We are thrilled to announce the arrival of Canadian Literature Issue 247!
Christine Kim writes in her editorial:
How might we begin imagining a utopia from our present moment of overwhelming challenges? The first essay in this issue of Canadian Literature, Pamela Bedore’s “The Aesthetics of Utopian Imaginings in Louise Penny’s A Trick of the Light,” opens with this provocative question. In addition to the pandemic, she lists climate change and deep inequality as concerns that have preoccupied the first decades of the twenty-first century. How then can we conceive of a future that is utopic for all, given that we are living in times that seem to hold “a contempt for joy that makes utopia seem not only impossible but perhaps also undesirable” (Bedore)? Imagining a utopia, one that is collectively desired, is a project that seems out of sync with the prevailing pandemic atmosphere of isolation, uncertainty, and division. Indeed, as many people have commented in casual conversation, these are times that feel like they have come out of the pages of dystopian or even speculative fiction. Not only do such fleeting insights respond to the bleakness of the past few years, but they also draw attention to the seemingly shifting relations between fact and fiction as our realities become more surreal and our memories fuzzier.
—Christine Kim, Imagining Endemic Times
This issue also features:
- Articles by Pamela Bedore, Erin Goheen Glanville, Evangeline Holtz-Schramek, Toyah Webb, and Carl Watts
- Poetry by Elana Wolff, Paddy McCallum, George Elliott Clarke, Tolu Oloruntoba, Brian Bartlett, and Susan Ioannou
- Reviews by Ruth Bradley-St-Cyr, Emily Ballantyne, Gregory Betts, Melissa Dalgleish, Faye Hammill, Shannon Lodoen, Andrew McEwan, Linda Morra, June Scudeler, and Conrad Scott
- A forum on Canisia Lubrin’s poetry by Nicholas Bradley, Cornel Bogle, Tavleen Purewal, Kyle Kinaschuk, Manahil Bandukwala, Rina Garcia Chua, Shane Neilson, and Veronica Austen
- Q&A with Canisia Lubrin.
The new issue can be ordered through our online store. Happy reading!