Department of English
Newsletter 2012
FROM THE DEPARTMENT HEAD undergraduate curriculum, which I am In This Issue pleased to say will be fully rolled out Welcome! next academic year. Our Writer-in- From the Department Head … 1 It’s been a busy, productive, and Residence program continues to creative time in the Department! promote and support creative writing From the Undergrad Chair … 3 at Queen’s. In 2009-2010, we hosted By Marta Straznicky Helen Humphreys; in 2010-2011, poet From the Graduate Chair … 5 Department Head Stuart Ross; and the residency of Diane Schoemperlen is just coming to From the DSC Co-Chairs … 7 Welcome to the 2012 edition of the an end. All three have been Queen’s English Department Alumni exceptionally generous with their Creative Writing … 8 Newsletter, which I once again have time, working as mentors with writers the honour of introducing. in the Queen’s and Kingston Graduate Studies … 9 communities, giving public readings, It has been a busy, productive, and and organizing workshops on a wide New Faculty … 10 creative three years. Since our last range of topics related to the writing issue in 2009, the Department has profession. Writers-in-Residence … 11 completed a major reform of the
Faculty Publications … 12
n
Contact Us
Department of English John Watson Hall 49 Bader Lane Queen’s University Kingston, Ontario K7L 3N6, Canada
613.533.2153 [email protected] www.queensu.ca/english
n
© 2012 Queen’s University Department of English Department Head Marta Straznicky encourages alumni and friends to attend Queen’s Newsletter 2012 is edited by Spring Reunion this year. Faculty members and students from the Department will be Robert G. May on hand to welcome you at the Dean’s Breakfast on Saturday 26 May from 7.30 a.m. to 9.30 a.m. at Ban Righ Hall.
Queen’s University Department of English Newsletter 2012
It’s worth mentioning in this context that both the Whalley Professorship and the Strathy Language Unit are funded by alumni donors, as of course is the Giller Prize Event and a portion of the Writer-in-Residence program. We are most grateful for your support.
Further in the Newsletter you will find more information about the Undergraduate and Graduate Programs, as well as a feature on Creative Writing at Queen’s and a selection of some of the major publications by faculty over the past three years.
Do consider coming to Queen’s for Spring Reunion this year. The English Department will have a display of This year’s “Fourth-Year Students’ Choice” teaching award was presented to Edward recently published books at Ban Righ Lobb at the Undergraduate Banquet. Congratulations to Professor Lobb, and also to Hall, and several faculty members will the two past winners of the award, Professor Chris Bongie and Professor Michael be on hand to welcome you back to Snediker. campus and bring you up to date on Departmental affairs. I am also always Thanks to the generosity of Jim and Dictionaries in Global and Historical very happy to receive your news by e- Kelly Osler, the Department hosted Context, which was attended by mail, as well as any suggestions for the 2009 and 2010 Giller Prize delegates from across North America, how the Department might better winners, Linden MacIntyre (The Europe, and Asia. The new Director of engage you as members of our Bishop’s Man) and Johanna Skibsrud the Strathy, Dr Anastasia Riehl, and community. (The Sentimentalists). The 2011 Professor Gwynn Dujardin are co- winner, Esi Edugyan, came to Queen’s editing a volume of selected essays Marta Straznicky can be reached at in April. A gift copy of her widely from the conference, including the [email protected]. acclaimed winning novel, Half-Blood keynote address by Mark Abley on Blues, will be given to each graduating “Dictionaries and the Democratization YOU ARE INVITED student at a reception following of English.” Spring Convocation. Queen’s Spring Also in 2010, the graduate students There have been a number of very organized conferences on Ut Pictura Reunion successful conferences on a wide Poesis: Thinking About Representation Department of English Alumni range of topics organized by members in Late Medieval and Renaissance and friends are invited to of the Department. This past England, with Steven Mullaney as September, Nobel Laureate J.M. keynote speaker, and on Animals and The Dean’s Breakfast Coetzee headlined Kingston’s Animality Across the Humanities and Saturday 26 May 2012 WritersFest and participated in a Social Sciences. The keynote speaker 7.30 a.m. – 9.30 a.m. workshop on The Art of Critique at this conference was Professor Ban Righ Hall involving writers from South Africa David Clark of McMaster University, and Canadian and U.S. Aboriginal whom we are fortunate to have as Faculty members and students Communities. In June 2010, the Whalley Visiting Professor this from the Department will be on Strathy Language Unit hosted an semester. hand to welcome you. international conference on
2
Queen’s University Department of English Newsletter 2012
FROM THE GRADUATE CHAIR Professionalizing and Networking Our award-winning graduate students enjoy numerous opportunities to advance their research
By Leslie Ritchie Graduate Chair
Hello. I’m Leslie Ritchie, and I began as the Graduate Chair in January 2011. Here are a few highlights from the past year:
Retirement
