Department of English

John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture

University College

Subheadline

"Individual trees have such rich history and are often overlooked so it's great to learn about them in this class”

On a recent cool and sunny morning, Alan Ackerman’s class sat under century-old elm trees behind the Whitney Hall residence at the ��Ƶ’s University College, much like students did over 100 years ago.

The setting in the historic core of the St. George campus was fitting for "Tree Stories," Ackerman’s first-year English course which examines how we imagine trees in literature and art, and what trees can teach us about our place in the world.

“This course aims to get people in touch with their living world and with parts of themselves that have probably atrophied in their digitized lives,” says Ackerman, a professor in the Faculty of Arts & Science’s department of English. “It's a weave of stories, literature, history, environmental studies and getting to know the local landscape.

“For first-year students, it's a wonderful opportunity for them to get to know aspects of Toronto.”

Ackerman holds most of his lectures outside, visiting locations with a rich arboreal history across the St. George campus – which boasts over 3,300 trees including cedar, birch, ash, oak, maple and many others – and around the city.

Alan Ackerman holds most of his lectures outside, visiting locations with a rich arboreal history across the St. George campus and beyond (photo by Diana Tyszko)

“When I heard the class was always going to be outside, I wasn’t looking forward to that aspect,” says Jennifer Wilton, a first-year student and member of Woodsworth College. “But I’ve really come to appreciate the two hours of class in the fresh air.

“And now when I walk past these elms, I feel like I’m walking past something familiar. Individual trees have such rich history and are often overlooked so it's great to learn about them in this class.”

Ackerman has also held classes in the courtyard of Trinity College as well as the courtyard of University College’s Sir Daniel Wilson Hall, where students met with Danijela Puric-Mladenovic, an assistant professor, teaching stream at the Institute of Forestry and Conservation in the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design.

“She gave us a tour around [University College] where she identified a number of different trees and talked about them in relation to each other and to their ecosystem,” says Ackerman.

Alan Ackerman's class meets for a lecture beneath elm trees behind Whitney Hall (photo by Diana Tyszko)

Outside of campus, Ackerman had the students meet at spots at Queen’s Park, the Mount Pleasant Cemetery and Christie Pits Park.

“I’ve talked about Henry David Thoreau's essay, Walking, and how wilderness is not just something far off in the mountains,” says Ackerman. “There’s wilderness we can discover much closer to home.”

One of the course’s most popular outings was a visit to the Spadina Museum and its gardens, near Casa Loma.

“We talked about the history and ecology of those grounds as we picked apples,” says Ackerman. “We read Robert Frost’s poem, After Apple-Picking, and thought about the form and the content of the poem. We talked about other tree stories about apples, like Johnny Appleseed which is based on a real historical person, John Chapman.”

Students gather the dimensions of a century-old elm tree (photo by Diana Tyszko)

Sam Buonassisi, a first-year Rotman Commerce student and member of St. Michael’s College, relished his time at the Spadina Museum.

“It was such a different environment from my regular lectures, and it was just nice to see a new area,” he says. “I recently moved to Toronto from Vancouver to come to U of T, so I hadn’t had many opportunities to see the city. This was one of those opportunities and I really enjoyed it.”

For Ackerman, the course is an extension of his personal interest in the burgeoning field of environmental humanities. It also taps into his appreciation for nature that grew during the COVID pandemic.

“I spent a lot more time outdoors, especially when the pandemic closed everything,” he says. “Trees became vital in my imagination, especially how trees wind their ways through stories.”

The literature the class studied varied as much as the trees they visited, from some of the earliest-known stories – such as the Epic of Gilgamesh and King James Bible – to poems by Emily Dickinson to contemporary writers like Robin Wall Kimmerer, author of Braiding Sweetgrass, and The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben.

“We also read authors, poets, essayists and others from a vast array of time periods, places and cultures, not only to consider differences, but to also gain a sense of what we have in common – not only with other members of our own species but all life on this beautiful planet,” says Ackerman.

Ackerman says the course is an extension of his personal interest in the burgeoning field of environmental humanities (photo by Diana Tyszko)

Students are also encouraged to think about their individual relationships with trees by maintaining a “Tree Diary” and writing weekly about their connection to a specific tree.

“The tree I picked is just outside my dorm, and I picked a younger tree in hopes that it would be a bit unique from some of the ones we talked about. Surprisingly, by the time I get outside and get my journal out, something always pops into my head," says Buonassisi, who adds that he now finds himself noticing trees he wouldn't have paid attention to otherwise.

