Tanya Talaga's Massey Lectures will examine suicide crisis among Indigenous youth
Tanya Talaga, an investigative journalist at the Toronto Star, will deliver the 2018 CBC Massey Lectures. The series, titled All Our Relations: Finding the Path Forward, will explore the issues surrounding Indigenous youth suicide in Canada and internationally. The lectures will be based on the work Talaga did as the 2017-2018 Atkinson Fellow in Public Policy.
Through five lectures, Talaga will examine the cultural genocide against Indigenous peoples, including the impact of the loss of traditional languages and a forced disconnection to the land. The series will also explore how Indigenous communities have begun to heal and develop suicide prevention strategies through a strengthened relationship to land and language.
Here are the lecture dates and locations:
Lecture one: Thunder Bay, Ont. on Oct. 16, 2018
Thunder Bay Community Auditorium at 7 p.m.
Presented in partnership with Nishnawbe Aski Nation
Lecture two: Halifax, N.S. on Oct. 18, 2018
Paul O'Regan Hall, Halifax Public Library, at 7 p.m.
Lecture three: Vancouver, B.C. on Oct. 24, 2018
York Theatre at 7 p.m.
Lecture four: Saskatoon, Sask. on Oct. 26, 2018
Broadway Theatre at 7 p.m.
Lecture five: Toronto, Ont. on Oct. 30, 2018
Koerner Hall, Telus Centre at 7 p.m.
Talaga is the author of Seven Fallen Feathers: Racism, Death and Hard Truths in a Northern City, a book about seven Indigenous high school students — Jordan Wabasse, Kyle Morrisseau, Curran Strang, Robyn Harper, Paul Panacheese, Reggie Bushie and Jethro Anderson — who died between 2000 and 2011 in Thunder Bay, Ont. Talaga writes about the racism these young people endured while separated from their families and communities. Seven Fallen Feathers won the 2018 RBC Taylor Prize, an annual $30,000 award that recognizes the best in Canadian literary nonfiction.
The Massey Lectures will be broadcast on Ideas in November 2018 in addition to being live.
The book version of the lectures, published by House of Anansi Press, will be available in October 2018.
The 2017 CBC Massey Lectures, In Search of a Better World: A Human Rights Odyssey, were delivered by Payam Akhavan. The series explored several contemporary human rights struggles and examined what we can do about it.