An award-winning business historian has been appointed as the new holder of the L.R. Wilson and R.J. Currie Chair in Canadian Business History at the University of Toronto.
Dimitry Anastakis is a professor in the Faculty of Arts & Science’s Department of History and the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto. A member of the Royal Society of Canada’s College of New Scholars, Anastakis’s work addresses the intersection of business, the state and politics, and globalization, particularly in the post-1945 period in Canada. He has published nine books and edited collections, including three books on the development of the Canadian auto industry, and has won three book awards. His current research includes projects on the 1970s Bricklin car venture in New Brunswick and its broader meaning in North America, and on the issue of free trade in Canada within the context of neoliberalism’s emergence. He is the former co-editor of the Canadian Historical Review, was the first chair of the Canadian Business History Association, which he helped launch, and is a former Fulbright Chair in Canadian Studies at Michigan State University.
Anastakis will teach an MBA course in Canadian Business History at the Rotman School and courses on commodities, the car in history, and contemporary Canada-United States issues in a historical context in the Department of History. He will also be teaching a fourth-year seminar in the Faculty of Arts & Science examining the history of the car in North America from the perspective of technology, business, landscape and popular culture. He joined the University in 2019 from Trent University, and holds degrees from York University and Western University.