Yearly Archives: 2019

Two-time Scotiabank Giller Prize winner Esi Edugyan in conversation with CBC’s Amanda Parris

Esi Edugyan and Amanda Parris on stage with the audience and cameraman in the foreground.

By Cecily Lawson, Friends of the McGill Library committee member The 2019 Hugh MacLennan Lecture was given by Canadian writer and Giller Prize winner Esi Edugyan. She was interviewed on stage at Moyse Hall on April 29th by CBC radio …

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Montreal Mansions: Spaces in Time

In 1973 the Van Horne Mansion, a historic brownstone located on the corner of Sherbrooke and Stanley Streets here in Montreal, was controversially dozed. This event came on the heels of a spate of similar demolitions in the Golden Square …

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Loving in truth and fain in Riddle my love to show: Mother’s Day Acrostics with The Riddle Project

Acrostic poem

By Leehu Sigler “I’ve put in so many enigmas and puzzles that it will keep the professors busy for centuries arguing over what I meant, and that’s the only way of insuring one’s immortality”[1]– James Joyce Timeless Riddles is back …

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Ils vivaient avec leurs 17 enfants dans un logement de 4 pièces…

  Un 4 pièces avec 6 ou 7 enfants! Certaines familles avaient 12 ou 17 enfants! […] Une chambre de garçons, une chambre de filles, une chambre de parents. Les enfants étaient élevés dehors. C’était la grande misère, raconte Marguerite. …

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Colour by Numbers: Contemporary Japanese prints in the Visual Arts Collection

Shinobazu no Ike

La version française suit By Isabelle Chartier, Collections Administrator, Visual Arts Collection Printmaking is, traditionally, a colourless medium: black ink transferred onto white paper. Adding colour to prints is a slow and laborious process, at odds with the very essence …

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Content Warning: This Library Contains Colourful Language

A scene from God’s love to wicked little Joseph (circa 1840). The title character, “indeed a very wicked boy”, develops a penchant for outbursts of colourful language. By page 16, the boy is dead, apparently smote for his wicked tongue. PN970 A4 G6 1832. Sheila R. Bourke Collection.

La version française suit By Elis Ing, Liaison Librarian, Rare Books and Special Collections “Pray, Goody, please to moderate the rancour of your tongue” (Pray Goody, ca. 1820). Colourful language makes many people uncomfortable. Profane, blasphemous or crude words are …

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The Colourful Journey of George Mercer Dawson

Kookany Pass, British Columbia. George Mercer Dawson. 1882? McGill University Archives. Dawson-Harrington families fonds.

La version française suit By Frédéric Giuliano, Archivist, McGill University Archives “The times were rife with great men making great strides, but in truth, I felt like one of those frogs in my adolescent poem, most certainly the younger, lifted …

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Jacques Fabien Gautier’s colourful life in printmaking

Gautier Dagoty, & Du Verney, M.. Essai d'anatomie: En tableaux imprimé…Paris, 1745. https://mcgill.on.worldcat.org/oclc/6315093

La version française suit By Mary Yearl, Head Librarian, Osler Library of the History of Medicine Jacques Fabien Gautier D’Agoty (1716-1785) was a man whose life was full of colour. Today he is best known for the spectacular works he …

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Can You Spot It?: Solving Visual Puzzles with The Riddle Project

Detail Lewis Carroll Rebus

By Leehu Sigler “Too many riddles weigh men down on earth. We must solve as we can, and try to keep a dry skin in the water.”[1] ― The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoyevsky Timeless Riddles is back with some more puzzling …

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McGill @Expo 67

Fifty-two years ago this month, Expo 67 – the 1967 International and Universal Exposition, opened its doors to the public. Expo was situated on two islands in the middle of the Saint Lawrence River, in view of downtown Montreal. More than 50 …

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