Recent Class Notes

Books and Beyond

  • A photo of four woman from the 19th century with the book title 'An Unrecognized Contribution' laid over the photo.

    An Unrecognized Contribution: Women and Their Work in 19th-Century Toronto

    Elizabeth Gillan Muir, Arts’56

    We don’t often think about feminism and the Industrial Revolution in the same breath, but Elizabeth Gillan Muir, Arts’56, has uncovered more than 400 stories of women who made impressive contributions to Toronto’s growth – from songwriters and innkeepers to reformers and even the owner of a brickyard. Ms. Muir chronicles these stories in An Unrecognized Contribution: Women and Their Work in 19th-Century Toronto, from Dundurn Press. As Rick Mercer said in a recent review, “In these pages lie a hundred movies waiting to be made.”

  • Cover of "My Friend, My Enemy" by Stewart Goodings.

    My Friend, My Enemy

    Stewart Goodings, Arts’62

    Stewart Goodings, Arts’62, draws on years of international experience, particularly in Russia and Ukraine, to tell an uplifting tale of friendship amid political violence. My Friend, My Enemy, released in late 2022 through FriesenPress, is the story of two girls, one Russian, one Chechen, who reunite as adults decades after the Russia-Chechnya war. By this time, both women’s lives have been altered by the war, and their reunion forces them to confront their secrets and test the limits of their friendship.

  • Close-up of a nurse holding a patient's hand. The nurse wears a protective gown, mask and gloves.

    Shadows and Light: A Physician’s Lens on COVID

    Heather Patterson, Artsci’01, Meds’05

    Heather Patterson, Artsci’01, Meds’05, had always used photography to help relieve the stress from her demanding job as a Calgary emergency physician. When COVID-19 struck, she took out her camera again, this time to document the heroic efforts of her co-workers and the patients they were labouring to save. Those photographs became an unofficial record of the pandemic and graced the pages of the Calgary Herald, Maclean’s, and the Queen’s Alumni Review. They are now available in Shadows and Light: A Physician’s Lens on COVID, a compassionate chronicle of the work of some of Canada’s unsung healthcare heroes. From Goose Lane Editions.

  • A photo of the rings from a tree stump with the book title 'Aging People, Aging Places, laid over the photo.

    Aging People, Aging Places

    Dr. Samantha Biglieri, Artsci’13, Professor Maxwell Hartt, Professor Emeritus Dr. Mark Rosenberg, and Dr. Sarah Nelson

    As Canada’s population grows older, we must face the fact that our cities and neighbourhoods weren’t designed for healthy aging. In Aging People, Aging Places, Dr. Samantha Biglieri, Artsci’13, Professor Maxwell Hartt, Professor Emeritus Dr. Mark Rosenberg, and former postdoctoral fellow Dr. Sarah Nelson bring reflections from researchers, practitioners, and ordinary older Canadians together to look at the implications of aging in Canada and how we can turn our communities into healthier places to grow old. Now available from Policy Press.

In Memoriam