Our beloved graduate administrative Graduate Chair Leslie Ritchie is pleased to point out that 6 MA students in the 2011- assistant, Kathy Goodfriend, is retiring 2012 year are recipients of prestigious Joseph-Armand Bombardier CGS awards, and this May after 37 years in the that fully 49% of English PhD candidates are recipients of major awards, such as Department, and 42 years’ service at Ontario Graduate Scholarships and SSHRC Doctoral Scholarships. Queen’s University. She leaves with our immense gratitude for her hard work and devotion to the the LinkedIn professional profile Scholarships, while three others hold Department, and with acclaim– service to post their résumés and prestigious named awards from faculty, staff, alumni, and students search for job opportunities. Growing Queen’s. successfully nominated Kathy for the the Queen’s English social network in Queen’s University Staff Appreciation this professional forum could prove SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellows Award. Faculty celebrated her win at immensely helpful to our graduate the Staff Appreciation reception in students. I would also like to This year, the department of English December. We wish Kathy all the best encourage alumni to consider has been pleased to host Sarah in retirement. becoming “Linked In.” I’ve created a Johnson (PhD McMaster; researcher
profile, and by linking to it, you will in early modern theatre) and Brooke Professionalizing and Networking become part of our online Pratt (PhD Western; researcher in
community. Canadian literature), as SSHRC This year’s entering graduate students postdoctoral fellows. Both have (22 MA students and 9 PhD Awards contributed to the intellectual life of candidates) have just completed a the Department by giving talks in our series of professionalization The entering MA class of 2011-2012 Research Forum series. Details on workshops given by faculty and guest has already achieved a distinguished Research Forum talks, which are open speakers and covering topics ranging record of scholarship, earning 6 to all, may be found in the Events from applying for grants to writing Joseph-Armand Bombardier CGS section of the Departmental Web site. abstracts and conference papers. In awards of $17,500 each. Our PhD our professionalization seminar series students in years 1 to 4 continue to New Literary Internship Course this fall, our speakers from Career exemplify the spirit of scholarly Services, the Faculty of Education (Dr inquiry; fully 49% of these students One novel initiative that we will be Rebecca Luce-Kapler), and from are the recipients of major awards, offering to a select group of next Canada’s House of Commons including the Ontario Graduate year’s MA students is a new Literary (Susanne Griffiths and Kevin Scholarship and the SSHRC Doctoral Internship course. Literary Internship Whitehouse) urged students to use
3
Queen’s University Department of English Newsletter 2012
PROJECTS The Slow Professor By Maggie Berg and Barbara Seeber
The Slow Professor: Challenging the Culture of Speed in the Academy examines the relevance of the principles of the Slow Movement for an academic context as a way to counter the increasing corporatization of higher education. The project began as a search for strategies to counter work stress among university and college teachers, Students in Leslie Ritchie’s graduate-level class in the eighteenth-century London but it has evolved into a theatre, “The Whole Show.” Please see page 9 for more pictures! recognition that the Slow approach to academic practice may be the most effective way to counter the erosion of humanistic will offer MA students placements in Here you will find out about our education by corporate culture. research, literacy, language, and arts- current students’ conference papers, related community organizations, thesis projects, publications, and It is now well documented that with the aim of providing those other professionalization activities, changes in academic culture have students with job experience that is such as the superb conferences run by created significant work stress directly related to literary studies, in many of our graduate students over among teachers, but what has not such organizations as Kingston the past year. Our “Where Are They been noticed is the conspicuous WritersFest, or the Strathy Language Now?” section showcases the brilliant link between the corporate Unit at Queen’s University. Students careers of Queen’s alumni, both reliance on efficiency and the will apply for internship opportunities inside and outside academe. If you problem of lack of time in learning, when they select their courses. are a former Queen’s graduate teaching, and research. student, we would love to hear from Web site Updated you! To put it succinctly, corporatization has sped up the Last spring, the department Run for the Cure clock. The Slow Movement— relaunched its Web site with a fresh originating in the Slow Food new design. Thanks to the School of This year’s faculty/graduate student Movement—has gained Graduate Studies, who funded this team in the Canadian Breast Cancer recognition as a way to resist both redesign, and to Catherine He, the Society’s Run for the Cure (“The globalization and the frantic pace designer (and a Queen’s student) Queen's English”) had a chilly run in of contemporary life. If there is behind the new look. Continued the sleet, but more importantly, one sector of society that should thanks to faculty member Scott raised over $2,000 for cancer research be cultivating deep thought in Straker, who has put in so much work and awareness. Thanks to all of those themselves and others, it is to the site over the past few years, who generously contributed to our academic teachers. The principles and who continues to update the site success! of Slow not only counter the and keep it running smoothly. consumer model of education but Revisions to the Graduate Studies Leslie Ritchie can be reached at also produce better teachers and portion of the Web site include a [email protected]. learners. section devoted to graduate news.
