PAYING ATTENTION TO PUBLIC READERS OF CANADIAN LITERATURE:
POPULAR GENRE SYSTEMS, PUBLICS, AND CANONS
by
KATHRYN GRAFTON
BA, The University of British Columbia, 1992
MPhil, University of Stirling, 1994
A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS
FOR THE DEGREE OF
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
in
THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES
(English)
THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA
August 2010
© Kathryn Grafton, 2010 ABSTRACT
Paying Attention to Public Readers of Canadian Literature examines contemporary moments when Canadian literature has been canonized in the context of popular reading programs. I investigate the canonical agency of public readers who participate in these programs: readers acting in a non professional capacity who speak and write publicly about their reading experiences. I argue that contemporary popular canons are discursive spaces whose constitution depends upon public readers. My work resists the common critique that these reading programs and their canons produce a mass of readers who read the same work at the same time in the same way.
To demonstrate that public readers are canon makers, I offer a genre approach to contemporary canons that draws upon literary and new rhetorical genre theory. I contend in Chapter One that canons are discursive spaces comprised of public literary texts and public texts about literature, including those produced by readers. I study the intertextual dynamics of canons through Michael Warner’s theory of publics and Anne Freadman’s concept of “uptake.” Canons arise from genre systems that are constituted to respond to exigencies readily recognized by many readers, motivating some to participate. I argue that public readers’ agency lies in the contingent ways they select and interpret a literary work while taking up and instantiating a canonizing genre.
Subsequent chapters examine the genre systems of three reading programs: One
Book, One Vancouver , a public book club; Canada Reads , a celebrity “book brawl”; and
The Complete Booker , an online reading challenge. Chapter Two explores how a reading public and canon are called forth by organizers and participants of the One Book, One
ii Vancouver genre system. Chapter Three analyzes public readers’ collective literary
selection within the canonizing genre of the Canada Reads brawl. Chapter Four investigates how participants in The Complete Booker genre system instantiate the canon of the Man Booker Prize in ways that construct distinct subject positions of public readers who can evaluate the Canadian Booker winners in meaningful ways for their imagined public. My conclusion proposes that paying attention to public readers offers us new insights into reading as shared practice and Canadian literature.
iii TABLE OF CO TE TS
Abstract……………………………………………………………………………………ii
Table of Contents...... iv
Acknowledgements……………………………………………………………………...... v
INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………………...1
CHAPTER ONE
A Genre Approach to Canonizations of Canadian Literature……………………………13
CHAPTER TWO
The Popular Genre System, Public, and Canon of One Book, One Vancouver ………….43
CHAPTER THREE
Canonical Selections by the Celebrity Readers of Canada Reads ………………………85
CHAPTER FOUR
Canonical Agency of Public Readers in The Complete Booker ………………………..147
CONCLUSION
“What Follows …?”…………………………………………………………………….202
BIBLIOGRAPHY……………………………………………………………………....213
APPENDIX A
UBC Research Ethics Board Certificate of Approval…………………………………..256
iv ACK OWLEDGEME TS
To my friends and colleagues in the UBC Department of English, I thank them for their intellectual curiosity and good cheer over the years. I am particularly grateful to those with whom I shared many ongoing, engaging conversations about genre theory and
Canadian literature: Sarah Banting, Jennifer Delisle, Glenn Deer, Maia Joseph, Shurli
Makmillen, Elizabeth Maurer, Laurie McNeill, Bill New, Jaclyn Rea, and Katja Thieme.
Thanks also to the participants of TransCanada: Literature, Institutions, Citizenship in
2005 and Canadian Literature: 50 th Anniversary Gala in 2009 for their insightful questions that enriched my thinking on this project. I am grateful, too, for the financial support I received from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC).
I give particular thanks to my committee members, Janet Giltrow and Miranda
Burgess, who first introduced me to genre theory and modeled ways to be more
thoughtful and precise as a scholar. Most of all, I thank Laura Moss for her unwavering
support and enthusiasm for my work, our many lively conversations about inspiring ideas
and practical problems, and her shrewd questions and wise counsel.
Finally, for their love and support I thank my family: Ethel, Judy, Gary, and
Carolyn who were there at the start of this journey, and Jeff, Parker, and Clare who joined me along the way. My love and thanks to Jeff for somehow knowing when I
needed comfort or prodding—or both.
v I TRODUCTIO
Paying attention to public readers of Canadian literature 1
Public readers of Canadian literature have demanded my attention. Persistently, they have insisted, Watch us. Listen to us. Read what we have to say. In this way, they have compelled me to consider the role they play in contemporary processes that canonize
Canadian literature. I frequently encounter these readers, and perhaps you do as well.
Public readers stand up to pose a question to Jen Sookfong Lee after an author reading at their local library. They direct a comment to a panel during Halifax’s The Word on the
Street or Vancouver’s International Writers & Readers Festival . They post comments to
CBC Radio One’s The ext Chapter after Shelagh Rogers interviews Russell Smith.
Public readers post to read lists on their book blogs when the shortlist for the Scotiabank
Giller Prize is announced, and they publish their reviews of Laurence Hill’s The Book of