Cover of A/Part. Canadian Literature Supplement No.1, 1987.
What is “official multiculturalism”? And how does it relate to Canadian literature? Check out the CanLit Guides chapter “Official Multiculturalism’s Funding of Canadian Literature: The Writing and Publications Program” by Brendan McCormack.
In this chapter, we will explore how “official multiculturalism”—that is, multiculturalism as a federal government policy in Canada—has influenced the writing and publishing of Canadian literature. While you have likely already thought about multiculturalism as part of the social context within which Canadian literature circulates, or about which Canadian authors write, official multiculturalism has also supported the production of Canadian literature itself. This chapter will introduce you to the history of the Writing and Publications Program (WPP), through which Canada’s federal multiculturalism directorate provided funding for literature from the 1970s-1990s.
CanLit Guides, created and maintained by Canadian Literature, is a open-access collection of learning materials on different topics in the field of Canadian literature. The CanLit Guides 2018 Collection is the result of collaboration between experts in the field and our editorial team. The chapters here cover a range of topics, time periods, and genres, and show the dynamic ways scholars are engaging with literatures in Canada today.