4
Queen’s University Department of English Newsletter 2012
FROM THE UNDERGRADUATE CHAIR Challenges and Changes The new English curriculum adds flexibility and choice for undergraduate students
By Scott-Morgan Straker Undergraduate Chair
The past year has been marked by challenges and change. The first change came in February 2011 with the launch of the SOLUS Student Centre, the student-facing component of the new software that runs all administrative functions across campus. SOLUS gives students Undergraduate Chair Scott-Morgan Straker is proud of the Department’s newly unprecedented scope to monitor and revised undergraduate curriculum, which adds flexibility for students without manage their academic progress, but sacrificing academic rigour. its launch was accompanied by the bugs and confusion that attend any new software installation. The second The English Department’s new depth, and receive training in change was the switch, beginning in curriculum is the result of three academic writing. These tutorials are the Summer Term 2011, from a commitments: to preserve the led by senior PhD candidates, and system of numerical marks that was breadth of historical coverage that show the interdependence of the unique to Queen’s to a more standard has long been the Department’s Department’s undergraduate and system of letter grades and grade strength, to be flexible enough to graduate programs: English 100 could point averages. The new grading incorporate new topics and not accomplish its many goals without system will make the Queen’s approaches, and to guarantee the hard work of the Department’s transcript more legible to other students at least one small-class committed and capable graduate institutions both within Canada and experience in each year. To realize students. internationally, but has created some these goals, the Department has anxieties about the relationship created a host of new courses and The 200 level creates space for between marks awarded under the rethought the structure of our innovation. It is founded on two core old and new systems. Finally, in offerings so that each level has a courses: the first is a full-year September 2011, the English distinct function. The gateway to the chronological survey of literature in Department launched its new new English courses is English 100, English from the Middle Ages to the undergraduate curriculum, the result which aims to expose students to an present. This course to some extent of a review that began in 2007 and array of writings in various forms— resembles the venerable English 110, that enabled the department to re- poetry, prose, drama—and to train but with a greater emphasis on the evaluate every detail of what we them to recognize genre, to use global spread of English as a literary teach and how we teach it. This is a literary terminology, and to read language during the twentieth lot of change to pile into a single year, analytically. The course meets twice a century. Alongside this survey is a and the need to adapt to it has placed week in large lectures (220 students new course called “Seminar in Literary great demands on staff, faculty, and or more), but the course also includes Interpretation”; whereas most 200- students. All three groups have risen weekly tutorials in groups of 25 to 30 level courses are large and cover an to the challenge. that enable students to develop their array of texts, this seminar is capped skills, explore key concepts in greater at 30 and allows students to spend an
5
Queen’s University Department of English Newsletter 2012
entire term studying a single, each level making a clear and distinct a good attempt at that combination. monumental text. The remaining contribution to students’ intellectual We are proud of what we have offerings at the 200 level allow development. The combination of accomplished, and look forward with instructors to share their particular tradition with innovation is easy to enthusiasm to next year’s offerings. interests and expertise with students. proclaim but difficult to practise; with Together with such perennial our new curriculum, the English Scott-Morgan Straker can be reached favourites as Shakespeare and Department feels that we have made at [email protected]. Children’s Literature, this year’s offerings included courses in Life Writing, the Graphic Novel, South African Women’s Writing, Literature and Gender, Legends of King Arthur, as well as courses in Canadian and American Literature.
The 300 level consists of year-long surveys of broad historical periods, allowing students to specialize in areas they encountered in the 200- level survey. The new curriculum requires majors to take one course from each of three categories (pre- 1800, the nineteenth century, and the twentieth century and after), ensuring a degree of historical coverage without the complicated system of categories that characterized the old curriculum. Last, the 400 level consists of specialized seminars that afford students a wide scope to show what they can do with the skills they have been cultivating for four years. Since 2007, the English Department has offered graduating English Majors and Medials a capstone experience in the form of our annual Giller Prize Event: the Department gives each student a free copy of the most recent Giller Prize winning novel and hosts a reading by the author. This year, the Department was delighted to welcome Esi Edugyan, who won the Giller Prize in 2011 for her novel Half- Blood Blues, in early April. The Giller event would not be possible without the support of alumni, and furnishes a superb example of the ways in which alumni can enrich the experience of current students.
