Upcoming Events

The Ottawa Society for the Arts and Science is delighted to announce that its 2025-2026 season will be expanded and  co-sponsored with the Friends of Lifelong Learning @ Carleton. Please see the following for details on confirmed events and check back for further information on lectures not already listed.

Please contact Gail Larose at glarose0@gmail.com for Zoom link details.

COMING IN 2026

John Gahan 

via Zoom – Please contact Gail Larose at glarose0@gmail.com for Zoom link details.

Thursday, May 7, 2026

7 pm ET 

The Grand Tour

The Grand Tour of the eighteenth century was an extended journey through Europe to Italy and was considered a necessary part of the education of young aristocrats, primarily British and male. Rome was the ultimate destination, and it was in Rome amidst its ruins that the tourists spent considerable time.  By the second half of the eighteenth century the Grand Tour had in fact become so established that guides were published detailing how to get there and what to see.  On the basis of these guides as well as travellers’ accounts, this illustrated presentation will follow in the steps of the grand tourists, and once in Rome we will compare what the guides say and the travellers saw against what we know of ancient Rome today from archaeology.

John Gahan took early retirement from the University of Manitoba in 2001 when he and his wife (and their three cats) moved to Ottawa.  Just when his life as a retiree was becoming routine, he welcomed the opportunity to start teaching again as a contract instructor in Greek and Roman Studies at Carleton University.  Despite retiring from teaching again, he is fortunate indeed in being able to maintain his connection with Carleton as an Adjunct Professor in their College of the Humanities.  In addition to teaching Greek and Latin, Greek and Roman archaeology and civilization, Greek and Latin literature in translation, etc., he has led student tours to Greece and Rome and written and published on Greek and Latin literature and on the Grand Tour.