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CBC Massey Lectures
1961-1970

The CBC has commissioned the annual Massey Lectures since 1961. They were unveiled in late February by the vice-president and general manager of English networks at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), H.G. Walker. "Each year," he said in the press release announcing the series, "the CBC will invite a noted scholar to undertake study or original research in his field and present the results in a series of half-hour radio broadcasts." He continued, saying that he hoped the lectures would "make significant contributions to public awareness and understanding and ... further development of the art of broadcasting."

The lectures were named for Vincent Massey, who had recently completed a seven-year term as Governor General of Canada. Today, the CBC Massey Lectures are the product of a collaboration of three partners -- CBC Radio, the House of Anansi Press, and Massey College in the University of Toronto. For most of their history, the Massey Lectures were recorded within the austere confines of a radio studio in Toronto. But since 2002, they have been delivered each fall before large audiences on university campuses in cities across Canada. The lectures are broadcast each November on CBC Radio One, are streamed worldwide on the internet and are available as podcasts and audio CDs.


Lecturers/Topics:

1961 – Barbara Ward, The Rich Nations and the Poor Nations
1962 – Northrop Frye, The Educated Imagination
1963 – Frank Underhill, The Image of Confederation
1964 – C. B. Macpherson, The Real World of Democracy
1965 – John Kenneth Galbraith, The Underdeveloped Country
1966 – Paul Goodman, The Moral Ambiguity of America
1967 – Martin Luther King, Jr., Conscience for Change
1968 – R. D. Laing, The Politics of the Family
1969 – George Grant, Time as History
1970 – George Wald, Therefore Choose Life