The Department’s new curriculum is For the fifth year in a row, the Department has welcomed the winner of the streamlined without sacrificing rigour; Scotiabank Giller Prize. This year, Esi Edugyan read from her winning novel, Half Blood above all, it aims to be logical, with Blues. Graduating students received a copy of the book.
6
Queen’s University Department of English Newsletter 2012
FROM THE DSC CO-CHAIRS Getting Involved and Joining In The English Departmental Student Council brings students and faculty together
By Alexander Hopewell and Rebecca Hines DSC Co-Chairs
As the Co-Chairs of the English Department Student Council (DSC) at Queen’s, our primary focus is to act as an accessible and approachable liaison between the faculty and the student body, and to ensure that the student voice contributes to academic decision-making and discussion. Our formal responsibilities involve DSC Co-Chairs Rebecca Hines and Alexander Hopewell standing in front of the English attending Department meetings and DSC notice board on the fourth floor of John Watson Hall. representing the English Department at Faculty Board. In doing so, we are enjoyable, and we had an excellent our affiliation with the Queen’s able to communicate the turn-out, magnificent enthusiasm, English Department, which, as you all undergraduate student opinion in and some special performances by an undoubtedly know, is an excellent important discussions such as new English student who happens to be a department to be affiliated with. So grading practices and classroom competitive highland dancer. In far, we’ve had a truly wonderful etiquette. attendance was an exchange student experience. Not only have we made
from the University of Glasgow in countless new friends and contacts We also offer services like the English Scotland, so of course we asked him within the department—students and Buddy Program, which helps incoming for his thoughts on the evening faculty alike—but more importantly, English students develop effective considering the many such events we’ve been able to facilitate these essay-writing and research skills, and he’s attended in Scotland. To our kinds of friendships for others within organize the yearly departmental surprise and pleasure, he said that our the department as well. As graduating clothing sale. Social events within the event was very refreshing and students, we know the most Department are also a very important enjoyable as a result of our cherished memories from our time at part of student involvement. This enthusiasm, whereas in Scotland they Queen’s will be the people we’ve met year, we hosted a “Tea with Profs” often take the day for granted. and the many things learned and event in October, giving English However, he said that the lack of accomplished within the Department. students the opportunity to speak haggis was definitely a downside. The value of the English DSC is that it with their professors in a more Maybe next year! Winter-term events encompasses both of these aspects to informal environment. This was our included “Beer with Profs,” the annual create a truly rewarding university first event of the year, and it was Undergraduate Colloquium, and the experience. We’ve had such a extremely successful. Fourth Year Banquet held in honour gratifying experience working with
of the graduating class. the DSC this year. We truly hope that, On 25 January, we hosted a Robbie one day, when reading the Alumni Burns Day celebration at the Grad We both decided to get involved with Newsletter ourselves, the DSC will be Club and invited everyone to join us in the English DSC this year because we as alive and active within the honouring the legendary poet’s hoped to enrich our experience at Department as it is today. memory with food, drinks, and poetry Queen’s and take full advantage of readings. The night was very
7
Queen’s University Department of English Newsletter 2012
CREATIVE WRITING
Sharing
Creativity Thanks to Canada Council Grants, the Department hosts numerous award-winning writers
By Carolyn Smart Professor
For more than 20 years, I have arranged for a selection of popular Canadian writers to come to Queen’s and read from their work. There is usually a question-and- answer period following the reading that engages students and the general public in discussion of craft and the realities of life as a writer in Canada.
This year, through funding obtained by a grant from the Canada Council for the Arts, I was able to introduce the writer and performance artist Amber Dawn, the novelist Kathleen Winter, poets Matt Rader and David McGimpsey, as well as the novelist and poet Sue Goyette.
The readings attract both undergraduate and graduate students, as well as faculty and members of the Kingston community. It’s been a huge success, and plans are well under way for next year’s readings. n
Images, clockwise from top left: David McGimpsey reading from L’il Bastard; Amber Dawn reading from Sub Rosa; Kathleen Winter reading from Annabel; students listening to the readers; Sue Goyette reading from Outskirts; Matt Rader reading from A Doctor Pedalled Her Bicycle over the River Arno
8
Queen’s University Department of English Newsletter 2012
GRADUATE STUDIES The Whole Show Leslie Ritchie’s graduate course looked at the London theatre during the eighteenth century
By Leslie Ritchie Graduate Chair
ENGL 841, “The Whole Show,” was a winter-term graduate course that examined London’s most (in)famous theatrical offerings in the Restoration and the eighteenth century, from prologue to main piece, and from crowd- pleasing pantomime to critics’ witty last words. The students read works by Dryden, Tate, Wycherley, Rowe, Sheridan, Goldsmith, and others, as well as contemporary and modern criticism concerning these dramatists.