For Wilton, learning about the history of trees has been a source of comfort on campus. “It makes me feel more at home and much less intimidated by this huge school,” she says.

Ackerman says he hopes the experience leaves a lasting imprint on students’ hearts and minds.

“Years after taking “Tree Stories,” they probably won’t remember the names of poems or poets or their professor, but I hope they retain the sense of being on a journey – in pursuit of not just knowledge but of wisdom.”

‘Write the stories you want to read’: SJ Sindu, author of Blue-Skinned Gods

lanthierj — Fri, 10 Dec 2021 15:54:57 +0000

‘Write the stories you want to read’: SJ Sindu, author of Blue-Skinned Gods

lanthierj Fri, 12/10/2021 - 10:54

Cutline

(Photo by Sarah Bodri)

Don Campbell

Topic

Literature

U of T Scarborough

When SJ Sindu was younger, she couldn’t wait for her annual family vacations to Scarborough.

“Scarborough was a completely different world to where I grew up,” says Sindu, an assistant professor in the department of English at U of T Scarborough.

“You could go to Tamil stores, get Tamil food, and just be surrounded by Tamilness. That was very meaningful to me.”

She says her early experiences – growing up in a conflict zone, immigrating to the U.S. and exploring her own identity as a Tamil living in the mostly white, suburban town of Amherst, Mass. – were instrumental in shaping her voice as an author.

Her first novel, Marriage of a Thousand Lies, tells the story of Lucky and her husband Krishna, who married to hide the fact they are gay from their conservative Sri Lankan-American families. Her new novel, Blue-Skinned Gods, follows Kalki, a boy born with blue skin and black blood who is believed to be the reincarnation of Vishnu. He begins to doubt his divinity as his personal life and relationships fall apart, then moves to New York where he becomes embedded in the underground punk scene.

Published in Canada by Penguin Random House, the book was described by Roxane Gay as a brilliant novel “that will take hold of you and never let you go” and received glowing reviews in The Guardian and The New York Times among others. It will launch at Glad Day Books as part of their Naked Heart Festival on Dec. 18.

UTSC News spoke to Sindu about her early influences and how faith, identity and family continue to shape her writing.

How have your early influences shaped you as a writer?

I was born and lived in the northeast part of Sri Lanka until I was seven years old. A lot of my childhood and early years were shaped by the war, and being a Tamil living in Jaffna during the war.

The other was immigrating to the U.S. I was very much isolated as a kid. There were other Indians around, but there weren’t Sri Lankan Tamils. So I read a lot of books and escaped into stories. It was a way to cope with being taken out of a war situation and put into this very suburban American life without any peers or ways to explore my own identity.

Did you always want to be a writer?

I didn’t really start writing until I was in university. In fact, I started out in computer science and then fell in love with creative writing. I just loved the potential that writing fiction had for communicating the ideas that were obsessing me.

Where did the inspiration for Blue-Skinned Gods come from?

Partly the inspiration came because I lost my faith in religion. I was raised Hindu, and as a teenager I started to lose my faith and began to explore atheism. At the same time, my family became increasingly religious. So I wanted to explore that relationship.

I also saw a documentary by Vikram Ghandi called Kūmāré where he pretends to be an Indian guru and ends up gathering this large following. I was also closely watching the growing popularity of the BJP, a right-wing nationalist party in India, and interested in exploring what it meant to have a strain of fundamentalist Hindus on the rise in India and how that might affect the region.

In your first novel, Marriage of a Thousand Lies, you also explore themes of identity, sexuality, faith and family. Why do those themes inspire your writing?

There are things I’m still trying to work out in my own life. I’m trying to figure out my relationship with my family, especially my extended family now that I’m living in Toronto. How to be part of a family that fundamentally rejects parts of who I am – the queerness, the atheism, the progressive beliefs I hold. Negotiating that with the older family members has been interesting. I’m still trying to figure it out, and I think I explore those things in my writing.

Did you have a favourite book, or one that influenced you as a writer?

There are two. The first is The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien. It was the first novel I read where I realized that I should and could write about my experiences with war. It’s the book that made me want to be a writer.

The second is Funny Boy by Shyam Selvadurai. For the first time I saw Tamilness and queerness explored together, and that was very important to see, especially in my development as a writer.

What advice do you have for your students and aspiring writers?

