Democracy as a work in progress: the intellectual and cultural dynamics of the Canadian idea
BACS Annual Conference, New Hall Cambridge 6-8 April 2010
Thursday 8 April 2010
SESSION F
Quebec Studies 2 Martin Simard, University of Quebec at Chicoutimi Is Local Democracy Weak in Canadian Peripheral Areas? Evidence from the 2009 Quebec Municipal Election Saguenay is a recently merged mid-size city located in a peripheral area of the province of Quebec. This municipality, situated 200 km north of Quebec City, represents an example of local political processes in the geographical and socioeconomic context of peripheral areas. Although the lack of interest of its citizens and the focus on property taxes appear to largely characterize local politics throughout Canada and in the US, the nature of local political processes and values appears specific in the peripheral regions. Indeed, these areas are more affected by social homogeneity, economy decline and out migration. Could this explain the more conservative values, the low eagerness to be involved in public debates and the existence of long-lasting political regimes in such milieu? Many factors and observations lead to the following question: is local democracy weak in Canadian peripheral areas? In this paper, we evaluate the veracity and objectivity of such a contention. Evidence from the 2009 Quebec Municipal elections will be used, and more specifically, the election process and results for the City of Saguenay. First, we expect the level of public participation to be lower and the number of city council members and mayors elected without opposition to be higher in the periphery. Second, the Saguenay case study will illustrate the overwhelming support for populistic and authoritative mayors in peripheral areas, in either towns or villages. The results touch on the nature and degree of originality of local governance practices in Canadian peripheral areas, taking for granted that Quebec is not distinct in this matter.
Micheline Cambron, Université de Montréal / Université Paris III Sorbonne Nouvelle Presse et démocratie : L'Artisan de James Huston En 1842, James Huston, qui se présentait jusque là comme un modeste apprenti-typographe, fonde un journal destiné aux ouvriers : l'Artisan. Prenant explicitement le relais des deux journaux publiés par François-Xavier Garneau, L’Étudiant et L’Institut, ce journal, qui durera un peu plus d'une année, s'appuie sur des tarifs exceptionnellement bas et il offre de l'exercice démocratique un portrait nouveau. La communication présentera ce journal et la conception de la démocratie que James Huston y promeut, tout en insistant sur le rôle déterminant de la littérature dans le discours public ainsi mis en forme dans la période qui suit immédiatement l’Acte d’Union.
Ciaran Toal, Queen’s University Belfast Science, Religion and Space in Montreal From 1831 The British Association for the Advancement of Science (BAAS) conducted annual week-long scientific meetings in various provincial towns across the United Kingdom, with the explicit aim of bringing ‘science to the provinces’. However, after fifty years of work their peripatetic cycle was exhausted and the future of the Association seemed in doubt. In this context, the Association’s leadership accepted an invitation from the Canadian government and the Royal Society of Canada to visit Montreal, Quebec, in 1884. This was the British Association’s first visit outside the United Kingdom. Building on work on the historical geographies of knowledge, the paper will focus on the particular way in which the relationship between science and religion was rhetorically constructed and contested within Montreal. This will involve moving beyond the existing literature that has situated the meeting within a larger Imperial project, towards a focus on the local reception of the British Association visit among the English and French-speaking populations. Central to the study is the tension between the perceived scientific and religious liberalism of the British Association, and the ultramontanist movement of late nineteenth-century Montreal.
Literature 6 Anouk Lang, University of Birmingham Modernity in practice: A comparative view of the cultural dynamics of modernist literary production and leftist politics in Canada Writers in Canada of the early- and mid-twentieth century who were associated with the pursuit of leftist politics and grassroots democratic movements were often also among those helping to develop literary modernism and experimenting with new aesthetic styles and forms. These two arenas – leftist politics and modernist aesthetics – came into conflict and competition as well as inflecting each other in constructive ways. In the attempt to understand the dynamics of this dialectical exchange it is useful to compare the Canadian situation with other national contexts with enough historical similarities to offer a basis for comparison. Taking just such an analytical approach, this paper examines Australian literature and politics of the same period to illuminate the contradictions and conjunctions between those on the political left and those who were experimenting with new literary techniques, and to investigate how, why, and to what effect such cross-fertilisation occurred. The entrenched opposition in mid-century Australian literary circles between cultural nationalists with strong affiliations to leftist political groups, and those whose attraction to new aesthetic movements issuing from Europe was perceived as politically conservative meant that Australian writers associated with the energy of radical nationalism excluded themselves to an extent from participating in modernism, even as they were engaged in much the same project of finding new directions and fresh idioms for their national literature as Canadian writers with similar political and nationalist sympathies. That no such virulent opposition occurred in Canada raises the question of why modernism was inflected as anti-nationalist and anti-progressive in one location and not the other. In this paper I explore some of the possibilities explaning the conjunctions and the contrasts between literary modernism in these two countries, using the growing body of scholarship on the mutual reinforcements and contradictions of leftist politics and modernist aesthetics in Canada.
