ABOUT THIS BOOK

Canada is situated geographically, historically, and culturally between old empires (Great Britain and France) and a more recent one (the United States), as well as on the terrain of First Nations communities. Poised between historical and metaphorical empires and operating within the conditions of incomplete modernity and economic and cultural dependency, Canada has generated a body of cultural criticism and theory, which offers unique insights into the dynamics of both center and periphery. The reader brings together for the first time in one volume recent writing in Canadian cultural studies and work by significant Canadian cultural analysts of the postwar era.

Including essays by anglophone, francophone, and First Nations writers, the reader is divided into three parts, the first of which features essays by scholars who helped set the agenda for cultural and social analysis in Canada and remain important to contemporary intellectual formations: Harold Innis, Marshall McLuhan, and Anthony Wilden in communications theory; Northrop Frye in literary studies; George Grant and Harold Innis in a left-nationalist tradition of critical political economy; Fernand Dumont and Paul-Émile Borduas in Quebecois national and political culture; and Harold Cardinal in native studies.

The volume’s second section showcases work in which contemporary authors address Canada’s problematic and incomplete nationalism; race, difference, and multiculturalism; and modernity and contemporary culture. The final section includes excerpts from federal policy documents that are especially important to Canadians’ conceptions of their social, political, and cultural circumstances. The reader opens with a foreword by Fredric Jameson and concludes with an afterword in which the Quebecois scholar Yves Laberge explores the differences between English-Canadian cultural studies and the prevailing forms of cultural analysis in francophone Canada.

Contributors. Ian Angus, Himani Bannerji, Jody Berland, Paul-Émile Borduas, Harold Cardinal, Maurice Charland, Stephen Crocker, Ioan Davies, Fernand Dumont, Kristina Fagan, Gail Faurschou, Len Findlay, Northrop Frye, George Grant, Rick Gruneau, Harold Innis, Fredric Jameson, Yves Laberge, Jocelyn Létourneau, Eva Mackey, Lee Maracle, Marshall McLuhan, Katharyne Mitchell, Sourayan Mookerjea, Kevin Pask, Rob Shields, Will Straw, Imre Szeman, Serra Tinic, David Whitson, Tony Wilden

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Sourayan Mookerjea is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Alberta and the author of Crisis and Catachresis: Pedagogy at the Limits of Identity Politics.

Imre Szeman is Senator McMaster Chair of Globalization and Cultural Studies at McMaster University, and the author of Zones of Instability: Literature, Postcolonialism and the Nation.

Gail Faurschou is a Research Associate in the Department of Sociology at the University of Alberta.

REVIEWS

“Canadian Cultural Studies marks an important publication. . . . With contributions from media studies, literary studies, cultural studies, Aboriginal studies, and studies of multiculturalism, as well as government policy documents and a concerted effort to bridge the divide between Quebec and the rest of Canada, this reader does a great job of covering its ground. . . . [T]hese are essential essays and documents. It is, moreover, an accessible and useful text that I heartily recommend to instructors of Canadian studies looking to foster a sense of academic rigour in their courses.” - Kit Dobson, Canadian Literature

“This reader is a timely and provocative reflection on Canadian cultural studies. While some readers may be familiar with many of the essays, encountering them again will prove to be rewarding for the new insights that their juxtapositions in this volume offer. This volume attests to not only to the substantial history of cultural theory in Canada, but also to its vibrancy.”
- Lily Cho, Ariel

“The editors deserve credit for bringing together scattered and not easily accessible seminal articles focusing on Canadian economy and polity. This anthology, comprising historical, contemporary, multidisciplinary, theoretical, and critical essays, will remain an essential sourcebook on Canadian cultural studies. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above.” - D. A. Chekki, Choice

“Canadian Cultural Studies is a brilliant study and appropriation of some of the most important issues that have been central to the history of cultural studies. But there is more at work in this book than appropriation; Canadian Cultural Studies rewrites that legacy and establishes Canada as a society in which cultural studies as a theoretical discourse and practice is being played out in ways that make this book indispensable to understanding what cultural studies has become and where it might be going in the future. This is an extraordinary book for anyone interested in cultural studies and the importance of Canada in rewriting and applying some of its most fundamental assumptions.”—Henry A. Giroux, author of Youth in a Suspect Society: Democracy or Disposability?

“For those familiar with cultural studies in Canada, this reader offers a necessary and illuminating consolidation of key texts. For newer eyes, there is fresh inspiration. Expertly selected and organized, the material assembled here is a gilded invitation to explore this rich field of interdisciplinary and politically engaged cultural analysis. Canadian Cultural Studies: A Reader is a vital contribution to contemporary currents in the study of globalization, nationhood, and identity.”—Charles R. Acland, author of Screen Traffic: Movies, Multiplexes, and Global Culture

“Canadian Cultural Studies marks an important publication. . . . With contributions from media studies, literary studies, cultural studies, Aboriginal studies, and studies of multiculturalism, as well as government policy documents and a concerted effort to bridge the divide between Quebec and the rest of Canada, this reader does a great job of covering its ground. . . . [T]hese are essential essays and documents. It is, moreover, an accessible and useful text that I heartily recommend to instructors of Canadian studies looking to foster a sense of academic rigour in their courses.”

-- Kit Dobson Canadian Literature

“The editors deserve credit for bringing together scattered and not easily accessible seminal articles focusing on Canadian economy and polity. This anthology, comprising historical, contemporary, multidisciplinary, theoretical, and critical essays, will remain an essential sourcebook on Canadian cultural studies. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above.”

-- D. A. Chekki Choice

“This reader is a timely and provocative reflection on Canadian cultural studies. While some readers may be familiar with many of the essays, encountering them again will prove to be rewarding for the new insights that their juxtapositions in this volume offer. This volume attests to not only to the substantial history of cultural theory in Canada, but also to its vibrancy.”

-- Lily Cho ariel

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Literary History of Canada

Into the Heart of Africa

Peace, Power, Righteousness: An Indigenous Manifest

Report of the Royal Commission on National Development in Arts, Letters and Sciences

Report of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism

Multiculturalism and the Government of Canada

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