The class pursued an embodied approach to study. For our look at Rowe’s she-tragedy, The Fair Penitent, which is rife with swordplay that is key to understanding the play’s depictions of masculinity, PhD student and actor Matthew Gibson introduced the class to the I would like to thank Matthew fundamentals of stage-fighting Gibson, and costume mistress with foils. Anne Redish and her assistant Martine Plourde, for their kind And for our investigation of the assistance, and the members of late eighteenth-century practice of her class for a memorable and “spouting,” or the imitation of enjoyable term! n London’s theatrical celebrities by amateur actors, the students Images, clockwise from top left: memorized lines from their Kristen Lemay, adopting an favourite plays, and “spouted” attitude from Bell’s British while dressed in costumes Theatre; Michael Pasowisty and supplied by the Queen’s Drama Brianne Colon; Genevieve Warren; Department. Engraved plates from Anna Burn; Carl Watts and Allie Bell’s British Theatre furnished us Goff enact a scene from She with appropriate attitudes. Stoops to Conquer
9
Queen’s University Department of English Newsletter 2012
NEW FACULTY collection of essays with The New of French Studies, joined Queen’s in Centennial Review, and “‘Not ours, 1996 as a Queen’s National Scholar. Fresh Faces this death’: The Postanimal after the He teaches a wide range of courses, We extend a warm welcome to the Posthuman,” to be published in World from Medieval literature to the following new faculty to the English Picture. History of the Book. His main fields of Department interest are poetry and Renaissance Petra Fachinger literature. His last book—Ronsard et David Clark Professor, Reappointed from le Livre I : Étude de critique génétique George Whalley Visiting Professor Department of German et d’histoire littéraire—was published in Romanticism in 2010. The second part is in press. He is currently working on a critical edition of the Premières Œuvres (1573) by Philippe Desportes.
Jane Tolmie Cross Appointment, Department of Gender Studies
Petra Fachinger holds a PhD in David Clark is Professor in the Comparative Literature from UBC. Her Department of English and Cultural teaching and research interests Studies and Associate Member of the include Asian North-American Health Studies Program in the literature, Indigenous cultures and Department of Health, Aging, and literatures, Canadian literature, urban Society at McMaster University, theory, theories of space and race, where he teaches a wide range of postcolonial literature and theory, courses, from British Romantic culture transnational film, Jewish literature of Jane Tolmie is Associate Professor of and literature to the history of HIV- the diaspora, war and terrorism in Gender Studies and Cultural Studies. AIDS activism, and from literature, and Turkish German She works in theatre and performance contemporary critical theory to literature. She is currently teaching studies, women’s literature, Critical Animal Studies. As George “Reading Charlotte Brontë’s Jane sequential art criticism, and gender Whalley Visiting Professor in Eyre,” “Urban Images: Race, Gender, studies. She most recently edited and Romanticism at Queen's University, Sexuality and the Imagined City,” and contributed to an essay collection on he is teaching a graduate seminar on “Writing and Reading the Global City.” self-narration in sequential art, “Romanticism, War and Peace.” This Drawing from Life: Memory and autumn, he will be Lansdowne Visiting François Rouget Subjectivity in Comic Art. She is Scholar in the Department of English Cross Appointment, Department of working on a monograph on women's at the University of Victoria. Recent French comic art, especially memoir and publications include “Genius of the semi-autobiography, focusing on eight Shore: Essays Honouring the Life and writers and artists and tentatively Work of Balachandra Rajan,” an titled Portraits of the Art-Activist. edited collection with the University of Toronto Quarterly; “Unsocial Kant: ON THE WEB The Philosopher and the Unregarded War Dead,” in The Wordsworth Faculty Profiles Circle; and “Ann Coulter and Blowhard For a complete list of faculty Politics: Canadian Universities and the profiles, please see the War on Thought,” in Truthout. Department’s Web site: Forthcoming publications include Bodies and Pleasures in Late Kant, After four years at the University of http://www.queensu.ca/english “Animals … In Theory,” an edited Toronto, François Rouget, Professor
10
Queen’s University Department of English Newsletter 2012
WRITERS IN RESIDENCE runs the Patchy Squirrel Lit-Serv, a ALUMNI free weekly e-listings service for the Mentoring the Toronto literary community. The Traitor in
Muse Recent publications include the the Tunnel The Department is proud to poetry collections I Cut My Finger A novel by alumna Y.S. Lee welcome established writers to (2007) and Dead Cars in Managua mentor and support our creative (2008), the short-story collection writing students in the Writer-in- Buying Cigarettes for the Dog (2009), Residence program and the novel Snowball, Dragonfly, Jew (2011). For one term each academic year, the Department of English welcomes a Diane Schoemperlen Writer in Residence to participate in a Writer in Residence 2011-2012 range of literary events and to offer advice and mentorship to students involved in creative writing.