Write the stories you want to read. Many of my students at UTSC are racialized, many are from immigrant families, and they haven’t read a lot of stories that reflect that experience. I hope they can be inspired to write about their own experiences.

U of T's Randy Boyagoda discusses his new novel, inspired by Dante and set in small-town Indiana

Christopher.Sorensen — Mon, 20 Sep 2021 14:40:48 +0000

U of T's Randy Boyagoda discusses his new novel, inspired by Dante and set in small-town Indiana

Christopher.Sorensen Mon, 09/20/2021 - 10:40

Cutline

(Photo by Derek Shapton)

Sean McNeely

Topic

creative writing

Jackman Humanities Institute

Though 700 years have passed since the death of the great Medieval poet Dante Alighieri, author of The Divine Comedy, Randy Boyagoda believes the poem still has the power to connect with anyone who has lost their way.

Dante's Indiana is Boyagoda's second book in a planned trilogy following Original Prin, a satirical novel published in 2018. "It's a loose trilogy,” says Boyagoda, a professor in the department of English in the Faculty of Arts & Science and vice dean, undergraduate.

“Readers can come to this book not knowing about its predecessor and be totally fine, and just engage with this story.”

The trilogy loosely mirrors the three parts of The Divine Comedy: Inferno (hell), Purgatorio (purgatory) and Paradiso (heaven), charting Dante’s path to God.

Prin, the main character in Dante’s Indiana is an English professor who consults on a Dante-themed amusement park.

Original Prin was in a sense Inferno. Dante’s Indiana is Purgatorio, “and then we'll see what happens when I write the third novel in terms of Paradiso,” Boyagoda says.

In Dante’s Indiana, Prin is a middle-aged Sri Lankan-Canadian professor of English from Toronto who finds himself in a type of personal purgatory. He’s stuck, distanced physically and emotionally from his wife and kids, and in need of work, money and purpose.

He accepts an offer to consult on a Christian amusement park in Terre Haute, a rust belt Indiana city. The park is the retirement project of a wealthy packaging company owner and the only profitable business in town.

Prin quickly becomes involved in the complicated lives of his co-workers and in the wider struggles of their opioid-ravaged community while trying to reconcile with his family and his own religious beliefs.

Boyagoda says he still finds time to write despite having a busy academic career.

“Since graduate school, people have been telling me I can't do both, that I can't have this creative life alongside my academic life,” he says. “But I’m very fortunate, in that I've always been able to do it.”

Unlike some writers, Boyagoda says he doesn't require much sleep or structure to write. It’s not uncommon for him to wake at 4 or 5 in the morning and write before the school day begins. He also doesn't need to stick to a specific routine to be creative.

“Whatever I’m doing in my life and work as a university administrator and professor,” he says, “I’m also, somewhere inside, always still imagining, still writing, still telling a story.”

The inspiration for Boyagoda's trilogy came to him unexpectedly – while cleaning his car.

“I was vacuuming potato chips out of our car on a September morning in 2016 and I was listening to a BBC Radio adaptation of The Divine Comedy,” he says. “I’ve studied and read and taught it, but I wouldn’t say it had a significant relevance to my life and work before that moment.”

Listening to that broadcast, Boyagoda was struck by the narrator’s heavy breathing while reading the Inferno, portraying Dante as he made his way down through hell, traveling down an inverted mountain, passing over boulders and lakes of fire.

“I took for granted the physicality of the poem,” says Boyagoda. “That’s when I realized, ‘You know what we all need? A hiker’s guide to Dante.”

He proposed this idea as a Scholars-in-Residence project at the Jackman Humanities Institute. The following year, he worked with five Arts & Science students who joined Boyagoda in poring over old manuscripts and early visualizations. The result was a map of Inferno unlike any other, with detailed locations and descriptions of Dante’s journey.

“But then at some point, the hustling novelist in me took over from the respectable scholar,” says Boyagoda. “And I thought, ‘imagine this is a theme park.’”

As a professor of American literature, Boyagoda spends a lot of time thinking about modern and contemporary American literature, culture and public life. “And Dante’s vision of human experience, in ordinary and ultimate ways together, seemed like a perfect way in to write about America right now,” he says.

That examination of American life focuses on the town’s opioid crisis paired with economic struggles.

In Dante’s Indiana, the son of the packaging company’s owner realizes there’s only one way to keep the family business afloat: By packaging opioids for local distribution, although many of the families who work there have opioid-addicted children or have lost children to overdoses.

