Material Cultures in Canada

by Thomas Allen (Editor), Jennifer Blair (Editor)

Overview

Material Cultures in Canada presents the vibrant and diverse field of material culture studies in Canadian literary, artistic, and political contexts today. The first of its kind, this collection features sixteen essays by leading scholars in Canada, each of whom examines a different object of study, including the beaver, geraniums, comics, water, a musical playlist, and the human body.

The book’s three sections focus, in turn, on objects that are persistently material, on things whose materiality blends into the immaterial, and on the materials of spaces. Contributors highlight some of the most exciting new developments in the field, such as the emergence of “new materialism,” affect theory, globalization studies, and environmental criticism. Although the book has a Canadian centre, the majority of its contributors consider objects that cross borders or otherwise resist national affiliation.

This collection will be valuable to readers within and outside of Canada who are interested in material culture studies and, in addition, will appeal to anyone interested in the central debates taking place in Canadian political and cultural life today, such as climate change, citizenship, shifts in urban and small-town life, and the persistence of imperialism.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781771120142
Publisher:	Wilfrid Laurier University Press
Publication date:	05/25/2015
Series:	Cultural Studies , #16
Pages:	358
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Thomas Allen is an associate professor of English at the University of Ottawa. bHe is the author of A Republic in Time: Temporality and Social Imagination in Nineteenth-Century America (2008). His research concerns the cultural history of time, especially in relation to material culture.

A specialist in Canadian literature, Jennifer Blair teaches in the Department of English at the University of Ottawa. Her research centres on early Canadian literature, with a focus on architecture and the circulation of information in colonial Canada. She has published essays in Studies in Canadian Literature, English Studies in Canada, and Feminist Media Studies.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements vii

Introduction Material Cultures in Canada, Material Cultures Now Thomas Allen and Jennifer Blair 1

Part I Materialities

1 The Work of the Beaver Jody Berland 25

2 Night in a Box: Anne Carson's Nox and the Materiality of Elegy Tanis MacDonald 51

3 Maxims and Contraries: Notes from a Project in Process Alison Calder 65

4 The Geranium in the Window: One Plant's Literary Hardiness in the Canadian Imagination Shalley Boyd 83

5 Is It Still a Cinch?: The Transformational Properties of Objects in Guy Vanderhaeghe's The Last Crossing Susan Birwood 107

Part II Immaterialities

6 Obama's Playlist: Materializing Transnational Desire at the CBC Mark Simpson 131

7 Grinning Things: Object Lessons in Violent Labour Michael Epp 155

8 Moses Cotsworth and the Authenticity of Time Thomas Allen 171

9 Materializing Climate Change: Images of Exposure, States of Exception Nicole Shukin 189

10 Waters as Potential Paths to Peace Rita Wong 209

Part III Materials of and for Spaces

11 The Biotopographies of Seth's George Sprott (1894-1975) Candida Rifkind 225

12 Woodrow: Memory and Nostalgia at Play Jesso Alston-O'Connor 247

13 Plaques and Persons: Commemorating Canada's Authors Carole Gerson 265

14 Archaeological Detritus and the Bulging Archive: The Staging of He Named Her Amber at the Art Gallery of Ontario May Chew 283

15 Poetry and Globalized Cities: A Material Poetics of Canadian Urban Space Jeff Derksen 301

Afterword Endless Material: The Future of Things in Canada Thomas Allen and Jennifer Blair 323

Contributors 333

Index 339