Abstract: Some of the most exciting contemporary approaches to settler-nationalist narratives of Canadian identity from postcolonial perspectives involve sustained engagement with non-literary modes of representation. Among the most striking examples of this tendency are literary interrogations of the iconic, overtly nationalist wilderness images of the Group of Seven and their associates. In this paper, I explore the critical potential of ekphrasis (the literary depiction of visual art) as a postcolonial mode in such a setting. Employing detailed formal theories of ekphrasis, I use the example of Jane Urquhart’s 1997 novel
The Underpainter to illustrate how the referential ambiguities attached to ekphrastic representation enable its use as a radically destabilizing tool, restoring a temporal, narrative dimension to the spatialized forms of imperialist representation. By repeatedly suggesting and refuting links to the instantly recognizable canvases of the Group, I suggest, Urquhart’s novel fulfils just such a destabilizing (and hence recuperative) function.
To read the full article online, visit our OJS site
Abstract: Despite the rise of Canadian literature in recent decades, Canada remains a place where by far most of the books read are of foreign origin. The causes of this predominance can be traced deep into the past—to the country’s colonial evolution, to the long unyielding protectionism of American copyright law, and to Quebec’s desire to shore up a French identity. Nationalist policies have recently intervened to promote the original publishing of general literature in Canada, making a noticeable impact from about 1920 in Quebec and about 1960 in English Canada. These policies have not been symmetrical: whereas Quebec has implemented a law requiring libraries to buy from local booksellers, the rest of Canada has largely contented itself with granting programs for publishers. The result is that Quebec has achieved broad stability for the spectrum of roles involved in the production of local literature and approached parity in the sale of local and foreign publications in the provincial market. In English Canada, by contrast, independent bookselling is in plain crisis, and as this crucial link to Canadian readers deteriorates, local publishing grows increasingly dependent on government grants.
To read the full article online, visit our OJS site.
Abstract: The little-known short stories of Isabella Valancy Crawford reveal a talented writer’s response to the demands of the North American literary marketplace and the prevailing conventions of short fiction in the 1870s. Crawford contributed more than thirty short stories between 1872 and 1886 to Canadian and American mass-market “story papers,” her chief venue being Frank Leslie’s Chimney Corner, one of many periodicals spawned by the New York publishing magnate Frank Leslie. The American border was, however, only one of many boundaries that her fiction crossed; it also breaches borders between elite and popular literature, poetry and prose, and humor and melodrama. Of particular interest are the varying inflections of her stories set in different places and directed to different national audiences. This paper delineates the manifold “border crossings” in Crawford’s fiction through a discussion of several representative short stories.
To read the full article online, visit our OJS site.
Abstract: The history of the Canada-US border looms large over the history of Canadian comics; indeed, for English-language comics, American comics are the primary influence, and the Canadian comics industry came into existence largely as a matter of border trade rather than artistic intent. Borders, and their corollary gutters, are also part of the vocabulary of comics, and their literal depiction on the page is significant to how comics are read and understood. As such, comics produced in Canada offer a unique opportunity to examine issues of Canadian culture and the role of the border in both metaphorical and literal contexts. This paper offers a reading of the relationship between borders and gutters and discussion of the Canadian nation in three contemporary Canadian comics:
Louis Riel: A Comic-Strip Biography by Chester Brown,
Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life (and the rest of its series) by Bryan Lee O’Malley, and
Red: A Haida Manga by Michael Yahgulanaas. These three comics offer readings of nation from different perspectives, and also represent a range of options for depicting the literal borders and gutters of the comic. The borders as depicted visually in contemporary Canadian comics serve to deconstruct, trouble, and reinforce the discussion of the same liminal space.
To read the full article online, visit our OJS site.
Abstract: This article argues that Cree author Tomson Highway’s
Kiss of the Fur Queen celebrates Cree storytelling as a way to restore kinship relations that have been impacted by residential schools. In doing so, Highway’s 1998 novel re-thinks what it means to tell one’s life story and envisions a form of Cree residential school testimony. This article focuses on a part of the novel that has received surprisingly scant attention from scholars: the plays that protagonist Jeremiah creates toward the end of the novel. As I will demonstrate, an unpublished Highway play sheds new light on the significance of Jeremiah’s plays and the novel’s ending. My discussion of the unpublished play manuscript gives readers a more complete idea of the vision that Highway had when he created
Kiss of the Fur Queen—and shows how central the role of Cree storytelling truly is to his novel.
To read the full article online, visit our OJS site