On November 3, professor, former radio host, geographer, and award-winning author Minelle Mahtani will deliver the 2026 Harold Innis Lecture, “Erosions: To See and See Again.”
What happens slowly enough that we fail to notice, and what finally forces us to look again? In this lecture, Mahtani explores erosions in the plural through three intimate encounters. Braiding memoir and cultural criticism, she asks how gradual damage becomes ordinary. How do sudden losses actually reveal cracks and fissures that have been accumulating over time—if only we had been paying attention? In conversation with Harold Innis’s work on communication and power, Mahtani considers how the success of corporate, political, economic, and commercial imperatives depends on us not looking. Drawing from the Persian expression, did-o bâzdid—“to see and see again”—as an invitation to revisit what we think we feel and know. Mahtani asks what such returns might reveal about the people, institutions, and relationships we take for granted, and our obligations to them.
Associate Professor David Roberts will deliver opening remarks. Professor Sheryl Lightfoot and writer David Chariandy will join Minelle for a discussion and Q&A after the lecture.
Copies of May It Have a Happy Ending (2026) will be available for purchase on site courtesy of Another Story Bookshop.
Can’t attend in person but you’re interested in the lecture? Email alumni.innis@utoronto.ca to receive a recording after the event.