This program is supported by a Canada Council grant and by Queen’s University. The Department is grateful to Carolyn Smart for organizing the writer in residence program, and to Pat Rae and Marta Straznicky, Queen Victoria has a little successive heads of department, for problem: there’s a petty thief at their help in establishing it. Born and raised in Thunder Bay, work in Buckingham Palace. Mary Ontario, Diane Schoemperlen has Quinn takes the simple case, Stuart Ross published several collections of short going undercover as a domestic Writer in Residence 2010-2011 fiction and three novels, In the servant. But before long, a Language of Love (1994), Our Lady of the Lost and Found (2001), and At A scandal threatens to tear apart Loss For Words (2008). Her 1990 the Royal Family. collection, The Man of My Dreams, was shortlisted for both the Governor-General’s Award and the Trillium. Her collection, Forms of Devotion: Stories and Pictures won the 1998 Governor-General’s Award for English Fiction.
Stuart Ross is a Cobourg-based writer, Her first non-fiction book, Names of editor, and creative-writing instructor. the Dead: An Elegy for the Victims of Y.S. Lee was born in Singapore He is the Fiction and Poetry Editor for September 11 was published in and raised in Vancouver and This Magazine and Poetry Editor for August 2004 and was included in the Toronto. In 2004, she completed Toronto’s Mansfield Press. For the Globe and Mail’s 100 Best Books of her PhD in Victorian literature past three decades, he has also run the Year. Her books have been and culture at Queen’s. This his own micropress and a series of published in the U.S., the U.K., research, combined with her time small literary journals. He is the co- Germany, Sweden, Spain, France, living in London, triggered an idea founder of the Toronto Small Press Korea, and China. In 2008, she for a story about a women’s Book Fair and a founding member of received the Marian Engel Award detective agency. The result was the Meet the Presses Collective, from the Writers’ Trust of Canada. the Agency novels, featuring the dedicated to promoting small press intrepid Mary Quinn. books and magazines. Stuart also co-
11
Queen’s University Department of English Newsletter 2012
RECENT FACULTY PUBLICATIONS Tracy Ware, ed. Crowded Out! and modern world. Combining breadth of Other Sketches. By Susan Frances coverage with depth, the book opens Bookshelf Harrison. Ottawa: Tecumseh, with essays on More's family, early A selection of books recently 2011. life and education, his literary published by members of the humanism, virtuoso rhetoric, English Department In 1886, Susan illustrious public career and ferocious Frances Harrison opposition to emergent Sylvia Söderlind and James Taylor published a Protestantism, and his fall from Carson, eds. American collection of power, incarceration, trial and Exceptionalisms: From Winthrop to eleven stories execution. Whitney. New York: SUNY, 2011. with the Ottawa Evening Journal. These chapters are followed by in- An incisive and Some of the depth studies of five of More's major wide-ranging look stories are as works—Utopia, The History of King at a powerful topical as the North-West Rebellion of Richard the Third, A Dialogue force and myth in the year before, while others take an Concerning Heresies, A Dialogue of American culture ironic perspective on the vogue for Comfort against Tribulation and De and history, local colour, especially in French Tristitia Christi—and a final essay on American Canada. the varied responses to the man and Exceptionalisms his writings in his own and reveals the The book begins with a Canadian subsequent centuries. The volume centuries-old persistence of the artist’s disappointment and provides an accessible overview of notion that the United States is an breakdown in London, where he has this fascinating figure to students and exceptional nation, in being both an been unable to market his work. It other interested readers, while also example to the world and exempt ends by anticipating Stephen presenting, and in many areas from the rules of international law. Leacock’s Arcadian Adventures with extending, the most important the Idle Rich with a mordant look at modern scholarship on him. Scholars from North America and the lives of the wealthy in New York Europe trace versions of the rhetoric City. As the reviewer in the New York George M. Logan, ed. Utopia. By of exceptionalism through a multitude Critic observes, “One hardly knows Thomas More. Third Edition. New of historical, cultural, and political which element predominates—the York: Norton, 2011. phenomena, from John Winthrop's picturesque, the humorous, the vision of the “city upon a hill” and the imaginative, or the realistic.” Inspiring, Salem witch trials in the seventeenth provocative, century to The Blair Witch Project and This edition features explanatory prophetic, and Oprah Winfrey's “Child Predator notes based on Harrison’s marginalia. enigmatic, Utopia Watch List” in the twenty-first It includes