“It's a perfect business plan, a high-demand product that keeps everybody employed,” Boyagoda says. “It also seems like a perfect ‘Dantean situation'. The premise and ensuing problems let me explore all of the genuine and very serious human struggles of the novel’s characters.

“The big question of the novel then becomes, which one is going to save this town? The Dante theme park or the opioid-packaging local company? And how does Prin help the people around him, either way, and at the same time find his way home to his family?”

When readers find the answers to these questions, Boyagoda hopes they are able to identify with the story, like they do with The Divine Comedy.

“One of the great things about Dante is that no matter who you are, you can find yourself in the poem,” Boyagoda says. “It famously begins, ‘In the middle of the journey of our life, I came to myself, in a dark wood where the direct way was lost.’”

“You've likely had that moment of feeling lost in the middle of your life, and you look for help – we all do,” Boyagoda says.

“My novel is very much informed by Dante, but it isn’t an homage to Dante. Instead, it’s part of a larger writing project of mine which, in this case, is very much about what it means to find yourself in a story where you weren't expecting to find yourself. With Dante’s Indiana, I hope readers find themselves in this story in ways they didn't expect.”

Basketball, charity, family: Raptors President Masai Ujiri speaks at U of T's Black History Luncheon

perry.king — Fri, 01 Mar 2019 22:01:19 +0000

Basketball, charity, family: Raptors President Masai Ujiri speaks at U of T's Black History Luncheon

perry.king Fri, 03/01/2019 - 17:01

Cutline

Toronto Raptors President Masai Ujiri sat down with Glen Boothe from the Division of University Advancement to answer questions submitted by U of T staff and students (photo by Perry King)

Perry King

Topic

Black History Month

Division of University Advancement

Hart House

President Meric Gertler

U of T Mississauga

U of T Scarborough

Other than his parents, who taught him to be fierce, competitive and kind, Masai Ujiri singles out one other important role model in his life: Nelson Mandela, who he once met.

“It dawned on me that there’s something this man has done that we’ll probably never see in our generation,” Ujiri, the president of the Toronto Raptors, said of Mandela’s leadership during South Africa's apartheid era during a keynote speech at the ��Ƶ’s Black History Luncheon on Thursday.

The NBA executive and founder of the global charity Giants of Africa added he was deeply moved by his encounter with Mandela.

“[It] really inspires me to continue to honour him [so] more youth – my daughter, my son, all you young kids here – will continue to know the work that this man has done.”

Ujiri’s appearance was the focal point of the 17^th annual luncheon event at Hart House, capping four weeks of Black History Month events at the university. The luncheon was organized by a team of volunteers led by Glen Boothe, who has worked at U of T’s division of University Advancement for two decades.

The packed luncheon brought together students from the York Region District School Board, local politicians and Ambassador Adeyinka Olatokunbo Asekun, the Nigerian high commissioner. U of T President Meric Gertler, Kelly Hannah-Moffat, vice-president of human resources and equity, and David Palmer, vice-president of advancement, were also in attendance.

Hart House's Great Hall was packed for the 2019 Black History Luncheon, featuring keynote speaker Masai Ujiri (photo by Perry King)

Boothe explained the purpose behind the luncheon, which was livestreamed to all three U of T campuses and featured a steel pan artist and gospel singer.

“For some people, it was not only a chance to meet Masai, but it was a learning experience,” said Boothe.

“We want it to be a fun event. We also want it to be an outreach event – to go across cultures and to be educational so that people can appreciate what Black culture truly is rather than what is in the headlines.”

Past keynote speakers have included Scarborough MPP Mitzi Hunter, George Elliott Clarke, renowned poet and professor in the department of English, and Dwight Drummond, a CBC Toronto news anchor.

Ujiri also participated in a question and answer session. The pre-submitted questions included how he navigates the worlds of business and philanthropy as a Black man, and what life was like for him growing up in northern Nigeria.

He was also asked how he manages his time between the Toronto Raptors, where he is the first African-born franchise president, and his charity, Giants of Africa, which he founded in 2016.

Ujiri said he was advised by many in basketball circles to maintain focus in order to be more effective.

“I thought about it very carefully because if you try to do everything all at once, you can’t serve anybody,” he said.

After conversations with his wife, Ujiri said he established clear priorities. “Outside of the Raptors – and winning – family comes first,” he said.

“I think it’s very important, family in our lives, and then it’s the Raptors and what we do … and winning,” he said, repeating the phrase “and winning” for third or fourth time in his remarks to a blend of laughter and applause.

