Judith Cowan, author, translator and professor, was born in Sydney, Nova Scotia. She received a BA in Modern Languages and Literature in 1965 and a MA in French Literature in 1969 from the University of Toronto. She received an MA in English Literature in 1970 from York University where she also lectured during the 1970-1971 academic year. She completed her PhD in Canadian comparative literature at l'Université de Sherbrooke in 1983. She has been a professor of Canadian, American and English Literature at l'Université de Quebec at Trois-Rivières since 1973. Cowan has translated numerous poems by Quebec writers for Ellipse magazine, a magazine that specializes in translations of Canadian literature. She has also translated whole works by authors such as Gérald Godin and Yves Préfontaine. She was awarded a Governor-General's Award in 2004 for "Mirabel," her translation of Pierre Nepveu's "Lignes aériennes." She has authored and published several collections of short stories, including "Gambler's Fallacy," and had several novels in progress. She passed away in her home in Trois-Rivières on 21 January 2025.
Domingos de Oliveira Marques was born 20 January 1949 in Ribeiro, Murtosa, the son of Francisco Marques and Augusta da Purificacao Oliveira.
His father was a cod fisher who had visited Saint John's Newfoundland while fishing the Grand Banks and Greenland. He attempted to immigrate in 1953 but was rejected due to his large family. The family eventually succeeded in 1957 when Marques' parents and siblings emigrated while he remained in Portugal in the seminary school at Aveiro. Domingos visited with his family in the summer of 1967. After graduating in 1968 and starting theological studies in Lisbon, Marques, having doubts about his future as a Catholic priest, returned to his family in Toronto in 1968. He worked in the tomato harvest in Chatham to repay his parents the cost of his travels. He worked several jobs, including as a journalist with "O Jornal Português" and in the Promotions Department of the Toronto Star before quitting to pursue a university degree full-time.
As a community activist, Marques was involved during the 1960s in the cultural and theatrical projects of the youth organization of the local St. Mary's Catholic parish and the cable 10 television program Luso-Brasileiro. In the 1970s he reported and edited the community newspaper "Comunidade." Marques taught Portuguese at the First Portuguese Community School at Harbord Collegiate Institute, as well as coordinating projects for the Portuguese Community from the West End YMCA. He edited and researched a book on the history Portuguese immigration to Canada with João Medeiros "Emigrantes Portugueses: 25 anos no Canadá", which was published in 1978.
In the late nineteen-seventies, Marques was self-employed and ran Marquis Printing and Publishing. In 1981, he joined the Workers Compensation Board as a Vocational Rehabilitation Counselor, serving fifteen years in this role. In 1992 he published with Manuela Marujo "With hardened hands : a pictorial history of Portuguese immigration to Canada in the 1950s", a more official history of Portuguese Immigration to Canada.
A volunteer for the Canadian Association of Retired Persons (CARP) and the Portuguese Interagency Network (PIN) in the 1980s, Marques was elected Trustee of the Separate School Board Ward 3-4 in 1991. He is married to Manuela Marujo.
Desmond George Neill (1924-2012) served as the second librarian of Massey College, University of Toronto, from October 1975 to 1990. He was a senior fellow of the college. A leading scholar in the field of bibliography and rare books, he also taught courses in the history of books and printing at the Faculty of Library Science (now Faculty of Information) and was a lecturer in the Department of English.
Neill was born in Oxford, England. He completed a D.Litt. at Balliol College, Oxford. In 1953, he married Sheila M. Pereira in Chelsea, Middlesex, and they had four children.
From 1969 to 1975, Neill was a senior research fellow at Balliol College, Oxford University, and worked as a librarian at the Bodleian Library. In 1975, at the invitation of the Master of Massey College, Robertson Davies, Neill came to Toronto to take up the post of librarian at Massey. He made important additions to the reference and Canadian literature collections, and to the bibliography holdings. He was a member of the Bibliographical Society of Canada and served on its executive, including a term as president.
Neill was a member of the Friends of the Library at Trinity College. In his retirement, he volunteered at Trinity’s annual book sale; starting in 1996, he focused his efforts on donations, looking for rare books for the sale and for the John W. Graham Library. In 2004, he received the University of Toronto’s Arbor Award for distinguished volunteer service.
Neill moved back to Oxford, where he died on 13 June 2012 at the age of 87. His funeral was held on 26 June at the Chapel of Balliol College.
Arnold A. Rogow (1924-2006) was a political scientist, author, and psychotherapist. His main area of research was psychological explanations for politics, especially the decision-making of leaders, notably James Forrestal and Alexander Hamilton.
Rogow taught at the University of Iowa and Stanford University before becoming a professor of political science at the City College of New York (part of CUNY) in 1966, where he remained for the rest of his career. Soon after coming to New York, Rogow studied at the New York Psychoanalytic Institute and became a practicing psychotherapist in addition to his academic responsibilities. Rogow became a leading figure in the study of the psychodymanics of political behavior and was instrumental in establishing it as a cross-field interdisciplinary concentration at CUNY. He also served as the associate editor of the Journal of Conflict Resolution from 1956 to 1963 and was a member of the original editorial committee of Comparative Politics.
Rogow was a pioneer and prolific writer in the field of psychiatry and politics, and wrote or edited over a dozen books, as well as numerous articles, during his career utilizing his psychoanalytic expertise. His major works include James Forrestal: A Study of Personality, Politics, and Policy (1963), Power, Corruption and Rectitude with Harold D. Laswell (1963), The Psychiatrists (1970), The Dying of the Light: A Searching Look at America Today (1975), Thomas Hobbes: Radical in the Service of Reaction (1986), and A Fatal Friendship: Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr (1998). His book on James Forrestal, the first Secretary of Defense and the nation's highest-ranking individual to later commit suicide, was Rogow's first major work to utilize psychology to examine a political figure. Rogow relied on both the archival record and interviews or correspondence with over fifty individuals who knew Forrestal in various capacities, including some of the psychiatrists involved in treating his illness, to identify the factors which led Forrestal to commit suicide in 1949.
Arnold Austin Rogow was born on August 10, 1924 in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. He earned his B.A. in political science from the University of Wisconsin in 1947 after interrupting his undergraduate education to serve in the Army as an infantryman during World War II. Rogow earned his Ph.D. in political science from Princeton University in 1953, where he wrote his dissertation on "The Labor Government and British Industry, 1945-1951." He married Patricia Evans and they had three children: Jennifer, Sarah, and Jeanne. Rogow died on February 14, 2006 at the age of 81.
Yael Seliger was educated in Israel, England, United States and Canada. Her undergraduate work is in History, Literature and Education. She obtained an MEd from OISE. Her graduate studies are in the field of Education, History and Literature. Thesis topic: Psychoanalysis, Literature and History.
Yael Seliger began her teaching career at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Since then, she has taught high school and university students in Israel and Canada. She has also completed a special project on anti-Semitism for Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.
In 1984 she joined the staff of the Centre for Enhancement of Jewish Education. She has also served as Associate Director and Director of Toronto Jewish Teachers Seminary.
Seliger was a course developer for the York University-based Markaz i.t. L'Morim Project, a co-operative venture to enhance the professional development of Jewish Teachers in Canada.
Her research focuses on post-modern trends in Hebrew literature within the context of major historic developments.