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The Hugh MacLennan Lecture

John Hugh MacLennan, internationally acclaimed Canadian author and five-time winner of the Governor General's Award for Fiction, was born in Glace Bay, Nova Scotia, March 20, 1907. When he was 7 years old, his family moved to Halifax, Nova Scotia. MacLennan was ten years old and living in Halifax when the Imo and the French munitions ship the Mont Blanc collided in Halifax Harbour on December 6, 1917. The resulting explosion, known as the Halifax Explosion, was the greatest man-made explosion in human history prior to the atomic bomb, and his first published novel, Barometer Rising (1941), chronicles this event. His next novel and probably his most famous work, Two Solitudes (1945), was a best-seller in both Canada and the United States, and in 1946 won him the first of five Governor General's Awards. In 1951 Hugh MacLennan moved to Montreal and joined 看片视频 University's Department of English, where he continued to write and publish, winning his last two Governor General's Awards for his collection of essays Thirty and Three (1954), and the novel The Watch That Ends the Night (1959). Montreal remained his home until he died on November 7, 1990.

The Hugh MacLennan聽Lecture series was established in 1992 with help of a 5-year grant from the M.E. Hart Foundation, and receives ongoing support from the Friends of the Libraries. John Metcalf delivered the first lecture in the series on October 21, 1992, in the Stephen Leacock Building.

看片视频 University's Rare Books and Special Collections is the repository of the Hugh MacLennan papers, which includes correspondence, two unpublished novels, the drafts of Two Solitudes and The Watch that Ends the Night, and many articles. Some of this material is available online through the .

The聽Hugh MacLennan聽Lecture is sponsored by聽Donald Walcot.

Upcoming

  • 2025 Hugh MacLennan Lecture to be announced

Past lectures

  • Michelle Arbuckle, Brendan de Caires, and Robin Stevenson in conversation, moderated by Joseph Hafner
    Book bans and their impact on Canadian communities, a roundtable
    April 25, 2024

  • Ann-Marie MacDonald in conversation with Professor Erin Hurley聽
    Stories and How They Tell Themselves
    April 26, 2023

  • Rosemary Sullivan in conversation with Anne Lagac茅 Dowson
    "The Betrayal of Anne Frank" and Beyond: The Work and Process of Rosemary Sullivan
    May 4, 2022聽
  • Danny Ramadan in conversation with Ann-Marie MacDonald
    Navigating Identity Through Storytelling
    April 29, 2021聽
  • Carol Off
    Crossing the Line
    October 8, 2020
  • Esi Edugyan in conversation with Amanda Parris
    April 29, 2019
  • Louise Penny
    Murder for a Living
    April 19, 2018
  • Charlotte Gray
    A Personal Portrait of Canada at 150
    April 27, 2017
  • Thomas King聽
    Blue Metropolis First Peoples Literary Prize and interview with the CBC's Rosanna Deerchild
    April 15, 2016
  • Sarah MacLachlan
    My friend has a manuscript.聽Will you read it?鈥 & other FAQs
    April 28, 2015
  • Michael Ondaatje
    Mongrel Art: A discussion of literature and its neighbours
    March 26, 2014
  • Rabbi Lisa Grushcow
    Spiritual Solitudes: Liberal Religion in a Secular Quebec
    April 23, 2013
  • Charles Foran
    City Unique: Montreal in the Life and Imagination of Mordecai Richler
    March 20, 2012
  • Kate Pullinger
    The Future of Fiction: Historical to Digital聽
    April 28, 2011
  • The Honourable Ken Dryden
    Becoming Canada: Our Story | Our Politics | Our Future
    October 14, 2010
  • Charlotte Gray
    Truth and truthiness in biography
    April 23, 2009
  • Eleanor Wachtel
    The Lives of Writers
    April 17, 2008
  • Noah Richler
    Why Stories Matter... A defence of the arts in the new Canada
    April 26, 2007
  • Nicole & 脡mile Martel
    Parental translation, a primer 鈥
    l鈥橝BC de la traduction parentale:

    Nicole and 脡mile Martel on translating "Life of Pi鈥 to French
    September 28 ,2005
  • Agnes Whitfield
    Two Solitudes: The Paradoxical Destiny of a Canadian Classic
    April 7, 2004
  • John Metcalf
    Something Happened Here
    September 30, 2003
  • Susan Stromberg-Stein
    The Essence of Louis Dudek 鈥 from my point of view
    October 9, 2002
  • Edward O. Phillips
    Comedy of Manners
    October 9, 2001
  • Roch Carrier
    The Paper and the Screen
    October 10, 2000
  • Trevor Ferguson
    Imagine That: Imagination as the Language of God
    October 6, 1999
  • May Ebbitt Cutler
    Fear of the Original: A Canadian Phobia
    October 1, 1998
  • Dr. David Staines
    Stephen Leacock: The Man Behind the Humour
    October 8, 1997
  • Susan Swan
    The Writer and Pop Culture
    October 3, 1996
  • Douglas Gibson
    The Book in Canada Today: A Publisher's Perspective
    November 7, 1995
  • Dr. Victor C. Goldbloom
    Hugh MacLennan鈥檚 Two Solitudes 鈥 Today
    September 29, 1994
  • Mme Louise Gareau
    Hugh MacLennan As I Knew Him
    October 13, 1993
  • John Metcalf
    Inventing Canadian Literature
    October 21, 1992
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