatrist who wrote extensively on mental illnessin particular, the experience of psychosis. Laing's views on the causes and treatment o ...

, ''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 Inscape and instress are complementary and enigmatic concepts about individuality and uniqueness derived by the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins from the ideas of the medieval philosopher Duns Scotus.Chevigny, Bell Gale. Instress and Devotion in the ...

and Landscape'' *1973 –

Stafford Beer Anthony Stafford Beer (25 September 1926 – 23 August 2002) was a British theorist, consultant and professor at the Manchester Business School. He is best known for his work in the fields of operational research and management cybernetics. ...

, ''Designing Freedom'' *1974 –

, ''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 French anthropologist and ethnologist whose work was key in the development of the theories of structuralism and structural anthropology. He held the chair of Social An ...

, ''Myth and Meaning'' *1978 –

Leslie Fiedler Leslie Aaron Fiedler (March 8, 1917 – January 29, 2003) was an American literary critic, known for his interest in mythography and his championing of genre fiction. His work incorporates the application of psychological theories to American lit ...

, ''The Inadvertent Epic'' *1979 –

Jane Jacobs Jane 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 Cities ...

, ''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 (February 2, 1914 – May 10, 2004) was a Canadian economist and politician. Early life Born in Montreal, Kierans grew up in the working-class Saint-Henri neighbourhood. His father worked at Canadian Car and Foundry, and ...

, ''Globalism and the Nation State'' *1984 –

Carlos Fuentes Carlos Fuentes Macías (; ; November 11, 1928 – May 15, 2012) was a Mexican novelist and essayist. Among his works are ''The Death of Artemio Cruz'' (1962), ''Aura'' (1962), '' Terra Nostra'' (1975), ''The Old Gringo'' (1985) and ''Christopher ...

, ''Latin America: At War with the Past'' *1985 – Doris Lessing, '' Prisons We Choose to Live Inside'' *1986 – No Lecture *1987 –

Gregory Baum Gerhard Albert Baum (June 20, 1923 – October 18, 2017), better known as Gregory Baum, was a German-born Canadian priest and theologian in the Catholic Church. He became known in North America and Europe in the 1960s for his work on ecumenism, ...

, ''Compassion and Solidarity: The Church for Others'' *1988 –

, '' Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic Societies'' *1989 –

, ''The Real World of Technology'' *1990 –

Richard Lewontin Richard Charles Lewontin (March 29, 1929 – July 4, 2021) was an American evolutionary biologist, mathematician, geneticist, and social commentator. A leader in developing the mathematical basis of population genetics and evolutionary theory, ...

, ''Biology as Ideology: The Doctrine of DNA'' *1991 – Charles Taylor, ''The Malaise of Modernity'' *1992 –

Robert Heilbroner Robert L. Heilbroner (March 24, 1919 – January 4, 2005) was an American economist and historian of economic thought. The author of some 20 books, Heilbroner was best known for ''The Worldly Philosophers: The Lives, Times and Ideas of the Great ...

, ''Twenty-First Century Capitalism'' *1993 –

Jean Bethke Elshtain Jean Paulette Bethke Elshtain (1941–2013) was an American ethicist, political philosopher, and public intellectual. She was the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Professor of Social and Political Ethics in the University of Chicago Divinity School with ...

, ''Democracy on Trial'' *1994 –

Conor Cruise O'Brien Donal Conor David Dermot Donat Cruise O'Brien (3 November 1917 – 18 December 2008), often nicknamed "The Cruiser", was an Irish diplomat, politician, writer, historian and academic, who served as Minister for Posts and Telegraphs from 1973 ...

, ''On the Eve of the Millennium'' *1995 –

John Ralston Saul John Ralston Saul (born June 19, 1947) is a Canadian writer, political philosopher, and public intellectual. Saul is most widely known for his writings on the nature of individualism, citizenship and the Public good (economics), public good; t ...

, ''The Unconscious Civilization'' * 1996 – No Lecture (see Notes below) * 1997 – Hugh Kenner, ''The Elsewhere Community'' * 1998 –

, ''Becoming Human'' * 1999 – Robert Fulford, ''The Triumph of Narrative'' * 2000 –

Michael Ignatieff Michael Grant Ignatieff (; born May 12, 1947) is a Canadian author, academic and former politician who served as the leader of the Liberal Party of Canada and Leader of the Official Opposition from 2008 until 2011. Known for his work as a histo ...