a bibliography, is the literary century. contemporary reviews from The Week masterpiece of a and Critic, a selection of Harrison’s visionary The first set of essays focus on nonfiction, a biographical essay by statesman and constitutive historical moments in the Carrie MacMillan, and critical essays one of the most development of the myth, from early by Margaret Steffler, Jennifer influential books exploration narratives through Chambers, Wanda Campbell, and of the modern world. Based on political debates in the early republic Shelley Hulan. Thomas More's penetrating analysis to twentieth-century immigration of the folly and tragedy of the politics debates. The latter essays address the George M. Logan, ed.. The of his time and all times, Utopia role of exceptionalism in the “war on Cambridge Companion to Thomas (1516) is a seedbed of alternative terror” and such cornerstones of More. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, political institutions and a perennially modern popular culture as the horror 2011. challenging exploration of the stories of H. P. Lovecraft, the songs of possibilities and limitations of political Steve Earle, and The Oprah Winfrey This Companion offers a action. Show. comprehensive introduction to the life and work of a major figure of the
12
Queen’s University Department of English Newsletter 2012
This Norton Critical Edition is built on Rosemary Jolly. Cultured Violence: symbols that recur throughout the the translation that Robert M. Adams Narrative, Social Suffering, and closely interlinked short stories, In the created for it in 1975. For the Third Engendering Human Rights in Village of Viger anticipates other Edition, George M. Logan has carefully Contemporary South Africa. Canadian short-story cycles such as revised the translation, improving its Liverpool: Liverpool UP, 2010. Stephen Leacock’s Sunshine Sketches accuracy while preserving the grace of a Little Town. and verve that have made it the most Cultured Violence highly regarded modern rendering of explores Accompanying Scott’s In the Village of More’s Renaissance Latin work. contemporary Viger is a wealth of documentary and South African critical material that will contextualize Elizabeth Greene. Moving. Toronto: culture as a test the work for students and readers of Inanna, 2010. case for the early Canadian literature. Early achievement of reviews of both the first edition Moving is a life democracy by (1896) and the Canadian edition journey about the constitutional (1945) provide readers with a glimpse search for home: means in the wake of prolonged and into the book’s critical reception at imaginative, violent cultural conflict. the time of its publication. spiritual, Correspondence both to and from emotional and Jolly draws on and juxtaposes Scott, most of which is published here actual. Underlying narratives of profoundly different for the first time, enables readers to the poems are kinds—the fiction of J. M. Coetzee, see how both editions evolved and two lost homes—the poet’s childhood public testimony form the Truth and developed from conception to home which she moved from when Reconciliation Commission, finished product. Essays by J. D. Logan she was seven—and her mother’s—a documents from former Deputy and Donald G. French, Glenn Clever, home shattered by her own mother’s President Jacob Zuma’s rape trial, and Stan Dragland, Carole Gerson, W. H. illness and her little brother’s death at personal interviews among them—in New, Gerald Lynch, and Tracy Ware seven. order to illuminate different cultural demonstrate to readers how the work senses of the “state of the nation” has been treated critically throughout In the book’s first section, “Ghost and retrieve otherwise elusive the twentieth century. Tree,” the poet searches for the descriptions of South African subjects stories she was never told about her taken from accounts of their Robert G. May, ed. Gary Geddes: ancestry and tries to locate herself in individual lives. Essays on His Works. Toronto: her life with the few shreds of Guernica, 2010. knowledge she has. In the second Robert G. May, ed. In the Village of section, “Thresholds: On and Around,” Viger. By Duncan Campbell Scott. Gary Geddes has the search takes her to Greece and Ottawa: Tecumseh, 2010. been called Egypt, where she finds spiritual Canada’s best renewal in ancient temples, Originally political poet. For landscapes and goddesses. She finds published in 1896, almost forty years archetypes of home, good and bad, in In the Village of and in more than her reading, and, traveling to Chile, Viger was Duncan a dozen poetry delights in the blend of art and life, Campbell Scott’s collections, imagination and humour, in the inaugural Geddes has homes of Pablo Neruda. In the third collection of short written with section, “Arrivals,” she finds stories. Focusing power and insight about myriad resolution in dailyness, in freedoms on the daily lives political issues both domestic and both small and soaring, and in herself, and vicissitudes of foreign, from the Paul Chartier Affair as she finally leaves “grey” behind. the people in a small Québec town at and FLQ terrorism in War and Other the turn of the century, In the Village Measures to the Canadian Airborne of Viger has been hailed as a sensitive Regiment and the infamous Somalia and realistic evocation of Canadian Affair in Airborne Particles. However, rural life. By deftly creating a system Geddes is no mere armchair political of themes, motifs, characters, and scientist clad in the sheep’s clothing
