Alice Brittan
Associate Professor, Department of English Dalhousie University Halifax, NS
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Education
Ph.D., English Literature, University of Pennsylvania, 2002 Dissertation: "Writing and Portage: The Novel and the Movement of Things"
M.A., English Literature, University of Toronto, 1996 B.A., English Literature, with High Distinction, University of Toronto, 1995
Employment
2021- present: Associate Professor, World Literature, Dalhousie University
2003- 2021: Assistant Professor, World Literature, Dalhousie University (Jan. 2005- Jan. 2006: Maternity Leave) (Jan. 2007- Jan. 2008: Maternity Leave)
2002-2003: Visiting Assistant Professor, Postcolonial Literature and Theory, Connecticut College
Research Interests
• Contemporary Global Fiction • World Literature • Creative Non-Fiction • Public Theology • The Personal Essay
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Writing and Talks
Academic Essays and Reviews
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“Michael Ondaatje Tricks the Eye.” Modernism, Postcolonialism, and Globalism: Anglophone Literature, 1950 to the Present. Ed. Richard Begam and Michael Valdez Moses. Oxford UP, 2019. 297-313.
“At the Verge.” Safundi: The Journal of South African and American Studies. 14.3 (2013): 277- 281.
“The Return of Imagination.” Review Essay. Contemporary Literature. 53.3 (2012): 573-584.
“Death and J.M. Coetzee’s Disgrace.” Contemporary Literature. 51.3 (2010): 477-502.
“Peter D. McDonald. The Literature Police: Apartheid Censorship and its Cultural Consequences.” Review. Review of English Studies. 61.248 (2010): 163-165.
“Australasia.” The Routledge Companion to Postcolonial Studies. Ed. John McLeod. Routledge, 2007. 72-82.
“War and the Book: The Diarist, the Cryptographer and The English Patient.” PMLA. Special Issue: The History of the Book and the Idea of Literature. 121.1 (2006): 200-213.
“Loot: National Violence and the Art Object.” Perspectives on Endangerment. Ed. Graham Huggan and Stephan Klasen. Georg Olms Verlag, 2005. 151-159.
"Reading Sex and Violence in André Brink’s Rumours of Rain and A Dry White Season" Tydskrif vir Letterkunde/Journal of Literary Studies. 42.1 (2005): 55-77.
“A Ghost Story in Two Parts: Charles Dickens, Peter Carey, and Avenging Phantoms.” Australian Literary Studies. 21.4 (2004): 40-55. Re-published in book form: Who's Who? Hoaxes, Imposture and Identity Crises in Australian Literature. Ed. Maggie Nolan and Carrie Dawson. U of Queensland P, 2005. 40-55.
“Mark Sanders’ Complicities: The Intellectual and Apartheid.” Review. New Formations. 52 (2004): 142-143.
“B-b-british Objects: Possession, Naming, and Translation in David Malouf’s Remembering Babylon.” PMLA. 117 (2002): 1158-1171.
Public Writing, Talks, and Podcasts
The Art of Astonishment: Reflections on Gifts and Grace. Bloomsbury, Forthcoming 2022.
2 Mikol, Carmel, narrator. “Ep. 5: Looking for Beauty.” Hyacinth Podcast. January 2020. https://www.hyacinthpodcast.com/episodes
MacKay, Paul, narrator. “Ep. 12: A Study in J.M. Coetzee.” Bookings: The King’s Co-op Bookstore Podcast. April 2019. https://soundcloud.com/user-461897218
“Elena Ferrante and the Art of the Left Hand.” Open Letters Monthly: An Arts and Literature Review. September 2015. Online.
“Are you Living or Dead? Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Buried Giant.” Open Letters Monthly: An Arts and Literature Review. May 2015. Online.
“Outrunning the Constables: Karl Ove Knausgaard.” Open Letters Monthly: An Arts and Literature Review. February 2015. Online.
