ReCalling Early Canada: Reading the Political in Literary and Cultural Production (cuRRents) - Softcover

When we call and recall early Canada what is it that we call upon? How does the very name we give it shape in advance what it is that we set out to recall? ReCalling Early Canada is the first book-length collection of essays to focus on Canadian literary and cultural production prior to WWI. While Canadian literature is often thought to have emerged in the mid twentieth century, the essays in this volume reflect a recent critical interest in earlier generations of cultural production. Taking seriously the project of recall, the essays here not only seek to deliver certain historical documents to the light of present-day critique, they also ask important theoretical and political questions about the various methodologies involved and the assumptions that accompany them. The authors do not limit their analyses to the standards of fiction and poetry-instead they welcome photographs, captivity narratives, family letters, and journalism as part of the repertoire of early Canadian readers. These essays combine a fresh interest in this burgeoning field of study with new approaches to historical inquiry. The result is a unique and diverse investigation of more than two centuries of a relatively unknown early Canada.

Jennifer Blair is a doctoral student in the Department of English at McMaster University. Her dissertation explores the connections between literature and architecture in early Canada. Daniel Coleman is Professor of Canadian Literature, Department of English and Cultural Studies, McMaster University. He lives in Hamilton. Kate Higginson's doctoral work examines the writing of colonial captivities and indigenous internments in Canada. Her latest article maps Mohawk or Haudenosaunee nationalism and the memorialization of Joseph Brant in the photography of Shelley Niro (Essays on Canadian Writing, Fall 2003). Lorraine York teaches Canadian literature at McMaster University. She has written books on Timothy Findley, Canadian fiction and photography, women’s collaborative writing, and has edited a book of essays on Margaret Atwood. She is currently finishing a book on Canadian literary celebrity.