Description
Book SynopsisCompares the cultural productions of Canada and the US - literature, but also film, opera, and even theme parks - providing a reassessment of Canadian Studies within a comparative framework. Since the elections of Donald Trump and Justin Trudeau, unprecedented international attention is being drawn to the differences between the United States and Canada. This timely volume takes a close comparative look at the national imaginaries of the two countries. In its analyses of the two countries' cultural productions - literature, but also film, opera, and even theme parks - it follows the approach of Comparative North American Studies, which has been significantly advanced by Reingard M. Nischik's work over recent decades. Featuring such illustrious contributors as Linda Hutcheon, Sherrill Grace, and Aritha van Herk, the volume considers the works of writers such as MargaretAtwood, whose concern with both countries' identities is well known, but also offers surprising new insights, for example by comparing writing by Edgar Allan Poe with Canadian Yann Martel's novel Life of Pi and Nobel Prize-winning author Alice Munro's work with that of the American graphic novelist Alison Bechdel. Contributors: Margaret Atwood, Shuli Barzilai, Julia Breitbach, Jutta Ernst, Florian Freitag, Marlene Goldman, Sherrill Grace, Michael and Linda Hutcheon, Bettina Mack, Silvia Mergenthal, Claire Omhovère, Katja Sarkowsky, Aritha van Herk. Eva Gruber is Assistant Professor of American Literature at the University of Konstanz. Caroline Rosenthal is Professor of American Literature at the University of Jena.
Trade ReviewGained Ground: Perspectives on Canadian and Comparative North American Studies is an important and entertaining collection that brings together lively and interesting contributions to an exciting field of studies to which Reingard Nischik has given so many pioneering impulses as a devoted scholar and teacher. * AMERICAN STUDIES QUARTERLY *
What I find most remarkable about the collection is its range of authors, genres, and critical methodologies. * BRITISH JOURNAL OF CANADIAN STUDIES *
Table of ContentsIntroduction - Eva Gruber and Caroline Rosenthal PART I. THE GENESIS OF CANADIAN AND COMPARATIVE NORTH AMERICAN STUDIES Mapping North America: Comparative North American Literature and Its Contexts - Bettina Mack The Scottish Invention of Canadian Literature? John Buchan in Canada - Silvia Mergenthal PART II. COMPARATIVE NORTH AMERICAN STUDIES: LITERARY CASE STUDIES "Poetics of the Potent": Yann Martel's Life of Pi, Edgar Allan Poe's The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, and Modes of Transcreation - Jutta Ernst "Wanting to Light out for Tender Tenantless Territories": Reading Landscape in Robert Kroetsch's The Hornbooks of Rita K (2001) and Mark Anthony Jarman's 19 Knives (2000) - Claire Omhovère "Landscape-of-the-Heart": Transgenerational Memory and Relationality in Roy Kiyooka's Mothertalk: Life Stories of Mary Kiyoshi Kiyooka - Katja Sarkowsky Performing Shame: Theatrical Motifs in the Works of Alice Munro and Alison Bechdel - Marlene Goldman Timothy Findley's "Stones": Names, Symbols, and Stories - Sherrill Grace PART III. COMPARATIVE NORTH AMERICAN STUDIES BEYOND PRINT Comparative North American Opera: Individualism and National Identity - Linda Hutcheon and Michael Hutcheon "Who Really Lives There?": (Meta-)Tourism and the Canada Pavilion at Epcot - Florian Freitag Contact Prints: Reading Margaret Atwood's The Door and the MaddAddam Trilogy through the Lens of Photography - Julia Breitbach Cup-idity, or Poetic Larceny in Transatlantic Contexts: Margaret Atwood's "Stealing the Hummingbird Cup" - Shuli Barzilai PART IV. CODA: REINGARD NISCHIK AND TRANSATLANTIC CANADIAN CRITICISM Across the "Ocean of the Page": Nischik and Kroetsch Gaining Ground - Aritha van Herk Reingard, Queen of the Night - Margaret Atwood Photo Log: 30 Years of Working in Canadian Criticism in Pictures