“A Long Time in the Making. Colm Tóibín’s Nora Webster.” Open Letters Monthly: An Arts and Literature Review. December 2014. Online.
“Dream-to-Desk. Michael Cunningham’s The Snow Queen.” Open Letters Monthly: An Arts and Literature Review. July 2014. Online.
“Modern Magi.” The Dalhousie Review. 93.1 (2013): 21-35.
“A Visit from the Prince. Michael Cunningham’s By Nightfall.” Open Letters Monthly: An Arts and Literature Review. February 2011. Online.
“Apartness: Nadine Gordimer’s Life Times: Stories, 1952-2007.” Open Letters Monthly: An Arts and Literature Review. December 2010. Online.
“Coetzee and the Censor.” Freedom to Read Week. Spring Garden Public Library. Halifax NS. February 2009.
“Doris Lessing.” Nobel Night at Dalhousie. Dalhousie University. Halifax NS. October 2007.
Selected Academic Conferences
“My 21 Grams: Why Am I Dead to the Writers I Love?” Keynote address. Defiance: An Interdisciplinary Graduate Conference. Dalhousie University English Department. Halifax, NS. August 2017.
“The Secret vs. the Boundary Stone: Radical Power in the Writing of Elena Ferrante.” Annual Meeting of the American Comparative Literature Association (ACLA). Harvard University. Boston, MA. March 2016
3 “Money and the Person.” Annual Meeting of the Canadian Association of Commonwealth Literature and Language (CACLALS), ACCUTE, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON. May 2015.
“What is a Miracle?” Annual Meeting of the American Comparative Literature Association (ACLA). University of Toronto. Toronto, ON. April 2013.
“The Gifts of Hermes.” Annual Meeting of the American Comparative Literature Association (ACLA). Brown University. Providence, RI. April 2012.
“Grace.” English Department Speakers’ Series. Dalhousie University. Halifax, NS. November 2011.
“Before the Law.” World Literature/Comparative Literature: Annual Meeting of the American Comparative Literature Association (ACLA). Vancouver, BC. April 2011.
“What is the Analogy for Death?: David Malouf and the Problem of the Postcolonial.” The Languages of Modernism: Annual Meeting of the Modernism Studies Association (MSA). Montréal, QC. November 2009.
“Death and Disgrace.” English Department Speakers’ Series. Dalhousie University. Guest Lecture: Contemporary Studies 4000. University of King’s College. Halifax, NS. March 2009.
“Death and Disgrace.” Obsolescence and the Culture of Human Invention. Interdisciplinary Symposium. Halifax, NS. May 2008.
“Empathy and Disgrace.” The Human and Its Others: Annual Meeting of the American Comparative Literature Association (ACLA). Princeton University. Princeton, NJ. March 2006.
“Loot: National Violence and the Art Object.” Perspectives on Endangerment. University of Munich. Munich, DE. November 2003.
“Nadine Gordimer and the Imagination of Scale.” Ethnohistory Workshop. University of Pennsylvania. Philadelphia, PA. March 2004.
“The Diarist, the Cryptographer, and Michael Ondaatje’s The English Patient.” Craft, Critique, Culture: Imagining Readers and Writers. University of Iowa. Iowa City, IA. April 2002.
