Those familiar with University of Toronto philosopher, critic, and media-wunderkind Mark Kingwell’s work may find the subject of his latest book, trout fishing, somewhat unlikely. Or not. Catch & Release is ostensibly a memoir dealing with Kingwell’s reluctant embrace of the joys of fly-fishing following a weekend excursion with his aging father and two brothers. But like his other books, the subject matter proves to be primarily a device for Kingwell to ruminate on a variety of wide-ranging topics. Read more…
university of toronto
FOREVER YOUNG:
The “Teen-aging” of Modern Culture
by Marcel Danesi
In Forever Young, University of Toronto professor Marcel Danesi aims to expose our society’s view of adolescence and its associated “problems” as an artificial construct perpetuated by a media-driven culture. This is worsened, Danesi argues, by a tendency to blur the lines between adolescence and adulthood through the worship of all things youthful – what he calls the “forever young syndrome.” The image of an aging hippie that Danesi witnessed at a 1994 Grateful Dead concert is the book’s leitmotif for our culture’s pathetic obsession with recapturing lost youth. Read more…