Description
Book SynopsisTimes change, lives change, and the terms we need to describe our literature or society or condition—what Raymond Williams calls “keywords”—change with them. Perhaps the most significant development in the quarter-century since Eli Mandel edited his anthology Contexts of Canadian Criticism has been the growing recognition that not only do different people need different terms, but the same terms have different meanings for different people and in different contexts. Nation, history, culture, art, identity—the positions we take discussing these and other issues can lead to conflict, but also hold the promise of a new sort of community. Speaking of First Nations people and their literature, Beth Brant observes that “Our connections … are like the threads of a weaving. … While the colour and beauty of each thread is unique and important, together they make a communal material of strength and durability.” New Contexts of Canadian Criticism is designed to be read, to work, in much the same manner.
Trade Review“An updating of Eli Mandel’s quarter-century-old anthology, this selection of essays approaches the new terms and contexts in criticism, taking into account identity, nation, culture and race.” — The Globe and Mail
Table of ContentsPreface
- Who’s Listening? Artists, Audiences, and Language(M. Nourbese Philip)
- National Theatre / National Obsession (Alan Filewod)
- Cultural Diversity and Canadian Literature: A Pluralistic Approach to Majority and Minority Writing in Canada (Enoch Padolsky)
- Le Postmodernisme québécois: tendances actuelles (Janet M. Paterson)
- Women in the Shadows: Reclaiming a Métis Heritage (Christine Welsh)
- The New Social Gospel in Canada (Gregory Baum)
- New Contexts of Canadian Criticism: Democracy, Counterpoint, Responsibility (Ajay Heble)
- The Politics of Recognition (Charles Taylor)
- Beyond Disputation: Anglophone-Canadian Artists and the Free Trade Debate (Frank Davey)
- Anthologies and the Canon of Early Canadian Women Writers (Carole Gerson)
- One More Woman Talking (Bronwen Wallace)
- The Good Red Road: Journeys of Homecoming in Native Women’s Writing (Beth Brant)
- Me voici, c’est moi, la femme qui pleure (François Paré)
- “Après Frye, rien”? Pas du tout! From Contexts to New Contexts (Donna Palmateer Pennee)
- Ideology in the Classroom: A Case Study in the Teaching of English Literature in Canadian Universities (Arun Mukherjee)
- Unsettling the Empire: Resistance Theory for the Second World (Stephen Slemon)
- Godzilla vs. Post-Colonial (Thomas King)
- Back to the Future: The Short Story in Canada and the Writing of Literary History (W.H. New)
- On the Rungs of the Double Helix: Theorizing the Canadian Literatures (Cynthia Sugars)
- Culture, Intellect, and Context: Recent Writing on the Cultural and Intellectual History of Ontario (A.B. McKillop)
- Once More to the Lake: Towards a Poetics of Receptivity (J.R. (Tim) Struthers)
- Is That All There Is? Tribal Literature (Basil H. Johnston)
- Disunity as Unity: A Canadian Strategy (Robert Kroetsch)
- The End(s) of Irony: The Politics of Appropriateness (Linda Hutcheon)
Acknowledgements