Britta Olinder, Gothenburg University A Postcolonial Waste Land in Terms of Human Rights, Social Justice and Eco-Environmental Issues Like Jean Rhys exploring the pre-history of the madwoman in the attic, Coetzee following the adventures of a female Robinson Crusoe or the numerous Caribbean or Canadian versions of The Tempest, Janice Kulyk Keefer adopts postcolonial strategies in turning T.S.Eliot’s The Waste Land into a scathing satire of capitalist politics enforced at the expense of the poor and the powerless. Using Eliot’s form and technique – from epitaph and the subtitles of the five sections to the wealth of notes at the end – she evokes the rhythm and music of the modernist poem while radically changing its content. “The Waste Zone” tells the story of the meeting in Québec city of the thirty-four American Heads of State in April 2001 and how they were separated from witnesses and protestors, not only as luxury from destitution, but also by brute force against peaceful demonstrators. The poem paints in lively colours the confrontation between the new geo-political models of free trade and a many-voiced post-national resistance in defence of civil rights and a healthy environment. As Keefer shows globalization, trans-national movement and freedom do indeed require diversified responses.
Lianne Moyes, Université de Montréal “Oka” : literary representations, public culture and the processes of democratization Events such as the stand-off at Kanehsatake in 1990—the Oka Crisis—raise important questions for Canadian democracy. Within the terms of a liberal democracy, which forms of protest are considered “not democratic”? Who has the right to take a stand? Is it legitimate for a group to disrupt public order if they feel that the actions of the government are themselves unjust? Canadian democracy, it might be argued, needs to be understood as unfinished and “in process,” precisely in order to allow for the interventions of the people, in this case the Mohawks of Kanehsatake. The events of summer 1990 at Kanehsatake (and Kahnawake) have proven incredible motors of representation, generating texts across several genres, media and disciplines. In the proposed paper, I address two literary texts that engage with the Oka Crisis: Tessa McWatt’s novel Out of My Skin and Drew Hayden Taylor’s short story “A Blurry Image on the Six O’Clock News.” Both of these fictions integrate images from the mainstream news coverage as a way of drawing readers’ attention to the status of the events at Kanehsatake as “public,” that is, as shared by and relevant to Canadian society at large. At the same time, these fictions show the news to be radically contingent, to be one among a range of possible perspectives—historical, political and personal—in need of consideration and action. In Out of My Skin and “A Blurry Image,” the stand-off at Kanehsatake is not a stable object of knowledge. It is presented, rather, as a field of public discourse with very concrete effects in the lives of specific characters. The texts of McWatt and Hayden Taylor empower readers to analyse this field of public discourse and its effects. Insofar as they open spaces of contestation and questioning, they participate in the processes of democratization.
Lucile Rouet, University Paul Valéry – Montpellier 3 The Canadian Fur Trade and its Potential for Romance in Tomson Highway's Kiss of the Fur Queen (1998), Fred Stenson's The Trade (2000) and Audrey Thomas's Isobel Gunn (2000)” The history of Canada is highly entwined with the fur trade but this commercial aspect seems at first glance to resist the Romantic mode of employment defined by Hayden White in Metahistory (1973). The fur trade involved a close community in the forts rather than individual heroes, and the community was focused on commercial profits rather than fighting against evil in a quest for good. A parallel can be drawn from the American emplotment of its history with the romantic vision of its Frontier or even its historical romanticized hero: the cowboy. In Kiss of the Fur Queen, The Trade and Isobel Gunn, three different representations of the fur trade are proposed respectively with a Cree's perspective, Hudson's Bay Company officers' and Metis's perspectives and a woman's viewpoint. The fur trade encompasses many themes that do not seem to be directly involved with trading but which are significant in a study of the fur trade. For instance the exploration of Canada is an approach which can lead to individual adventures, a significant aspect of a romance. The narratives covers a broad time span too: from the beginning of the 19th century to the 1970's. The three authors use the fur trade as a literary material and my study will examine in what extent it was utilized to create a Canadian romance.
