Dr. J. Edward (Ted) Chamberlin, scholar, storyteller, teacher, writer, witness among Aboriginal Peoples and across cultures, will deliver the annual Pratt Lecture on Thursday, March 26.

His lecture is titled The Snarl Around Our Dory: The Long Line of Island Traditions.

Dr. Chamberlin is university professor emeritus of English and comparative literature at the University of Toronto. He has worked internationally in connection with aboriginal land claims and toward honoring oral testimony and oral cultures, and he is an energetic and articulate advocate for the importance of people's stories of themselves, whatever form those stories take.

An interest in stories and songs has taken Dr. Chamberlin all around the world, to the hunters of the Kalahari and the herders of Mongolia as well as the Aboriginal Peoples of North America. He worked on the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry and the Alaska Native Claims Commission, was Senior Research Associate with the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, and has worked extensively on native land claims in Canada, the United States, Africa and Australia.

He was poetry editor of Saturday Night magazine, and has lectured widely on literary, historical and cultural issues.

His books include The Harrowing of Eden: White Attitudes Towards Native Americans (1975); Ripe Was the Drowsy Hour: The Age of Oscar Wilde (1977); Oscar Wilde’s London (1987); a tremendously influential book on Caribbean poetry, Come Back To Me My Language: Poetry and the West Indies (1993); If This Is Your Land, Where Are Your Stories? Finding Common Ground (2003), a compilation of a lifetime of thinking and writing about stories; and Horse: How the Horse Has Shaped Civilizations (2006).

A recipient of honorary doctorates from the University of the West Indies, St. John’s College, and the University of Manitoba, Dr. Chamberlin is a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, and was awarded the Ludwik And Estelle Jus Memorial Human Rights Prize at the University of Toronto.

In 2004 he delivered the George Woodcock Memorial Lecture at the University of British Columbia on Civil & Uncivil Society; or Fostered Alike by Beauty and by Fear and in 2005 the Garnett Sedgewick Memorial Lecture on Living Language and Dead Reckoning: Navigating Oral and Written Traditions. 

Dr. Robert Finley, chair of the Pratt Committee, said the Department of English Language and Literature is eagerly looking forward to Dr. Chamberlin’s visit.

“We are extremely happy to have Dr. Chamberlin as this year's Pratt lecturer; his interests are so pointed for much of the community here -- between his engagement with oral and island culture, story, song, Irish and native traditions, poetry," said Dr. Finley.

"Dr. Chamberlin has said 'We need to understand our stories because our lives depend on it.' There is a real urgency to what he means by this which I think will resonate especially powerfully here in this community, itself so rich in stories.”

The Pratt Lecture is sponsored by the Dean of Arts and the Department of English Language and Literature and is named for Newfoundland poet E.J. Pratt.

Past Pratt lecturers include Northrop Frye, Ursula LeGuin and Nobel Prize winner Seamus Heaney.

Dr. Chamberlin will deliver the 2009 Pratt Lecture on Thursday, March 26 at 8 p.m., in the Inco Innovation Centre, room IIC-02001.

The lecture is free and open to the public. Free parking is available in Lots 15 and 18. 

Reserved seating is available for those with special needs. A reception will follow the lecture in the lower concourse of the Inco Building.