Announcement
I am pleased to announce that I will take up the post of Director of the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs starting January 1, 2015.
W.G. Sebald, Austerlitz (Vintage Canada, 2001)
A world masterpiece, in my view. Sebald was a German academic who spent most of his career in the United Kingdom, where he grew tired of the rigidities of scholarly writing and turned himself into one of the most innovative “creative” writers in the English language. Austerlitz contains strong narrative flow but is also part […]
John Banville, Ancient Light (Viking, 2012)
Banville is one of my favourite contemporary novelists. He is heir to the great Irish tradition of good storytelling and lush language. But to my mind he displays a discipline that precludes sentimentality. This story is beautiful, but shocking: a young boy falls in love with the mother of his best friend and causes a […]
John Irving, In One Person (Simon & Schuster, 2012)
A brilliant novel that explores the complexities of desire and sexual identity. The protagonist, William Abbott, grows from a naïve but unusual and courageous Vermont boy to a somewhat jaded New Yorker. His sexuality is fluid, but so is that of many people he encounters in a rich life. The author and the narrator are […]
Universities in an Era of ‘Non-Lieux’
In an era of ‘non-places’ how can universities become more distinctive from each other to allow for the intellectual diversity needed for healthy social, cultural and economic innovation?
Federal International Education Strategy Signals a Commitment to Improve Canada’s Higher Education Status Globally
Federal Government strategy aims to double the number of foreign students and researchers at Canadian universities by 2020.
UBC Hosts Lecture “The Global Talent Hunt: Are We Playing to Win?”
Friday, January 10, 2014 4:30 p.m (PST) UBC Robson Square Theatre. Public Policy Forum Lecture Series: Kevin Lynch, Vice-Chair, BMO Financial Group.