Multiculturalism 2
Of course, the main objective of interculturalism is to create an « imagined community » and a new culture/identity that will be nurtured by all. But, the defenders of this model of diversity seems to neglect the potential of the process that leads to the formation of this common identity in the creation of a sense of belonging that immigrants can feel towards their welcoming society. According to James Tully, the capacity for minority groups to alter the practices of governance of a political association permits the development of sense of belonging to the polity (Tully, 1999: 170). Presented generally, this sense is defined by Andrew Mason as an identification that an individual will feel with a polity only if he identifies himself with its institutions and certain of its practices. For such a sense to arise, the individual must be able to regard these institutions and practices as legitimate in themselves and to see his own concerns reflected in them: in other words, he must not be excluded from them (Mason, 1999: 272). I would like to present how this sense of belonging, which is implicitly present in the logic of interculturalism defended by Commissioners Bouchard and Taylor, can be useful in the development of a sense of belonging and attachment that immigrant groups can come to feel toward their welcoming society.
Rachelle Freake, Queen Mary, University of London The French language and belonging in Quebec: An examination of the Bouchard Taylor Commission briefs In Quebec, the French language has traditionally been understood as a key symbol of Quebec identity. However, with rapidly changing demographics, the French language is often perceived as an ethnocultural identity marker, symbolizing the identity of the descendants of the first European settlers in New France, rather than symbolizing a civic identity associated with Quebec’s liberal democracy. Although the French language continues to be branded as Quebec’s primary identity marker, inclusive of all those living in the province, new ways of identifying with Quebec, such as culture, religion, and civic participation, have begun to emerge. Drawing on a bilingual corpus of English and French briefs submitted to the Bouchard Taylor Commission on religious and cultural accommodation, this corpus-assisted discourse study (CADS) investigates the extent to which language plays a continuing role as both a symbol and medium in the construction of nationhood and belonging in Quebec popular discourse. Results from this study show that most participants tended to describe “Quebec” as a pluralist and open society with institutions and values traditionally associated with Western democracies (such as freedom, rights, and secularism). However, language was found to be both a central concern and a demarcating line within and between English, French, and minority language speakers’ discourses. Frequent references to language education suggest that language continues to be perceived as a way for immigrants and minority groups to access membership in Quebec civic society. According to the public discourse contained in the Bouchard Taylor briefs, then, one primary criterion for belonging in Quebec’s liberal democracy is the ability to participate in public life through the common public language.
First Nations 3 Renate Eigenbrod, University of Manitoba ‘asserting our presence in the face of erasure’: literary representations of residential school experiences” More than one hundred years of residential schools in Canada attempted an erasure of Indigenous cultures, languages and worldviews in the name of assimilation, often enforced by physical and sexual abuse. Presently, a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) is in the process of collecting stories from all involved at the schools in order to document fully a history of a human rights violation that had genocidal consequences for Aboriginal peoples of Canada. But there has already been some other documentation. Starting in 1973, survivors from these schools have written about their experiences in poems, short stories, memoirs and (autobiographical) novels. Surprisingly, in spite of the schools’ “cataclysmic impact” (Farrell-Racette) on Aboriginal communities, these works do speak to a cultural continuity in the sense of Daniel Heath Justice’s “kinship criticism,” asserting an Aboriginal voice in the face of erasure. Although the authors describe and evoke many forms of colonial violations and ruptures in their stories, the presence of an Indigenous perspective is written into the text, reclaimed, for example, through allusions to oral traditions, phrases in the respective Aboriginal language, choice of title, like My Name is Masak, and other framing devices. Their writing is an expression of “survivance” (Gerald Vizenor) rather than victimization attesting to the strength and resilience of the children. Ironically, residential school literature tells about a way of life that was supposed to be eliminated through the education in these very schools. However, this is not always presented explicitly and cohesively as the oppression exercised in the schools silenced and censored Aboriginal voices; it takes an attentive and perceptive reader to fill in the gaps (created through a child’s voice, for example) and to piece together the fragments, but such reading is well worth the effort as these texts may transform both survivors and perpetrators.
