We are thrilled to announce the arrival of Canadian Literature, Issue 252. For this general issue, Sharon Engbrecht (Marketing, Outreach, & Communications Coordinator) and Sarah-Nelle Jackson (Assistant to Editor-in-Chief) write in their editorial:
When our Editor-in-Chief Christine Kim graciously agreed to let Sarah-Nelle and me write this editorial, she was interested in our perspective as graduate students on the production of Canadian Literature. As PhD candidates in the Department of English Language and Literatures at the University of British Columbia (UBC), we bring different experiences to the production of both the journal and the field of CanLit. The term production registers different modes of meaning: as an action of manufacturing raw materials, as a process of management, and as a larger project of providing ideas for consideration. . . . In being a part of the production of Canadian Literature, [we are] cognizant of the politics involved in producing an enduring object of study that, on the one hand, helps promote our collective critical understanding of important texts and phenomena about Canada and, on the other, canonizes the right kind of critical attention through the production process.
As a journal led by non-Indigenous scholars that explores how Canadian identity creates and contests itself through literature, Canadian Literature cannot resolve the alchemical fiction of Canada any more than CanLit as a literary category or Sharon and I as individual settlers can. Following the authors in the present issue, rather, we might take the aporia of CanLit not as a problem demanding resolution, but as a potentially fruitful space to face Canada’s inherent tensions and contradictions. As readers, scholars, and editors of Canadian literature, we might seek to build on past successes and failures of those similarly situated—not to settle questions, but to be transformed by them.
– Sharon Engbrecht and Sarah-Nelle Jackson, “Producing Canadian Literature”
This issue also features:
- Articles by Sherif H. Ismail, Neil Querengesser, Ric Knowles, Eleanor Ty, and an interview with Junie Désil by Sharon Engbrecht
- An Opinions & Notes piece on “Decolonizing Pedagogies: Pipelines and Publishers” by Jody Mason
- Poetry by Amanda Fayant, Dawn Macdonald, Crystal Hurdle, Suzette Mayr, Daniela Elza and Alan Hill, and Ben von Jagow
- Reviews by Jérôme Melançon, Ryan Fitzpatrick, Eli MacLaren, Kelly Baron, Chantel Lavoie, Dani Spinosa, Rachel Fernandes, Amila Li, Jessica Fontaine, Rina Garcia Chua, Andrea A. Davis, Fabio Akcelrud Durão, Alexa Manuel, Michelle N. Huang, Carly Atkinson, Owen Torrey, Sharon Engbrecht (and a second review by Sharon, “Updating the Companion“), Shane Neilson, Margery Fee, Dale Tracy, Libe García Zarranz, and Geordie Miller
The new issue can be ordered through our online store at https://canlit.ca/support/purchase/single-issues. Happy reading!