Masai Ujiri takes time to pose for a picture with the high school students in attendance (photo by Perry King)

Ujiri also highlighted his work with Giants of Africa and said he was grateful for being invited to speak before so many young people.

“To see such beautiful, young, diverse people makes me happy,” he said.

Ujiri asked the younger members of the audience to think about how they could change the world and affect others.

“The youth is the way for the world to go, whether that’s this generation, Generation Z or whoever comes next – my daughter and son,” he said.

He wrapped up his remarks with advice about taking pride in yourself.

“Be proud of who you are, of where you come from. Stand strong,” he said. “I’m proud to be Nigerian, I’m proud to represent Toronto.”

Video games deconstructed: U of T English course takes a critical look at game narratives, designs

Christopher.Sorensen — Fri, 21 Dec 2018 17:22:45 +0000

Video games deconstructed: U of T English course takes a critical look at game narratives, designs

Christopher.Sorensen Fri, 12/21/2018 - 12:22

Cutline

In this photo illustration a gamer plays the video game “Red Dead Redemption 2,” which raked in US$725 million in sales during the first three days following its launch (photo by Chesnot/Getty Images)

Elaine Smith

Topic

��Ƶ Mississauga

Video Games

On Fridays around 3 p.m., when many ��Ƶ Mississauga students are daydreaming about the weekend, Siobhan O’Flynn can look around her classroom and see almost a full house of unusually attentive undergraduates.

O’Flynn, an assistant professor, teaching stream, leads an English course called “Video Games”, and she’s working with a generation whose lives are steeped in digital media.

“With the uptake of social media, there’s a massive online community playing games and, with smartphones nearly ubiquitous, the number of mobile games players is growing,” says O’Flynn.

Her students do play games as part of the course syllabus, but the class goes far beyond gaming for pure pleasure. Students explore the narrative structure of games in terms of plot, characters, design and how games differ from novels; they learn about the evolution of games, the existing genres and various gaming platforms. They also consider the gaming experience and they explore the emergence of game studies as a critical practice. The students top it all off by creating their own story-based games.

“Students learn about mental models and experience design, which are key in game design,” says O’Flynn. “They learn how play-testing, game mechanics and user-experience design mesh with literary analysis so they can design really awesome games.

“How you play a game and what you see is much more variable than what happens in a literary text.”

Alexis Cochrane, a fourth-year double major in English and communication, culture and information technology, says she has become critical of video games since taking the course. “The course has taught me to consider video games as both a designer and as a literary scholar,” she says.

As with literature, there can be a contrast between the creation itself and its messages or experiences. The video game design can be gorgeous and full of stunning images, but the story can lead the player through war and destruction.

“They can be beautiful esthetically, but gory and violent things can happen. Games are systems designed to make us feel things.”

The course also addresses the evolution of video games.

“We look at arcade games and early computer games and see the continuing increase in processing power,” says O’Flynn. “Today’s games are much more complex and visually stunning.”

O’Flynn also teaches students about the gaming industry and she ensures that they understand how games are designed to addict players.

“Games generate more revenue than films or literary texts,” she says. “Students need digital literacy skills to understand how the creators do what they do and how it affects us. This opens up a whole different layer of critical inquiry because other media aren’t designed in the same way to get us to do things.

“It’s very important to have this understanding because children are playing games starting at a very young age.”

O’Flynn adds that students' affinity for video games means “They love to get into discussions that analyze various games and they enjoy creating and testing each other’s creations and offering suggestions.”

Cochrane agrees. She says being taught how to make game was “transformative” for a writer like herself who wasn't familiar with video game design before taking the course.

“Professor O’Flynn taught us how to be critical of games as literature and then recreate these aspects into our own games,” she says. “It gave students the ability to take our new-found understanding and knowledge of the games and create our own.

“It is an essential hands-on portion of the course that offers a new layer of contextual understanding.”

Thanks to courses such as this, game designers will need to prepare for a new group of consumers who are critical, sophisticated and demand high quality from their gaming experience and for scholars who will be analyzing their output on many levels.

“As our ability to create evolves, so should the way we study and understand those creations” Cochrane says.

Ottawa honours U of T literary theorist Northrop Frye with commemorative plaque

Romi Levine — Fri, 07 Dec 2018 19:02:47 +0000

Ottawa honours U of T literary theorist Northrop Frye with commemorative plaque

Romi Levine Fri, 12/07/2018 - 14:02

Cutline

U of T literary theorist Northrop Frye is pictured here in 1974 (photo by Boris Spremo/Toronto Star via Getty Images)

Topic

Emmanuel College

Victoria College

Victoria University

Famed literary theorist and ��Ƶ Professor Northrop Frye was commemorated on Thursday by the Canadian government with a Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada plaque.