Tricia E. Logan, Kingston University Memory and Commemoration of Residential Schools in Canada A new era of the residential school era has started in Canada with the establishment of the truth and reconciliation commission and in reaching a settlement agreement between survivors, churches and government. This new era will, for the first time see the ‘rest of Canada’, being asked to earnestly engage in the residential school era of reconciliation. Residential schools are entering the social history, identity and memory of Canadians in new ways. Few non-Aboriginal Canadians remember or have any knowledge of what residential schools were, are and how the legacy continues to impact generations of Aboriginal people in Canada. For decades in Canada social and collective memories of residential schools belonged only to the perpetrated-against, Aboriginal people and never to the bystanders or perpetrators of the school system, the governments, churches and Canadians. While this is not an admirable chapter in Canadian history, it is undoubtedly a portion of the history that saw the creation of a nation; built on assimilative policies and the colonization of Aboriginal people through abuse and destruction of language and culture. Aboriginal communities have conducted and will continue to conduct their own commemorations and memorializations, these will not come in to question. How will Canadians remember residential schools? There are two approaches to this question that this paper will attempt to examine. Firstly, it will address how Canadians consider the atrocities and crimes committed by the nation-state and Churches. There is a range in definitions for the atrocities committed during the over-100 year legacy of the schools. This range includes, but is not limited to the terms negligence, failure, systemic abuse, cultural genocide and it extends to broader more specific definitions of genocide. Secondly, the question will be examined by how Canada and Canadian Churches will commemorate the schools, as the perpetrators of system. What will be examined is Canada’s role, their acknowledgement of their shared role they took with the Churches to remove Aboriginal people and Aboriginal cultures from Canada. Canada’s memory and ongoing memorialization of their roles and responses to the residential school legacy will hopefully alter and contribute to growth in a Canadian national identity that so often under-acknowledges First Nations, Métis and Inuit people.
Eric Woods, LSE Political Apologies, Cultural Trauma, and Collective Identity: The case of the Anglican Church of Canada and the memory of the Indian Residential Schools The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between political apologies, cultural trauma and collective identity. The dominant view of political apologies is that they are attempt to resolve lingering past traumas in order to reconcile group differences. Drawing on the theory of cultural trauma, this paper takes aim at this view, arguing instead that they play a role in creating traumas by bringing past abuses that were either ignored or denied into the present. This process untangles collective identities by providing a locus for group solidarity for both the perpetrator group and the victim group and helps to restore a ‘normal’ progressive master narrative in both cases. The paper examines the process with respect to the dominant group and indigenous peoples and the case of the Indian Residential Schools in Canada. To illustrate the argument, the paper discusses the case of the apology by former Primate of the Anglican Church of Canada Michael Peers to Aboriginal Anglicans for the church’s role in administering the Indian Residential Schools in comparative context.
Elizabeth Cassell, University of Essex When Sorry is Not Enough: A Response to Stephen Harper’s Apology Crowds of Indigenous People gathered in front of the Parliament building in Ottawa in 2008 to hear the apology given on behalf of the Canadian government by Prime Minister Stephen Harper to the survivors of the Indian Residential Schools system under which thousands of Indigenous children were physically, emotionally and sexually abused and were never given the education they were promised. This paper examines the adequacy of the apology. The paper is based on a series of oral history interviews carried out during the course of 2009 in co-operation with the Band Council of Matimekosh Lac John (municipality of Schefferville, Northern Quebec). For an apology to have meaning something in the relationship between government and people must change. I shall make suggestions as to what these changes should be.
SESSION G
Business and Economic Studies
Alan Hallsworth Canadian Banking and past and present crises One of the more remarkable side-effects of the global recession sparked by “toxic debt” and sub-prime assets came in early December 2008 when Canada's governor general, Michaëlle Jean, acceded to a request to suspend Parliament, thereby avoiding a confidence vote. Essentially, Premier Harper was being forced to include measures to help the economy following his introduction of an economic plan that had included no stimulus measures. . It was soon noted that Canadian banks had generally been more prudent in their lending and avoided many of the sub-prime pitfalls of the US system. Canada has been praised for its relative resilience to the 2008-9 recession. This paper investigates why that might be so The financial sector as a whole has been an increasingly important part of the Canadian economy, representing over 6% of the country’s GDP and employing some 600,000 people. By 2004 all the leading Canadian financial concerns had their headquarters in Toronto and by 2005 the market capitalization of the leading six Canadian domestic banks stood at $198,900m. As a result, three Canadian banks featured in the global top five for shareholder returns. Canadian banking in 2005 was highly profitable, providing an average return on equity of 17.3%, although the market capitalization of Bank of Nova Scotia (the leader in shareholder returns) was barely 15% of that of Citibank in the USA. Such fortunes have been transformed by the 2008-9 sub-prime recession, from which most Canadian banks remained largely aloof. I argue that this is due to inertia, political uncertainty and a more robust regulatory environment. High inflation in the 1970s worked in favour of banks, which could offer short-term loans, and against the trust companies, which were restricted to longer-term lending. Later, the trust companies constituted the banks’ greatest trading competitors, as they moved quickly into the area of deposit and cheque accounts and credit cards. These factors, combined with a traditionally restrictive attitude to foreign competition in general to insulate Canada. Examples of restrictions included limitations placed on individual holdings in chartered banks and restrictions on the scale of operations by foreign banks. These restrictions were never eased - despite the 1980s Little Bang – the extent experienced in Britain.
