The Humanities Today Lecture 2025

The Halifax Humanities Society is excited to share that Dr. Peter Adamson of King’s College London and the LMU in Munich will be giving the 2nd Humanities Today Lecture. On Wednesday, April 16 at 6:30 PM in the Terry Symonds Room of the North Memorial Library, Dr. Adamson will present “Philosophy from Everywhere, for Everyone: Podcasting Global Philosophy”, and will reflect on …

Halifax Humanities’ African Heritage Month Public Lecture

On February 25 at the North Memorial Library, we opened up our classroom and invited the public to join us for a special lecture and Q&A with Dr. Harvey Amani Whitfield as a collaboration with African Heritage Month at Halifax Public Libraries. Dr. Whitfield shared about his research on the life of Statia Hopefield and the historical context of slavery …

The Humanities Today Lecture Series

The Humanities Today Lecture Series examines the role the humanities play in our lives and the lives of communities on the periphery of or excluded from the traditional avenues of humanities education. This series is supported by funds donated in the memory of Renate Usmiani, a professor of the Department of English at Mount St. Vincent University, remembered and beloved …

Halifax Humanities 101

Join our free course modelled after the curriculum of the Foundation Year Program at the University of King’s College! The class is a “Great Books” program where students will read works of Western literature, philosophy, political theory, and theology, and look at works of art. The course moves chronologically, beginning in Ancient Mesopotamia and ending in the present day. Along the way, we think about big themes like beauty, justice, community, and power.

Halifax Thinks

Halifax Thinks

Halifax Thinks is an opportunity for those interested in philosophy, literature, and art to take a University-level course that works with your busy schedule. Its curriculum is based on the interdisciplinary Great Books model offered in the Foundation Year Programme (FYP) at the University of King’s College. Students receive a collection of recorded lectures written and delivered by FYP and Dal …

Introducing the Bonita Shepherd University Access Program

In memory of its very first student, The Halifax Humanities Society is pleased to name its University Access Program in honour of Bonita Shepherd. Bonita Shepherd was a groundbreaker, not only in being the first to apply to the Halifax Humanities full-year class, but also in taking up the possibility of continuing on to university classes. The Bonita Shepherd University …

The Angus Johnston Seminar

Graduates of Halifax Humanities 101 are invited to join the Angus Johnston Seminar, a reading group of Halifax Humanities alumni that meets once a week from September to April each year. Some members of the Seminar have been returning each year for over a decade. Topics discussed have included Gender, Canadian Literature, Storytelling, Russian Literature, Goethe’s Faust, and World Religion. …

Perspectives Online Course

In Fall 2020 Halifax Humanities introduced its first online course, Perspectives. The goal of the class was to introduce students from across the province to the process of studying philosophy, literature, and art in a welcoming, accessible, online environment. The class ran for six weeks, and students met online via Zoom twice a week from 7pm-8pm to grapple with the …

Our Students

Curious about Halifax Humanities? Check out what our students have said about the program below! Perspective 2020 Graduate Tyra talks about her experience in Halifax Humanities’s first fully online class here. 2017 HH101 graduate and current Board Member Tim Blades writes about his experience in Halifax Humanities 101 in “Halifax Humanities: So much more than an education” for The Nova …

Marathon Reading Fundraisers

Our biggest fundraising each year consists of a marathon reading of a classic work of literature. Teams of readers take on the responsibility of performing a section of the text and collecting donations in support of their participation. By the end of the event (sometimes 24 hours later!), we have heard the whole text read from start to finish. Over …