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ON PROPERTY nominated for the HERITAGE TORONTO BOOK AWARD!

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Book cover for Rinaldo Walcott's On Property. Features the author's name and title at the top with "Field Notes" written on the side vertically. Overlapping the title is a security camera.We’re excited to share that Rinaldo Walcott’s On Property (February 2, 2021) has been nominated for the 2022 Heritage Toronto Book Award! Check out the full list of nominees here.

Since 1974, the Heritage Toronto Awards have celebrated individuals, organizations, and the projects they create. The annual ceremony brings together these extraordinary nominees and city influencers from across its culture, development, and policy-making communities. The Heritage Toronto Book Award aims to highlight the breadth and depth of the Greater Toronto Area’s heritage, covering topics from medical discoveries, to sports history to Indigenous reconciliation. The book jury assesses nominees based on the criteria of advocacy, scholarship, education, and production value.

The winner will be announced at the 47th Annual Heritage Toronto Awards event, which will be held on Monday, October 17th at The Carlu (444 Yonge Street) beginning at 5:30PM ET.

Tickets for the gala are available to purchase here.

Get your copy of On Property here!

 

Photo Credit: Abdi Osman

ABOUT ON PROPERTY

From plantation rebellion to prison labour’s super-exploitation, Walcott examines the relationship between policing and property.

That a man can lose his life for passing a fake $20 bill when we know our economies are flush with fake money says something damning about the way we’ve organized society. Yet the intensity of the calls to abolish the police after George Floyd’s death surprised almost everyone. What, exactly, does abolition mean? How did we get here? And what does property have to do with it? In On Property, Rinaldo Walcott explores the long shadow cast by slavery’s afterlife and shows how present-day abolitionists continue the work of their forebears in service of an imaginative, creative philosophy that ensures freedom and equality for all. Thoughtful, wide-ranging, compassionate, and profound, On Property makes an urgent plea for a new ethics of care.

ABOUT RINALDO WALCOTT

Rinaldo Walcott is a Professor in the Women and Gender Studies Institute at the University of Toronto. His research is in the area of Black Diaspora Cultural Studies, gender and sexuality.

Events

Ira Wells at the Toronto Public Library

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As part of Freedom to Read Week, Toronto Public Library presents critic, essayist, and associate professor at the University of Toronto, Ira Wells to celebrate the publication of his new title On Book Banning: Or, How the New Censorship Consensus Trivializes Art and Undermines Democracy, in conversation with host Charles Foran.

The culture wars have found fertile ground within public schools and libraries. We’re witnessing a notable increase in book challenges and attempts to remove titles from bookshelves across North America and, as we know, this is nothing new. In On Book Banning, Ira Wells argues that conservatives and progressives alike are teaching our children that the solution to opposing viewpoints is outright censorship. How might we collectively push back and help reinforce our personal freedom to read? And how do we ensure that our democratic spaces continue to be welcoming spaces for all viewpoints?

The event is free, and will take place on Thursday, February 27 at 7PM in the Jack Rabinovitch Reading Room at the Toronto Reference Library.

More details here.

Grab On Book Banning here!

ABOUT ON BOOK BANNING

The freedom to read is under attack.

From the destruction of libraries in ancient Rome to today’s state-sponsored efforts to suppress LGBTQ+ literature, book bans arise from the impulse toward social control. In a survey of legal cases, literary controversies, and philosophical arguments, Ira Wells illustrates the historical opposition to the freedom to read and argues that today’s conservatives and progressives alike are warping our children’s relationship with literature and teaching them that the solution to opposing viewpoints is outright expurgation. At a moment in which our democratic institutions are buckling under the stress of polarization, On Book Banning is both rallying cry and guide to resistance for those who will always insist upon reading for themselves.

ABOUT IRA WELLS

Ira Wells is a critic, essayist, and an associate professor at Victoria College in the University of Toronto, where he teaches in the Northrop Frye stream in literature and the humanities in the Vic One program. His writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Globe and Mail, Guardian, The New Republic, and many other venues. His most recent book is Norman Jewison: A Director’s Life. He lives in Toronto with his wife and children.

Mark Kingwell at the Toronto Public Library

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Mark Kingwell will be discussing his new book Question Authority at the Toronto Public Library, in conversation with host Randy Boyagoda.

The event is free, and will take place on Thursday, February 27 at 7PM in the Jack Rabinovitch Reading Room at the Toronto Reference Library.

More details here.

Grab Question Authority here!

ABOUT QUESTION AUTHORITY

Philosopher Mark Kingwell thinks about thinking for yourself in an era of radical know-it-all-ism.

“Question authority,” the popular 1960s slogan commanded. “Think for yourself.” But what started as a counter-cultural catchphrase, playful in logic but serious in intent, has become a practical paradox. Yesterday’s social critics are the tone-policing tyrants of today, while those who claim “colourblindness” see no need to engage with critical theory at all. The resulting crisis of authority, made worse by rival political factions and chaotic public discourse, has exposed cracks in every facet of shared social life. Politics, academia, journalism, medicine, religion, science—every kind of institutional claim is now routinely subject to objection, investigation, and outright disbelief. A recurring feature of this comprehensive distrust of authority is the firm, often unshakeable, belief in personal righteousness and superiority: what Mark Kingwell calls our “addiction to conviction.”

In this critical survey of the predicament of contemporary authority, Kingwell draws on philosophical argument, personal reflection, and details from the headlines in an attempt to reclaim the democratic spirit of questioning authority and thinking for oneself. Defending a program of compassionate skepticism, Question Authority is a fascinating survey of the role of individual humility in public life and illuminates how we might each do our part in the infinite project of justice.

ABOUT MARK KINGWELL

Mark Kingwell is a professor of philosophy at the University of Toronto, a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, and a contributing editor of Harper’s Magazine.