Tim Rooth Canadian economic performance in the 20th century: an international comparison This paper examines Canada’s economic performance in the long twentieth century – 1870-c. 2000 – against that of comparable countries, which it is argued are the settler societies of Australia, New Zealand, and, more contentiously, Argentina and South Africa. Measured against these countries, Canadian economic performance, whether assessed by income growth or ‘maturity’ of economic structure, is outstanding. An explanation is attempted, and areas of vulnerability explored.
Teresa Gutiérrez-Haces, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) The new face of Canadian Democracy Abroad: the Corporate Social Responsibility and Investment law for the Canadian Extractive Sector In 2005, the Subcommittee on
Human Rights and International Development of the Canadian Parliament, release
its third report related to the activities of Canadian mining sector and
other resource companies in developing countries as well as on the corporate
social responsibility. Between 2005 and 2009, the Canadian government, through the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, released at least two formal responses to the Parliament titled: "Mining in Developing Countries: Corporate Social Responsibility". At the same time, in 2009, during the 2nd session of 40th parliament was introduced the Bill 300-C about corporate accountability on the Mining, Oil and Gas Corporations in Developing Countries Act. That process represents an important moment in the development of Canadian democracy debate, because for the first time was introduced in the legislative arena a bill that tends to regulate the activities of Canadian corporations abroad. This is also a big change in the current public diplomacy of DFAIT, because it settles with the support of the federal parliament a strategy that is clearly concerned with the behaviour of Canadian investment abroad. Since 2009, the Canadian government introduced, in each new Free Trade Agreements that have been negotiated, a chapter about corporate social responsibility; that are the cases of Colombia and Peru FTA.
Democracy and Freedom Stéphane Bernatchez, professeur, Faculté de droit, Université de Sherbrooke La démocratie canadienne et la théorie constitutionnelle
Selon James Tully: Une constitution n'est pas à envisager comme une série de propositions immuables mais plutôt comme une forme imparfaite d'accommodement entre les divers membres d'une association politique qui reste toujours ouverte à une négociation renouvelée de la part de ses membres, [...] comme une forme dynamique, un dialogue interculturel dans lequel les citoyens souverains d'appartenances culturelles diverses négocient des accords sur les formes changeantes de leur association. La communication proposée ici vise un double objectif, chaque objectif faisant l’objet d’une partie distincte dans le texte qui sera rédigé pour ce colloque. Le premier objectif de cette communication est de montrer comment le titre de ce colloque et la citation de James Tully qui lui sert d’orientation trouvent des appuis importants dans la théorie constitutionnelle contemporaine. D’abord, l’idée d’une démocratie dynamique et dialogique, en constante évolution, sert de fondements tant à l’approche judiciaire de l’interprétation constitutionnelle qu’à la théorie de la légitimité du contrôle de constitutionnalité des lois. Les théories de la démocratie continue, du dialogue, du constitutionnalisme populaire et démocratique en sont des illustrations. Quant à l’idée d’une constitution imparfaite et ouverte à une négociation renouvelée, selon une logique d'accommodement, elle correspond à l’approche pragmatique selon laquelle la Constitution demeure un accord non entièrement théorisé (« incompletely theorized agreement »). Pour chacune des théories constitutionnelles invoquées, des exemples concrets, tirés de l’histoire constitutionnelle contemporaine du Canada et de la jurisprudence de la Cour suprême du Canada, seront mobilisés. Le second objectif consiste à montrer comment cette conception de la démocratie constitutionnelle peut être expliquée au plan de la philosophie et de la théorie du droit. La question plus fondamentale que posent l’élaboration et l’évolution du projet démocratique et constitutionnel canadien est celle de savoir comment un groupe social (ou des groupes sociaux) peut (peuvent) produire une signification normative partagée. Cette réflexion épistémologique sur le concept de droit permet de mettre en lumière les conditions de possibilité de la démocratie constitutionnelle au cœur de la citation de Tully. Du même coup, les limites du modèle délibérativiste présenté dans la première partie seront exposées et précisées dans le cadre du nécessaire dépassement réflexif du modèle de gouvernance par le droit.
