Philosopher and writer John Ralston Saul will deliver the annual John W. Holmes Memorial Lecture on Wednesday, Feb. 25 at 7:30pm at York University’s Glendon College campus. Saul will examine Canada’s role on the world stage as a middle power in an imperial world.
Left: John Ralston Saul
Saul, husband of Governor General Adrienne Clarkson, has won international recognition for his novels and essays, while animating and enlivening public discourse by challenging Canadians to think anew about themselves and their country.
Saul’s growing impact on political and economic thought was firmly established with his 1995 Massey Lectures. The resulting book, The Unconscious Civilization, won the 1996 Governor General’s Literary Award for Non-Fiction and the Gordon Montador Award for the Best Canadian Non-Fiction Book on social issues (1996). It was the concluding book of a major philosophical trilogy, the first two volumes being Voltaire’s Bastards – The Dictatorship of Reason in the West and The Doubter’s Companion – A Dictionary of Aggressive Common Sense. In 2001 he drew his conclusions about this trilogy with a new volume: On Equilibrium.
John W. Holmes was a Canadian diplomat, scholar and president of the Canadian Institute of International Affairs (CIIA), who taught international relations at Glendon College at York from 1971 to 1981. He was a strong supporter of the United Nations and multilateralism in world affairs.
The lecture will be held in the dining room of Glendon College.