The plaque will be installed at Victoria College, near a life-size bronze statue of Frye that was commissioned in 2012 in celebration of what would have been his 100th birthday.

Frye first came to U of T as a student in 1929, studying at Victoria College and Emmanuel College before attending Oxford for his master’s degree. He returned to U of T in 1939, teaching in the department of English at Victoria College until his death in 1991.

His seminal works Fearful Symmetry: A Study of William Blake and Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays cemented his place as one of the 20th century’s most important literary critics.

“His systematic approach to literature examined the underlying myths and symbols that inform all of literature, challenged existing critical paradigms, and had a significant international influence, as did his work on the Bible as literature,” reads the plaque.

The Northrop Frye commemorative plaque is unveiled on U of T's downtown Toronto campus (photo by Liz Taylor)

The plaque-unveiling ceremony, which acknowledged Frye as a “person of national historic significance,” was attended by members of the U of T community and the Canadian government. They included: Richard Alway, chair of the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada, Carolyn Bennett, a U of T alumna and the federal minister of Crown-Indigenous relations, William Robins, president of Victoria University, and Angela Esterhammer, principal of Victoria College and a professor in the department of English.

'Is this Toronto?' U of T professor asks in New York Times after van attack

geoff.vendeville — Wed, 25 Apr 2018 17:33:53 +0000

'Is this Toronto?' U of T professor asks in New York Times after van attack

geoff.vendeville Wed, 04/25/2018 - 13:33

Cutline

A memorial near the site of the deadly van attack in Toronto (photo by Geoff Robins/AFP/Getty Images)

Topic

University of St. Michael's College

Toronto can no longer take itself for granted in the wake of Monday's van attack, says English professor and principal of University of St. Michael's College Randy Boyagoda.

“This is not supposed to happen here. After all, this is Toronto,” writes Boyagoda in a New York Times op-ed.

The city has long accepted that tragedies on this scale occur in other parts of the world, but not here, he says.

“In a world brutalized and shredded by sectarian conflict, Toronto can feel at times like an urban amusement park: it's the most ethnically diverse and pluralist city on the planet, and also, as residents and visitors alike have long both assumed and experienced, the friendliest and safest.”

The many people who offered assistance after the attack show why Toronto is a desirable place to live, he says.

After a period of public deliberations and investigations, the city will continue to live in relative harmony, “if now with a genuine and credible wariness that will be foreign to us, initially.”

Read the full article in the New York Times

700 years of the Passover haggada

lanthierj — Thu, 29 Mar 2018 16:05:50 +0000

700 years of the Passover haggada

lanthierj Thu, 03/29/2018 - 12:05

Cutline

(all photos by Diana Tyszko)

Topic

History

Subheadline

U of T expert explores the most illustrated book in Jewish history

It may be the most illustrated book in Jewish history, but the Passover haggada has never been explored quite like this.

“As an art historian and someone familiar with the haggada, the seder and Passover I thought I had the opportunity to fill a gap,” said Adam Cohen, an associate professor in the department of the history of art. “No one has written this book before.”

Signs and Wonders: 100 Haggada Masterpieces is Cohen’s exploration of more than 700 years’ worth of illustrated Passover haggadot – the written guide to the Jewish Passover seder.

The illustrated haggada has been the centerpiece of the Passover seder since the Middle Ages. Commemorating the Exodus from Egypt, the haggada guides the seder through prayers, blessings, rituals and more, alongside illustrations that can range from beautiful and complex to spiritual, political and even playful.

Signs and Wonders is the first art history overview of the entire history of the illustrated haggada. With 166 reproductions of full-colour illustrations set alongside insights into the imagery, artists and historical context, Cohen explores the Middle Ages, Renaissance, Modern period and contemporary times.

Cohen set out to write this book seven years ago as a way to explore the panorama of Jewish art and history.

“I hope it serves multiple audiences,” said Cohen. “From scholars who are familiar with some of the material, but not all of it, to people who know about some illustrated haggadot but don’t realize the great diversity of material out there.

“I carefully weighed and considered which illustrations to include. For every piece of artwork that I included, there are three to five I had to exclude.”