Robert Schertzer, London School of Economics Federation as Process: accounting for the dynamic, contested and political nature of the Canadian Federation This paper makes two main arguments: 1) the competing federal visions in Canada seek to ‘solve’ the ‘problem’ of national minorities by stressing congruence between nation and state and thus promote the implementation of final, fixed frameworks above politics; 2) this shared characteristic of contemporary theory is problematic as it fails to account for the dynamic, inherently contested and political nature of federation. Accordingly, a novel understanding of the Canadian federation is required. In support of the above, I segment the paper into four sections. In the first I argue that Canadian federal theory approaches national minorities (i.e. the Québécoise and Aboriginals) as a ‘problem’ to be ‘solved,’ stressing congruence between nation and state from within the paradigm of national self-determination. In the second section I elaborate and substantiate this line of argumentation by reviewing the three main federal models: the trimming, trading and segregating approaches (otherwise known as the pan-Canadian, provincial equality and multinational federal visions). I demonstrate how each model seeks congruence between nation and state as the source of legitimate political authority and how they promote the federal structure as a final, fixed framework above politics. In the third section, building off the work of James Tully and the Supreme Court of Canada in the Secession Reference, I argue that federation, properly conceived, is dynamic, inherently contested and political. I reflect on the implications of my argument in the final section, presenting the key criteria that must be accounted for in a normatively and instrumentally defensible federation (notably, the need to account for the integral role of the judiciary as the federal arbiter in mediating the inherent conflict within and over the federal structure). In this vein, the underlying argument of the paper is that federation should seek to generate loyalty to the state via the way conflict within and over the federation is managed, not by trimming, trading or segregating this conflict from the political field.
Literature 7 Cristina Ivanovici, University of Birmingham Democracy and Readers: Publishing Contemporary Canadian Literature in Romanian Translation While before 1989 the first Romanian translations of Canadian authors were published under restrictive state policies, since the 1990s the Romanian publishing industry has registered a consistent interest in marketing contemporary Canadian fiction and targeted both academic and common readers. By focusing on previously-forbidden topics, genres and authors, Romanian publishers have significantly built their cultural capital by publishing Canadian authors such as Margaret Atwood, Michael Ondaatje, Anne Michaels, George Elliot Clarke or Rohinton Mistry, for example. This paper analyzes publishing strategies which facilitated the translation of contemporary Canadian poetry and fiction; investigates the ideological framework which shaped Romanian translations of Canadian authors; and it examines the formation of readerships for Canadian literature in pre- and post-1989 Romania. Drawing upon recent studies of the Romanian publishing industry (e.g. Anghelescu 2001; Vianu 1998; Tuta 2000; Macrea 2006), the first section briefly outlines the ideological context in which Romanian presses promoted translations of English-Canadian authors during the 1970s and 1989. Firstly, I focus on Albatros, Minerva and Univers publishing houses, which established themselves as facilitators of world literature on the national literary market during communism. Secondly, I analyse translation projects of Canadian literature which Rao, Leda and Univers publishing houses have undertaken since the 1990s in an attempt to recuperate previously-banned literary genres and topics. By employing archival material and interviews with Romanian publishers, editors and translators of Canadian literature, I identify specific publishing policies and practices which have facilitated the dissemination of contemporary Canadian literature in post-1989 Romania. Whereas the themes of democracy, cultural diversity, migration and of ‘the capitalist West’ constituted taboo subjects under communism, they represent decisive factors in the import of Canadian fiction in a post-communist context. I argue that (1) migration, (2) the exotic otherness of Canada, (3) ethnicity, and (4) multiculturalism constitute textual markers which have appealed to (academic) readerships for contemporary Canadian literature in post-1989 Eastern European contexts.
