Archives | CBC Massey Lectures

Since 1961, CBC Radio has been broadcasting the Massey Lectures, bringing Canadians some of the greatest minds of our time, exploring the ideas that make us who we are and asking the questions that make us better human beings.

On this page you'll find links to all the CBC Massey Lectures, including those which have online audio available.

2023 | Astra Taylor|The Age of Insecurity: Coming Together as Things Fall Apart

2022 | Tomson Highway|Laughing with the Trickster: On Sex, Death, and Accordions

2021 | Esi Edugyan |Out of the Sun: On Race and Storytelling

2020 | Ron Deibert | Reset: Reclaiming the Internet for Civil Society

2019 | Sally Armstrong |Power Shift: The Longest Revolution

2018 | Tanya Talaga | All Our Relations: Finding the Path Forward

2017 | Payam Akhavan | In Search of a Better World: A Human Rights Odyssey

2016 | Jennifer Welsh | The Return of History

2015| Margaret MacMillan | History's People: Personalities and the Past

2014 |Adrienne Clarkson | Belonging: The Paradox of Citizenship

2013 | Lawrence Hill | Blood: The Stuff of Life

2012 | Neil Turok |The Universe Within: From Quantum to Cosmos

2011 | Adam Gopnik | Winter: Five Windows on the Season

2010 | Douglas Coupland | Player One: What is to Become of Us

2009 |Wade Davis | The Wayfinders: Why Ancient Wisdom Matters in the Modern World

2008 | Margaret Atwood |Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth

2007 | Alberto Manguel| The City of Words

2006 | Margaret Somerville | The Ethical Imagination

2005 | Stephen Lewis | A Race Against Time

2004 | Ronald Wright |A Short History of Progress

2003 | Thomas King | The Truth about Stories: A Native Narrative

2002 | Margaret Visser | Beyond Fate

2001 | Janice Gross Stein | The Cult of Efficiency

2000 |Michael Ignatieff | The Rights Revolution

1999 | Robert Fulford | The Triumph of Narrative: Storytelling in the Age of Mass Culture

1998 | Jean Vanier | Becoming Human

1997 | Hugh Kenner | The Elsewhere Community

1996 | * No Massey Lecture this year

1995 | John Ralston Saul | The Unconscious Civilization

1994 | Conor Cruise O'Brien| On The Eve of the Millennium

1993 | Jean Bethke Elshtain | Democracy on Trial

1992 | Robert Heilbroner | Twenty-First Century Capitalism

1991 | Charles Taylor | The Malaise of Modernity

1990 | Richard Lewontin | Biology As Ideology

1989 | Ursula M. Franklin | The Real World of Technology

1988 | Noam Chomsky | Necessary Illusions

1987 | Gregory Baum | Compassion and Solidarity

1986 | * No Massey Lecture this year

1985 | Doris Lessing | Prisons We Choose to Live Inside

1984 | Carlos Fuentes | Latin America: At War With The Past

1983 | Eric Kierans | Globalism and The Nation State

1982 | Robert Jay Lifton & Richard Falk | Indefensible Weapons

1981 | Willy Brandt | Dangers & Options: The Matter of World Survival

1980 | * No Massey Lecture this year

1979 | Jane Jacobs | Canadian Cities and Sovereignty Association

1978 | Leslie Fiedler | The Inadvertent Epic: From Uncle Tom to Roots

1977 | Claude Lvi Strauss| Myth and Meaning

1976 | * No Massey Lecture this year

1975 | J. Tuzo Wilson | Limits To Science

1974 | George Steiner | Nostalgia for the Absolute

1973 | Stafford Beer | Designing Freedom

1972 | Pierre Dansereau | Inscape and Landscape

1971 | James Corry | The Power of the Law

1970 | George Wald | Therefore Choose Life

1969 | George Grant | Time As History

1968 | R.D. Laing | The Politics of the Family

1967 | Martin Luther King, Jr. | Conscience for Change

1966 | Dr. Paul Goodman | The Moral Ambiguity of America

1965 | John Kenneth Galbraith | The Underdeveloped Country

1964 | C. B. Macpherson | The Real World of Democracy

1963 | Frank Underhill | The Image of Confederation

1962 | Northrop Frye | The Educated Imagination

1961 | Barbara Ward | The Rich Nations and The Poor Nations