The 2025 Ellen Meiksins Wood Lecture was held on Tuesday, May 20th in partnership with Toronto Metropolitan University’s Faculty of Arts. A special thanks to TMU Interim Dean of Arts Amy Peng for hosting this Broadbent Institute event.

Ellen Meiksins Wood was one of the left’s foremost theorists on democracy and history, and often promoted the idea that democracy always has to be fought for and secured from below, never benevolently conferred from above. The Institute founded the annual Ellen Meiksins Wood Prize & Lecture to honour Professor Wood’s legacy as an internationally renowned scholar and to bring her work to new generations of Canadians.

The Ellen Meiksins Wood Prize is given annually to an academic, labour activist or writer and recognizes outstanding contributions in political theory, social or economic history, human rights, or sociology.

Each year’s recipient also delivers the Ellen Meiksins Wood Lecture.

The 2025 Ellen Meiksins Wood Prize is awarded to economics and politics commentator Grace Blakeley for critical analysis of economic systems and neoliberalism capitalism that helps movements take back democratic power for the working-class.

Watch the full lecture recording below and read the full lecture in Perspectives: A Canadian Journal of Political Economy and Social Democracy.

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This event takes place in partnership with Toronto Metropolitan University’s Faculty of Arts.

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Photos from the Event