, ''The Rights Revolution'' * 2001 –

Janice Stein Janice Gross Stein (born 1943) is a Canadian political scientist and international relations expert. Stein is a specialist in Middle East area studies; negotiation theory; foreign policy decision-making; and international conflict management. S ...

, ''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 anthologist, translator, essayist, novelist, editor, and a former Director of the National Library of Argentina. He is the author of numerous non-fiction books such ...

, ''The City of Words'' * 2008 – Margaret Atwood, '' Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth'' * 2009 – Wade Davis, ''The Wayfinders: Why Ancient Wisdom Matters in the Modern World'' * 2010 –

Douglas Coupland Douglas Coupland (born 30 December 1961) is a Canadian novelist, designer, and visual artist. His first novel, the 1991 international bestseller '' Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture'', popularized the terms ''Generation X'' and ''McJ ...

, '' Player One: What is to Become of Us'' * 2011 –

Adam Gopnik Adam Gopnik (born August 24, 1956) is an American writer and essayist. He is best known as a staff writer for ''The New Yorker,'' to which he has contributed non-fiction, fiction, memoir, and criticism since 1986. He is the author of nine books ...

, '' Winter: Five Windows on the Season'' * 2012 –

Neil Turok Neil Geoffrey Turok (born 16 November 1958) is a South African physicist. He holds the Higgs Chair of Theoretical Physics at the University of Edinburgh since 2020, and has been director emeritus of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physi ...

, ''The Universe Within: From Quantum to Cosmos'' * 2013 –

Lawrence Hill Lawrence Hill (born January 24, 1957) is a Canadian novelist, essayist, and memoirist. He is known for his 2007 novel '' The Book of Negroes,'' inspired by the Black Loyalists given freedom and resettled in Nova Scotia by the British after the ...

, ''Blood: The Stuff of Life'' * 2014 –

Adrienne Clarkson Adrienne Louise Clarkson (; ; born February 10, 1939) is a Hong Kong-born Canadian journalist who served from 1999 to 2005 as Governor General of Canada, the 26th since Canadian Confederation. Clarkson arrived in Canada with her family in 19 ...

, ''Belonging: The Paradox of Citizenship'' * 2015 –

Margaret MacMillan Margaret Olwen MacMillan, (born 1943) is a Canadian historian and professor at the University of Oxford. She is former provost of Trinity College, Toronto, and professor of history at the University of Toronto and previously at Ryerson Univer ...

, ''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 Payam Akhavan (Persian: پیام اخوان) is an Iranian-born lawyer. He is a Member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague. He is a senior fellow at Massey College at the University of Toronto and is a visiting adjunct at the ...

, ''In Search of a Better World: A Human Rights Odyssey'' * 2018 –

Tanya Talaga Tanya Talaga is a Canadian journalist and author of Anishinaabe and Polish descent. She worked as a journalist at the ''Toronto Star'' for over twenty years, covering health, education, local issues, and investigations. She is now a regular colu ...

, '' 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 The Donner Prize is an award given annually by one of Canada's largest foundations, the Donner Canadian Foundation, for books considered excellent in regard to the writing of Canadian public policy. The prize was established in 1998 and is meant to ...

) *2021 –

Esi Edugyan Esi Edugyan (born 1978) is a Canadian novelist.Donna Bailey Nurse"Writing the blues" ''Quill & Quire'', July 2011. She has twice won the Giller Prize, for her novels '' Half-Blood Blues'' and '' Washington Black''. Biography Esi Edugyan was born ...

, ''Out of the Sun: On Art, Race and the Future'' *2022 –

Tomson Highway Tomson Highway (born 6 December 1951) is an Indigenous Canadian playwright, novelist, and children's author. He is best known for his plays ''The Rez Sisters'' and ''Dry Lips Oughta Move to Kapuskasing'', both of which won the Dora Mavor Moore ...

, ''Laughing with the Trickster: On Sex, Death and Accordions''

Notes

For

'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, once practical typewriters became available, typewritten – as opposed to mechanically printed or reproduced in ...

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
{{CBC Radio Programs (current and upcoming) 1961 establishments in Ontario CBC Radio One programs Canadian talk radio programs University of Toronto Lecture series