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In this lecture, novelist and professor Randy Boyagoda (University of Toronto) will make a case for why who and what we read can be life or death decisions. He will do so by exploring signal moments in Dante’s Divine Comedy where the life of faith, life of the mind, and life of action all depend, with the highest possible stakes, on the decisions individuals make about who and what they read, how, and why. In turn, having read a canto a day of the Divine Comedy for the past five years while writing a Dante-inspired novel, he will read from his latest book, Dante’s Indiana, about ordinary people whose lives have been radically changed by the books they took up and read at high and low points in their lives. 

 

Biography: Randy Boyagoda is a novelist and professor of English at the University of Toronto, where he also serves as Vice-Dean, Undergraduate, in the Faculty of Arts and Science. He also teaches the Gilson Seminar in Faith and Ideas at the university, through St. Michael’s College. He is the author of six books, including four novels, most recently Dante’s Indiana (2021). He writes essays and reviews for the New York Times, the Atlantic, First Things, Commonweal, and the Financial Times (UK). He lives in Toronto with his wife and four daughters.

 

Event sponsored by Modern Languages, English, the Office of the Provost, the Dean of Constantin College, Liberal Learning for Life, and the Cowan Archive.

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  • Noemi gomes firmo soares
  • Elizabeth Harris

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