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Canada and the Idea of North examines the ways in which Canadians have defined themselves as a northern people in their literature, art, music, drama, history, geography, politics, and popular culture. From the Franklin Mystery to the comic book superheroine Nelvana, Glenn Gould's documentaries, the paintings of Lawren Harris, and Molson beer ads, the idea of the north has been central to the Canadian imagination. Sherrill Grace argues that Canadians have always used ideas of Canada-as-North to promote a distinct national identity and national unity. In a penultimate chapter - "The North Writes Back" - Grace presents newly emerging northern voices and shows how they view the long tradition of representing the North by southern activists, artists, and scholars. With the recent creation of Nunavut, increasing concern about northern ecosystems and social challenges, and renewed attention to Canada's role as a circumpolar nation, Canada and the Idea of North shows that nordicity still plays an urgent and central role in Canada at the start of the twenty-first century.
"When Vincent Massey, Canada's first native-born governor general, wrote On Being Canadian in 1948, he acknowledged the importance of the arts to education and the production of good Canadian citizens. What he did not consider was what the arts and artists can tell us about being Canadian or about being ourselves. In On the Art of Being Canadian Sherrill Grace begins with the premise that the arts have shaped and continue to inform Canadian identity. Drawing upon a wealth of artistic expression that spans over a century of painting, fiction, poetry, drama, and film, she then traces how the arts and artists have contributed to three fields of representation, or themes, that are staples in Can...
The essays in this collection draw on feminist, post-colonial and cultural theory to analyze the different roles played by constructions of race and gender in shaping Canadian identity as represented in various aspects of its culture, history, politics and health care.
Timothy Findley (1930-2002) was one of Canada’s foremost writers—an award-winning novelist, playwright, and short-story writer who began his career as an actor in London, England. Findley was instrumental in the development of Canadian literature and publishing in the 1970s and 80s. During those years, he became a vocal advocate for human rights and the anti-war movement. His writing and interviews reveal a man concerned with the state of the world, a man who believed in the importance of not giving in to despair, despite his constant struggle with depression. Findley believed in the power of imagination and creativity to save us. Tiff: A Life of Timothy Findley is the first full biograp...
Best known as the story from the 1904 Puccini opera, the compelling modern myth of Madame Butterfly has been read, watched, and re-interpreted for many years. This volume examines the Madame Butterfly narrative in a variety of cultural contexts - literary, musical, theatrical, cinematic, historical, and political.
God intends fulfillment for us. Yet it's easy to forget that truth in our daily life. For fifty years, Elizabeth Sherrill cowrote life-changing books: The Hiding Place, God's Smuggler, and The Cross and the Switchblade. Now for the first time, in Surprised by Grace, she shares her personal discoveries of God's unfathomable love and strength while battling chronic depression and self-doubt. "When God created you, do you think He meant to make someone else?" a friend asks Sherrill. Faced with questions like these, she learns she's infinitely valued and cherished by God. In vivid episodes, Sherrill takes you through the three stages of her awakening joy, from the thirty-some years when the idea of God was elusive to the years since then when she's reveled in breathtaking moments in God's presence and to her inspiring vision of eternity. In Surprised by Grace, you'll discover that God loves you individually and infinitely. You can find real peace, for you are God's amazing creation. Let that truth echo forever in your own life.
The appearance of Margaret Atwood's first major collection of poetry marked the beginning of a truly outstanding career in Canadian and international letters. The voice in these poems is as witty, vulnerable, direct, and incisive as we've come to know in later works, such as Power Politics, Bodily Harm, and Alias Grace. Atwood writes compassionately about the risks of love in a technological age, and the quest for identity in a universe that cannot quite be trusted. Containing many of Atwood's best and most famous poems, The Circle Game won the 1966 Governor General's Award for Poetry and rapidly attained an international reputation as a classic of modern poetry.
Ecocriticism can be described in very general terms as the investigation of the many ways in which culture and the environment are interrelated and conceptualized. Ecocriticism aspires to understand and often to celebrate the natural world, yet it does so indirectly by focusing primarily on written texts. Hailed as one of the most timely and provocative developments in literary and cultural studies of recent decades, it has also been greeted with bewilderment or scepticism by those for whom its aims and methods are unclear. This book seeks to bring into view the development of ecocriticism in the context of Canadian literary studies. Selections include work by Margaret Atwood, Northrop Frye, Sherrill Grace, and Rosemary Sullivan.
Sherrill Grace shows how Malcolm Lowry's theme of a cyclical pattern of initiation, repeated ordeals with failure and retreat, followed by success and development, which in turn gave way to fresh defeat, influenced the structure, narrative style, and the symbolic pattern in his writing. The author also includes an appendix in which she examines the elements of Conrad Aiken's fiction and prose that had a significant impact on Lowry's work.