Cohen poured through more than 2,000 haggadot at institutions like the University of Pennsylvania, Duke University, and here at the ��Ƶ, as well as the National Library of Israel in Jerusalem. He gradually narrowed his list down to an even 100.

Those familiar with the text may recognize interpretations like the Sarajevo Haggada, or more contemporary examples like the Ben Shahn Haggada. But Cohen made sure to include interpretations that might not be so well known.

“Each image in the book was chosen for its own specific reason,” said Cohen. “Interpretations that aren’t so well known showed complexity, depth of thought and interpretive skill or were interesting, innovative and novel.”

It's his first departure from academic writing.

“Normally you write something, it goes in the library and that’s it,” said Cohen. “But I want people to learn from the book and use it and enjoy it. That’s the satisfaction you get as a teacher and as a writer – people getting enjoyment in learning from your efforts.”

Looking for more to read over the long weekend?

New York-based Commonweal magazine has just published Great Friday, a short-story excerpt from a new novel coming this fall from Professor Randy Boyagoda, the award-winning author and principal of University of St Michael's College at U of T.

Read the excerpt

U of T alumna Erin Shields’s adaptation of Paradise Lost to première at Stratford Festival

noreen.rasbach — Wed, 03 Jan 2018 20:29:15 +0000

U of T alumna Erin Shields’s adaptation of Paradise Lost to première at Stratford Festival

noreen.rasbach Wed, 01/03/2018 - 15:29

Cutline

Playwright Erin Shields: "My courses at U of T became very important sources of inspiration for me" (photo by Sabrina Reeves)

Wajiha Rasul

Topic

Alumni

��Ƶ alumna Erin Shields, an award-winning playwright, will see her adaptation of Paradise Lost première at the Stratford Festival this summer.

Shields, who graduated from the department of English at U of T in 2008, is now a playwright living in Montreal. Her plays have been translated into various languages, and produced at the Shaw Festival, the Tarragon Theatre and many other theatres across Canada.

In 2011 she won the Governor General’s Literary Award for English-language drama for If We Were Birds. She has also been nominated for numerous awards, including the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, the K.M. Hunter Artist Award, and five Dora Mavor Moore Awards. She recently won a Montreal English Theatre Award for best new text for her play, Instant.

Shields says she loves the communal experience of both making and watching plays and sees theatre as a radical antidote to our ever-increasing isolation from one another. Most of her work is a reimagining of established narratives through a contemporary lens.

Professor Paul Stevens, chair of the department of English in the Faculty of Arts & Science, who inspired Shields on John Milton’s Paradise Lost, will be joining her in a panel discussion about original sin as part of the Stratford Festival’s Forum Events.

Shields spoke to Wajiha Rasul of the department of English about her adaptation of Paradise Lost.

What made you interested in Milton’s work?

I was raised in the Anglican church and was always captivated by the stories – particularly the stories in the Old Testament. They were full of drama and action and fear and violence. I would pore over a copy of an illustrated children’s Bible, taking in the screaming sinners escaping the flood waters, a terrified Isaac with a knife pressed to his neck, King Solomon holding a naked baby by its ankle threatening to cut it in half and, of course, Eve biting into the apple with the wily serpent looking on. That first story, in particular, captivated me as a child. Was it possible that every human came from Adam and Eve? What exactly was original sin and how did it work? Could I really be blamed for something someone else had done?

In my third year studying English literature at the ��Ƶ, I enrolled in a course to study John Milton through an intertextual study of Paradise Lost and scripture. My professor, Paul Stevens, is the person who really cracked open Paradise Lost for me. He approached the text with respect, but also a healthy dose of irreverent humour. His passionate, often provocative lectures, led us on a journey through the text. We did not work chronologically, but rather thematically examining the Old Testament from a Protestant perspective in an attempt to comprehend Milton’s relationship to the Bible. Stevens facilitated an in-depth investigation that linked the texts so completely, I often felt as though I was observing a dialogue between the texts, not only noting the Bible’s influence on Paradise Lost, but also the impact Milton had had on a contemporary reading of the Bible.

At the completion of that class, I knew my curiosity for both texts had only just begun.

Why Paradise Lost?

