Robert Macfarlane in conversation with Principal James Orbinski
Join us for breakfast at Massey College with Robert Macfarlane, one of the world’s most original thinkers on how we live with—and relate to—the natural world.
Macfarlane’s previous book, Underland, was internationally acclaimed, translated into more than a dozen languages, and awarded the Writers’ Trust’s inaugural Weston International Award. His new work, Is a River Alive?, is even more ambitious—exploring the powerful idea that rivers are not simply resources for human use, but living beings worthy of recognition, respect, and even legal personhood.
Macfarlane will introduce the book and then sit down for a conversation with Dr. James Orbinski, Principal of Massey College.
Space is limited to 100 guests.
Tickets include breakfast and a signed hardcover copy of Is a River Alive?
MASSEY MEMBERS: Please login using your registered Massey email to receive applicable discounts and offers.
Speakers
-
James OrbinskiPrincipal, Massey CollegeDr. James Orbinski is Principal of Massey College at the University of Toronto. To this role, Dr. Orbinski brings a lifelong commitment to learning, leadership, and civility for the public good. As a medical doctor, humanitarian practitioner and advocate, author, and global health scholar, James Orbinski believes in actively engaging and shaping our world so that it is more just, fair, and humane.
Providing medical humanitarian relief worldwide in situations of war, famine, epidemic disease and genocide with Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders), Dr. Orbinski also served as MSF’s International Council president and accepted the 1999 Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of Médecins Sans Frontières. He is the founding director of York University’s Dahdaleh Institute for Global Health Research, co-founder of Dignitas International, and co-chair of the founding and startup of the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi).
Renowned for his ground-breaking research on medical humanitarianism, infectious diseases, global health governance, and the health impacts of climate change, Dr. Orbinski’s work is documented in his bestselling book, An Imperfect Offering: Humanitarianism in the 21st Century, as well as the award-winning documentary film Triage: the Humanitarian Dilemma of Dr. James Orbinski.
James Orbinski holds an MD degree from McMaster University, and an MA in International Relations from the University of Toronto. He is an Officer of the Order of Canada, awarded for a lifetime of leadership in global health and humanitarianism, and received Canada’s Meritorious Service Cross for his leadership in providing direct medical relief in Kigali during the 1994 Genocide Against the Tutsi in Rwanda.
James and his wife Rolie lived at Massey College when James held the inaugural Saul Rose Fellowship at Massey College. In the twenty years since, James has served the Massey community as a Senior Fellow and on the Board of Governors. As well as serving as Principal of Massey College, Dr. Orbinski is a full Professor at the University of Toronto’s Termerty Faculty of Medicine and the Munk School for Public Policy.
-
Robert Macfarlane
Robert Macfarlane is the bestselling author of an award-winning trilogy of books about landscape and the human heart: Mountains of the Mind, The Wild Places, and The Old Ways. He is also the author of Landmarks and Holloway. His work has been translated into a dozen languages and is published in more than 20 countries, and his books have been widely adapted for TV, film, and radio by the BBC, among others. Macfarlane has contributed to Harper’s Magazine, Granta, The Observer (London), the Times Literary Supplement (London), and the London Review of Books. He was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2012, and is currently a Fellow in English of Emmanuel College, Cambridge.