Fellowships and Awards
Collaborator, Obsolescence and the Culture of Human Invention, SSHRC research/creation grant in Fine Arts (2007-2010) Research and Development Grant, Dalhousie University, 2003-2006 Mellon Dissertation Fellowship, University of Pennsylvania, 2000-2001 University Dissertation Fellowship, University of Pennsylvania, 1999-2000 Ontario Graduate Scholarship, University of Toronto (declined), 1997
4 University of Toronto Open Fellowship (declined), 1997 Jolliffe Gold Medal in English, Victoria College, University of Toronto, 1995 Lucy Ingram Morgan Gold Medal, Victoria College, University of Toronto, 1995
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Teaching
Dalhousie University, 2003-present:
ENGL 1000, Introduction to Literature ENGL 1020, Introduction to Poetry and Drama ENGL 1010, Introduction to Prose Fiction ENGL/CRWR 1030, Reading & Writing Stories ENGL 2212, now 2005, The Stranger: World Literature ENGL/CRWR 2010, The Personal Essay ENGL 3085, now 3086, Un-Imagination: Postcolonial Literature and Theory ENGL 3235, Contemporary British Novels ENGL 3239, Fiction of the Later-Twentieth Century ENGL 3260, Contemporary Global Fiction CTMP 3311, Culture, Politics, and the Postcolonial Condition ENGL 4811, Is Beauty Just? ENGL 4021, J.M. Coetzee in Context ENGL 5917, Writing and Ethics ENGL 5700, South African Literature in a Century of Struggle ENGL 5919, Postcolonial Studies in the New Millennium
Connecticut College, 2002-03:
ENGL 150, Seminar in Literary Interpretation ENGL 208, Expatriates and Exiles: The New British Novel ENGL 302, South African Literature in a Century of Struggle ENGL 357, Topics in Postcolonial Literatures and Theory
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Graduate Supervision
MA Thesis Supervision, 2003-present:
Kate Cassaday, “Authenticity in Nadine Gordimer’s Reception” (Passed 2004) Charlene Davis, “Falsity, Fronting, Future: Race in Everett’s Erasure, Brand’s What We All Long For and Smith’s Fires in the Mirror” (Passed 2009) Shauna Hall-Coates, “Imagining the Lives of Others: Revisioning Cosmopolitanism in Amitav Ghosh’s The Shadow Lines, Michael Ondaatje’s The English Patient, and Mohsin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist” (Passed 2009)
5 Leif Schenstead-Harris, “Representing the Library” (Passed 2010) Emily Corrie, “Post-literate Nostalgia in Speculative Visions of the Future” (Passed 2012) Georgia Grundlingh, “Folklore and ‘Truth’ in Michael Crummey’s Galore and Richard Flanagan’s Gould’s Book of Fish” (Passed 2014) Grant Curtis, “Representing Afghanistan” (Passed 2016) Nicole Gerber, “This is Only a Love Story: Defining Love and Its Political Implications in Michael Ondaatje’s In the Skin of a Lion” (Passed 2017) Grace MacDonald, “Symbols and the Soul: Hyperreality, Dissensus, and Sacred Humanism in William Gibson’s Pattern Recognition” (Passed 2017). Winner: Malcolm Ross Thesis Award Areej Alqowaifly, “A Trace of Memory or an Illusion: Identity, Learning, and Emotions in J. M. Coetzee’s Jesus Novels” (Passed 2018) Simon Couper, “Together in the Crowd of Time: Temporal Decentering and Ethical Action in David Mitchell’s The Bone Clocks” (Passed 2020). Departmental Nominee: Governor General’s Gold Medal
MA Thesis Reader, 2003-present:
Joel Burton, Dalhousie English Department (Passed 2005) Mike Madden, Dalhousie English Department (Passed 2007) Sarah Emery, Dalhousie English Department (Passed 2008) Joshua Swidzinski, Dalhousie English Department (Passed 2008) Matt Kennedy, Dalhousie English Department (Passed 2009) Emily Andersen, Dalhousie English Department (Passed 2012) Amanda LaBelle, Dalhousie English Department (Passed 2012) André Forget, Dalhousie English Department (Passed 2013) Catherine Hynes, Dalhousie English Department (Passed 2013) Catherine Lewis, Dalhousie English Department (Passed 2016) Carrie Deleskie, Dalhousie English Department (Passed 2016) Rebecca Dmello, Dalhousie English Department (Passed 2017) Isabel Cox, Dalhousie English Department (Passed 2018) Noah Van Brenk, Dalhousie English Department (Passed 2020)