Paradise Lost stayed with me after that course. The theatrical potential beckoned to me and I made a couple of pieces, before this one, using Paradise Lost as source material. With the support of the Ontario Arts Council, I co-directed (with Lisa Pijuan-Nomura) a 13-artist, multidisciplinary interpretation of Paradise Lost. Through theatre, modern dance, puppetry, stand-up comedy, flamenco, bouffon, tabla, electronic music, storytelling and spoken word, we led 13 artists in an integrated investigation of the text. The piece was presented in a cabaret-style event at Lula Lounge in Toronto. Five years later, I wrote a one-woman show which examined the idea of original sin from a feminist perspective. Finally, I decided I was ready to take on the whole poem and proposed a contemporary, theatrical adaptation to the Stratford Festival.

What different perspective will your adaptation of Paradise Lost offer?

Adapting a classical text, as I have done many times before, is an act of interacting with an author who is no longer alive. I work to understand author’s intent and, at the same time, consider my own relationship to the material, examining the text through my own Canadian, contemporary, female lens. It is a process of negotiation between staying faithful to the author’s intent and asserting my own opinions. The choices are both big and small. Milton, for example, transformed the Garden of Eden into an English garden. I have transformed it into a Canadian wilderness, specifically the woods of Northern Ontario where I spent my summers as a child. The mighty pines, the Canadian Shield, the blueberry bushes, the cry of the loons on the lakes – this is my paradise.

Milton’s portrayal of the gender dynamics between Adam and Eve are a reflection of his time. My Adam and Eve are a reflection of mine in that I have endeavoured to create an equitable power dynamic between them, an equality which is ultimately undone by the fall and Eve’s punishment. Also, my rebellious Satan is female and she speaks to directly to our contemporary secular audience, telling this iconic story from her perspective, contextualizing it for our time.

Your adaptation of Paradise Lost will première at the Stratford Festival – what does it mean to you?

When I was 11 years old, my parents booked tickets to see The Merchant of Venice at the Stratford Festival. Before seeing the play, my father thought it would be a good idea for us to read the play together aloud. Each night, my father and I would sit in the living room and he would patiently listen to me stumble through the text. Of course I played Portia, so there were quite a number of big speeches to work my mouth around. We discussed the text as we went and little by little I came to understand what I was reading. The language was like a puzzle. I remember getting to the end of the courtroom scene and being astonished that Shylock was ordered to become a Christian. Despite what he had done, that consequence seemed completely unjust.

When we walked into the enormous festival theatre, I was blown away by the size of it. I felt so small and the stage seemed so large. As the play came to life, I was delighted to discover that I could follow along. I could laugh as Portia made fun of her suitors. I could feel Jessica’s desperation to get away from her strict father. I could feel the love between Antonio and Bassanio. When the play neared the end of the courtroom scene, I waited for Antonio to insist that Shylock become a Christian. To my surprise, that line never came. Why not? Did the actor forget his line? Or did the director agree with me that that punishment seemed too harsh? Whatever it was, I had noticed it. I had known the text so well, that I had noticed when something had been omitted. This made me feel empowered and completely in love with the theatre.

After that, we made a yearly pilgrimage to Stratford to see Shakespeare’s greatest hits. We continued to read the text aloud before we went, our cast growing to eventually include my three younger sisters. Seeing those plays was really the beginning of my love of theatre.

So yes, it is a big deal. It is a huge deal that one of my plays will première at the Stratford Festival.

How helpful was your degree in English in pursuing your dream career?

My English degree was my second degree. I trained as an actor at Rose Bruford College of Speech and Drama (now the Rose Bruford College of Theatre and Performance) in London, England, from 1996-1999. For the next few years after I graduated, I worked as an actor in Toronto and quickly discovered that in order to be consistently working, I had to make opportunities for myself. That’s how I started playwriting. While I’d loved my practical acting training, I felt I had missed the opportunity to read. To spend time with language and literature and intelligent professors who had spent a considerable amount of time thinking about language and literature. That’s why I decided to do a second degree in English literature. And I completed three years of that degree (I bypassed my first year because of my other degree) in five years.

Throughout my studies, I was constantly making theatre. My courses at U of T became very important sources of inspiration for me. Many of my early works are connected, in some way, to the reading and thinking I did for my degree. That is perhaps why many of my pieces today are contemporary adaptations of canonical texts.

U of T's Randy Boyagoda's idiosyncratic survey of great Canadian reads

noreen.rasbach — Fri, 15 Dec 2017 17:23:03 +0000

U of T's Randy Boyagoda's idiosyncratic survey of great Canadian reads

noreen.rasbach Fri, 12/15/2017 - 12:23

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U of T English professor and novelist Randy Boyagoda recommends five from his personal Canadian literature library (photo by João Silas/Unsplash)

Randy Boyagoda

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