Series 6 - University of Toronto and the Living Room Seminar

The records in this series are divided into two sections. The first consists of a few files relating to Professor Skilling’s appointment to the University of Toronto and his activities as an administrator and professor in the Centre for Russian and East European Studies and as professor emeritus. Included are appointment files (1959, 1979-1994); correspondence, notes, and memoranda on various administrative issues, lecture notes (1968-1973), and correspondence with graduate students and other researchers (1985-2001). The files are grouped by type.

The second section contains correspondence files relating to the seminar variously known as the Living Room Seminar, the Flying Seminar, and the Czech Seminar. This seminar, which Skilling described in his autobiography as “the most exciting and stimulating development in my life” in his last years, was conducted informally in his living room, beginning in 1996. Meetings were held every month or so, initially with graduate students in Toronto working on Czech(oslovak) history and politics, but later
including other interested parties, and usually with a guest-speaker on a Czech subject. The seminar continues to take place and is now known as the Skilling Seminar. The files are arranged chronologically and by author.

Photoprints of the retirement party for the secretary of the Department of Political Science are filed as /009P(18).