Ph.D. Supervision:
Jason Cawley, Comprehensive Exam Supervisor: Postcolonial Literature & Theory (Passed 2009) Brandi Estey-Burtt, Comprehensive Exam Supervisor: Postcolonial Literature & Theory (Passed 2015) Cheryl Hann, Comprehensive Exam Supervisor: Global Fiction (Passed 2018) Jane Boyes, Comprehensive Exam Supervisor: Global Fiction (Passed 2018) Brandi Estey-Burtt, Dissertation Supervisor: “When the Messiah Comes: The Postsecular Messianic in Contemporary Literature” (Successfully Defended 2019). Winner: Dalhousie Distinguished Dissertation Award in the Fine Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences Kristen Schiedel, Comprehensive Exam Supervisor: Global Fiction (Passed 2021) Jessica Hawkes, Comprehensive Exam Supervisor: Global Fiction (Passed 2021)
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Ph.D. Committees:
Marie-Louise Stening-Riding, Dissertation Examiner (Successfully Defended 2004) Steve McCullough, Dissertation Examiner (Successfully Defended 2006) Rebecca Babcock, Dissertation Examiner (Successfully Defended 2011) Michael Fontaine, Dissertation Examiner (Successfully Defended 2019)
Undergraduate Honours Supervision at Dalhousie & King’s:
Sarah Mohammed, “Hybrid Identities, Humanism and the Road to Selflessness: A Look at the Damaging Effects of Race Thinking in Contemporary Culture” (King’s Contemporary Studies Program: Passed 2012) Avery Judson, “The Problem of Other Minds: Achieving Empathy in Ian McEwan’s Atonement” (Passed 2018) Carmel Mikol, “The Politics of Reality: ‘Coextensiveness’ in Marilynne Robinson’s Housekeeping” (Passed 2018) Brennan McCracken, “Intimate Immensity: Articulating a Phenomenology of Solitude in Claire- Louise Bennett’s Pond” (King’s Contemporary Studies Program: Passed 2019) Kate Power, “Rethinking ‘Reconciliation’: A Discussion of Coetzee’s Disgrace in the Context of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission” (Passed 2020) David Lucia, “Quid Est Classicum? The Classics and South Africa in J. M. Coetzee’s Age of Iron” (Passed 2020) Alexandra Sweny, “Reading Autoimmunity in Larissa Lai’s Salt Fish Girl as a Discursive Reframing of Immunology” (Passed 2020)
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Professional Service, Dalhousie and King’s
Co-Chair, English Department Speaker’s Series Committee, 2003-04 Member, English Department Nominating Committee, 2004 Member, English Department Undergraduate Committee, 2006-07 Member, English Department Graduate Committee, 2008-10 Member, FASS Dean’s Advisory Committee on the Chair, Department of Philosophy, 2010
Chair, English Department Graduate Committee, 2011-13 Member, FASS Graduate Council, 2011-13 Member, English Department Academic and Financial Planning Committee, 2011-13 (Ex Officio) Chair, FASS Dean’s Advisory Committee for the Chair of Spanish and Latin American Studies, 2013
Member, English Department Chair’s Advisory Committee, 2013-14
Chair, English Department Graduate Committee, 2016-17
7 Member, FASS Graduate Council, 2016-17 Member, English Department Academic and Financial Planning Committee, 2016-17 (Ex Officio) Member, English Department Nominating Committee, 2017
Member, English Department Undergraduate Committee, 2017-18 Member, FASS Student Matters Committee, 2017-18 Member, King’s Contemporary Studies Director Advisory Committee, 2018
Chair, English Department Undergraduate Committee, 2018-20 Member, English Department Academic and Financial Planning Committee, 2018-20 (Ex Officio) Member, English Department Creative Writing Committee, 2018-20 (Ex Officio) Member, GWST Internal Review Committee, 2019
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External Professional Service
Consultant Reader:
Modern Literary Studies (MLS) Journal of Commonwealth Literature Twentieth-Century Literature Modern Fiction Studies Contemporary Literature PMLA University of Indiana Press Wilfred Laurier University Press MLA Approaches to Teaching World Literature Series
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