13
Queen’s University Department of English Newsletter 2012
of poet, and his work is much more uniform standards of education and Anthology, The Cabinet, and The than an extended exercise in political qualification. European Magazine to her first large- punditry. Whether Geddes is writing scale success with Poems and the about isolated political events such as It is a story of how medical men publication of a number of song lyrics, the Kent State Massacre or about struggled with “new” diseases such as to the longer narrative poems in The ongoing political crises such as the cholera and “old” ones known for Warrior’s Return to the final phase of Palestinian-Israeli conflict, he does so centuries, such as tuberculosis, her publishing life after officially with sensitivity and compassion syphilis, and smallpox, largely in the joining the Quakers in 1825—the towards the individual human lives absence of effective drugs or appearance of Lays for the Dead, a that are ineluctably bound up in treatments, and so were often sequence of elegies for both private political events, lives that can so easily reduced to standing helplessly by as and public figures. Until now, Opie be occluded by those events. their patients died. It is a story of has been known primarily through a how surgeons, empowered first by few frequently anthologized poems This volume of the Guernica Writers anesthesia and later by antiseptic focusing on her response to the war Series brings together a number of technique, vastly expanded the field with France and her support of the unique and important perspectives on of surgery—sometimes with major abolition movement. The Collected Geddes’s extensive writing career. Six benefits for patients, but sometimes Poems offers the opportunity to newly commissioned articles by with disastrous results. explore more fully the contribution Robert G. May, Shirley McDonald, W. made to literary culture in the period H. New, Bruno Sibona, Lake Sagaris, Shelley King and John Pierce, eds. by a woman who throughout her life and M. Wynn Thomas are The Collected Poems of Amelia used poetry as the basis of affective accompanied by an excerpt from Anderson Opie. Oxford: Oxford connection with her world.” Winnifred Bogaards’s extensive 1997 UP, 2009. study of Geddes’s work in Revista Carolyn Smart. Hooked: Seven Canaria de Estudios Ingleses, a far- The Collected Poems. London: Brick, 2009. ranging interview with the poet Poems of Amelia conducted by Robert G. May, as well Alderson Opie Hooked is a as a detailed compilation of offers the first collection of biographical and bibliographical collected, seven poems materials. scholarly edition about seven of poetical famous or Mary Wilson Carpenter. Health, writings of one of infamous women: Medicine, and Society in Victorian the most Myra Hindley, England. Santa Barbera: Prager, celebrated women writers of the early Unity Mitford, 2011. nineteenth century. It brings together Zelda Fitzgerald, Dora Carrington, poems from a variety of sources, Carson McCullers, Jane Bowles, and Health, Medicine, including three volumes of poetry Elizabeth Smart. Each of these women and Society in assembled by the author, annual was hooked on, and her life contorted Victorian England anthologies, periodicals, songs, by, an addiction or obsession. Here is a human story manuscripts, fictional tales, broad we have seven variations on the of medicine in sheets, separately published insoluble conundrum of sexuality— nineteenth- pamphlets, and unpublished private each in a remarkably distinct, century England. correspondence. authentic voice.
It is a story of how The poems included cover the entire “Hooked expresses the heart of a diverse and range of Opie’s long career, starting darkness with an astonishing competitive assortment of apothecary with her earliest surviving works from concision and acuity…. [Smart] apprentices, surgeons who learned the 1790s and extending through her understands loneliness in all its forms, their trade by doing, and physicians last poems in 1850. The arrangement and writes with a clarity and schooled in ancient Greek medicine proposed for this edition gives an compassion that is powerfully but lacking in any actual experience overall sense of Opie’s development affecting. In [her], these women have with patients, was gradually formed from her early experiments with short found a deeply feeling and deeply into a medical profession with lyrics appearing in The Annual attentive witness.” —Anne Michaels
14