Diana Yankova and Andrei Andreev, New Bulgarian University The extrinsic and intrinsic conception of Bulgarians in Canada as reflected in Bulgarian Canadian media The paper explores the information interests of the Bulgarian community in Canada as mirrored in the Bulgarian-language newspapers published there, with special focus on the Toronto-based “Bulgarian Horizons”, the longest-running and most widely circulated biweekly. The thematic study of a representative selection of issues of this and other newspapers investigates changes through a period of 10 years in editorial policy in terms of information range, topic choice, ratio of local to international news items, etc. Conclusions are made regarding the lifestyle of the various waves of Bulgarian immigrants to Canada as conceived by the editorial teams of the Canada-based Bulgarian press and compared with the results of interviews carried out with Bulgarians living in Canada to find out if discrepancies exist between these two perceptions.
SESSION H Literature 8 Aidan Byrne, University of Wolverhampton Taming the Red-Headed Stepchild: cultural integration in the Anne of Green Gables series
L. M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables series of 8 novels is set on Prince Edward Island, the crucible of Canadian Federation (although the island’s accession to Canada was more problematic). I propose reading the series as a colonial text in which Anne represents a subaltern social, cultural and perhaps racial group - signified by her obscure and troubling origins and red hair - which requires ‘taming’ politically, culturally and religiously to achieve a settled and stable Canadian polity, which I suggest is metonymised as a family in the series. Anne’s trajectory is from wild, outspoken and independent redhead to a strongly Presbyterian, submissive (and gradually auburn-haired) mother of sons whom she sends to the First World War. The novels make extraordinary plain interventions into religious and political sectarianism, and Anne ultimately accepts the need for her children’s blood to be spilled to seal the bond between Canadians. Anne’s hair, language and artistic impulses (she publishes some creative work, but stops writing as family duties take over, unlike Montgomery herself) are, I suggest, dual signifiers of Kristevan excess and Celtic wildness, both of which require restraint in order to reach the ‘happy ending’ of a patriotic, Protestant Canadian family settlement. The novels’ politics move further right from moderate conservatism, but a degree of accommodation is struck in Anne’s ability to enrich the emotional lives of otherwise repressed women such as Marilla Cuthbert and Rachel Lynde, leading to a semblance of balance which is undermined by Anne’s self-repression throughout the whole series.
Sean O’Connor, University of Chichester ‘What’s the point?’ Confronting the (Canadian?) Wilderness in Margaret Laurence’s The Stone Angel – Hagar’s Book, Hagar’s film Margaret Laurence described the form of her writing as both visual and organic, and a stylistic study of The Stone Angel reveals the way that the dying, 90-year old, protagonist (Hagar) emerges as a character, both physically and emotionally, in a spectacular way. Contained as she is by Manawaka, her home town, and her rigid Scots-Presbyterian upbringing, she struggles to communicate truthfully. At the same time she is outrageously outspoken. The novel follows Hagar’s remembering, ‘(n)ow I am rampant with memory’ (Laurence 1993: 5), as she slowly discovers in the last days of her life that ‘pride was (her) wilderness’ (292). Hagar’s stylistic traits reflect her physical decline, but also the growth in her awareness. This is very difficult for Hagar who has to recognise the disorder, indeterminacy and mystery surrounding (her) life in order for her to come to terms with the tragic mistakes she has made. In doing so she also has to come to terms with her family history, and her own Canadian identity. Because of the linguistic choices Margaret Laurence makes, and the way she structures her narrative, the contention is that the reader too is affected physically and emotionally. In parallel, it is illuminating to consider the narrative choices made in the recent film adaptation of the novel, and consider whether the book is visually and aurally more powerful than the film. The Stone Angel is the first in the Manawaka series of five books, and contains the feminist and postcolonial concerns evident in Laurence’s earlier African works. Apparently a modernist and realist work, like all the Manawaka books the novel contains an undercurrent of postmodernist suspicion of firm identities and subjectivities.
