Ontario, Canada, November 3, 2011 – Neil Turok, Director of Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, has been selected to deliver the Massey Lectures for the 2012 season. Paul Kennedy, host of CBC Radio’s Ideas, made the announcement following the conclusion of the 2011 season.
 
Over the past fifty years, the prestigious Massey Lectures have become an annual highlight of Canada’s national intellectual life. The lectures are intended to present distinguished thinkers as they share original insight on subjects of contemporary interest. Neil Turok joins a notable list of influencers who have given lectures on a broad range of topics, including Martin Luther King Jr., Northrop Frye, John Kenneth Galbraith, Margaret Atwood, Jane Jacobs, Ronald Wright, and many others.
 
The Massey Lecture series is produced by a team involving CBC Radio, The House of Anansi Press and Massey College at the University of Toronto. In October of 2012, Turok will be presenting five separate lectures in locations across Canada. In November of the same year, the lectures will air nationally on CBC Radio’s Ideas program. The series will also be available internationally via web streaming, downloadable podcasts and in a published book format.
 
About the Massey Lectures

Dating back to 1961, the lecture series was named for Vincent Massey, who served as the Governor General of Canada from 1952 to 1959. He chaired the Massey Commission during the 1949 to 1951 period to examine Canada’s contributions to science, literature, the arts and broadcasting.
 
During the last lecture of the 2011 season, the current-day Governor General, the Right Honourable David Johnston said, “For the past 50 years, these lectures have been given by some of the boldest, most original thinkers of our time, who have deepened and even transformed our sense of ourselves, our country and the world in which we live. And they have done so through the communication and power of ideas.” He went on to say, “…as a Canadian forum for the sharing of original ideas and insights, it is without parallel. And it is an outstanding example of what we do very well in Canada: communicate.”