Political Culture 2
Wayne Hunt, Mount Allison University MICHAEL IGNATIEFF AND THE FUTURE OF LIBERALISM What is the future of liberalism? A recent book by Alan Wolfe (The Future of Liberalism, New York, Knopf, 2009) seeks to answer that question by retrieving the best, or at least the most serviceable, elements from the past. Wolfe insists that liberalism is neither a doctrine, nor doctrinaire. It is not helpful to view it in the abstract, as a set of philosophic principles. Instead, it is best understood as a temperament, or what Wolfe calls a habit of mind. It is a proclivity to engage in free and open-ended dialogue about the nature of the challenges facing society, from a realist’s perspective. It is this latter insistence which makes Wolfe’s contribution noteworthy. But Wolfe points out that liberalism, properly understood, is more than this. It is a temperament to be sure, but a temperament which carries with it a history of public engagement about ways to move a society forward through a substantive commitment to fair procedures, impartially administered and endorsed by the citizenry. In practice, this means using the institutions of government in a just and measured manner. Anti-liberals, by contrast, think that we should have as little government as possible because the real achievements of humanity lie either in the self-organized activities of the economy, or in private life. From the left, Marx took the view that the state could ultimately wither away, while from the right there was Ronald Reagan’s admonition that government was not the solution to problems, government was the problem (K. Anthony Appiah, review of ‘The Future of Liberalism’, Slate, 16 February, 2009). Liberalism’s strength is that it does not use government as a mere utilitarian instrument to achieve either social or free market goals, it views government from an alternative light, as a way to allow individuals, as well as communities, to remake themselves. How does this debate about the creative possibilities of government fit into Michael Ignatieff’s time in public life? As a public intellectual, Ignatieff has built his career as an academic, a journalist, an author of fiction, and lately, as a politician around the role of ideas. His predecessor as leader of the Liberal party of Canada, Stephane Dion, made a “green shift” and a carbon tax, the central part of his platform – to disastrous result. Ignatieff hopes to put forward the same broad policy mix, but in a politically palatable manner. Can he do it? This paper seeks to answer that more limited question by drawing on Ignatieff’s recent history with the Liberal party and to show how, in the process, Ignatieff hopes to turn small “l” liberalism green.
Julie Rak, University of Alberta The Anxiety of Public Influence: Michael Ignatieff, Citizenship, Memoir I do not believe in roots. -- The Russian Album We need a public life in common. --True Patriot Love Like Barack Obama, Michael Ignatieff once had a career as a private citizen and a memoir writer thinking about what it meant to be descended from an immigrant parent, and what it meant for his own identity and future. Ignatieff's work on his family's history included publishing a critically-acclaimed memoir, The Russian Album, a book which won the Governor General's Award for non-fiction in 1987. And like Obama, Ignatieff left his careers as academic and public intellectual to become a politician and eventually, to make a bid (unsuccessful so far in Ignatieff's case) to lead his country. Is there a connection between memoir writing and public life for Ignatieff? What is the connection between family life and citizenship and why is it so important to him? Has political life changed the way Ignatieff writes about issues like nationalism and citizenship in his second book-length memoir, True Patriot Love? In this paper, theory about memoir, citizenship and public identity forms the occasion for looking at how Ignatieff discusses the question of belonging in The Russian Album. Then I turn to True Patriot Love to examine how it responds (or does not respond) to tensions in citizenship discourse between citizenship as an affective domain within public life, and citizenship as a set of obligations to the state.
James C. Hall, University of Alabama There Is a Town: Expatriation and the Canadian Public Sphere Current representations of the Canadian polity continue to focus on a distinct intersection of and implicit tension between immigration policy, Quebecois nationalism, and a more conservative Anglo public sensibility. Such representations project a comforting stasis supportive and sustaining of a democratic option distinct amongst Western industrial nations. The maturation of the Canadian state and a rich array of globalizing tendencies are suggestive, however, of a plausibly rich disruptive force at the margin of such formulations. Indeed, Michael Ignatieff’s return to prominence on the domestic political scene points to the timeliness of a consideration of the meaning of “expatriation” – and, related terms, “exile” and “diaspora” -- in a forward-looking consideration of Canadian identity. Utopian consensus accounts that highlight moderation and regionalism, in carving out space for the playing out of Canadian identity dramas miss out on opportunities for forthright consideration of bonds that are discontinuous, fragmented, and temporary. Similarly, dystopian accounts that locate negative inevitability in provincialism, bilingualism, and American hegemony, would benefit from richer consideration of emergent, if improvised, identity formations, simultaneously post-national and at once rooted in land, tradition, and culture. I will briefly present a descriptive account of economic emigration and the emergence of an expatriate citizen-sphere, but urgently shift to a consideration of a set of distinctive Canadian exilic identities by focusing on prominent figures like Ignatieff, Mavis Gallant, Norman Levine,and Neil Young and their representation practices. My purpose is to shape the outline of theory of Canadian expatriate identity and to describe its potential interactions with the evolving “Canadian idea.” Can the “Canadian idea” thrive in ways that are not place and nation bound? Can that emergent formation have its own dynamism and yet still have valence and presence that is border bound?
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