for a Special Issue of the University of Toronto Quarterly , Fall 2005: The Politics and Poetics of Haunting in Canadian Literature and Visual Culture

FOR MANY YEARS, Canada was renowned for its supposed lack of ghosts. In 1833, Catherine Parr Traill proclaimed: “As to ghosts or spirits they appear totally banished from Canada. This is too matter-of-fact country for such supernaturals to visit.” Over a hundred years later, Canadian poet and critic Earle Birney echoed her sentiments stating that “it’s only by our lack of ghosts we’re haunted.” These assertions need to be revisited because Canadian authors, artists, and film-makers are obsessed with ghosts and haunting. A host of writers and artists, including Margaret Atwood, Anne Marie MacDonald, Jane Urquhart, Timothy Findley, Michael Ondaatje, Daphne Marlatt, Kerri Sakamoto, Joy Kogawa, Eden Robinson, Dionne Brand, David Cronenberg, Atom Egoyan, Robert Houle, Karoo Ashevak, Jessie Oonark, Colette Whiten, and Sandra Meigs have taken pains to map the intricacies of haunting.

Dr. Marlene Goldman (Dept. of English at the University of Toronto) and Dr. Joanne Saul (Dept. of English and Film Studies Wilfrid Laurier University), guest editors of the UTQ issue on Haunting in Canadian Literature and Visual Culture, seek papers that address questions like the following:

- How does living with ghosts entail a politics of memory, of inheritance, and of mourning that continues to shape Canadian literature and visual culture? - What is the impact of the Gothic on Canadian art and writing? - How do works by First Nations authors and artists interrogate Canada’s supposed ghostlessness? - To what extent does an interest in ghosts signal anxieties associated with multiple or diasporic identities? - Is there a distinct significance to haunting in women’s textual and artistic productions? - If ghosts signal the return of a secret, something repressed, then what types of secrets (ranging from personal and familial to national and extranational) are encrypted in the texts under consideration? - What is the impact of haunting on textual and artistic production; for instance, to what extent is abjection (understood textually as an impulse toward decomposition, disintegration and the breaking-up of language) implicated in treatments of haunting?

Submitted essays should conform to University of Toronto Quarterly house style based on The Chicago Manual of Style. Please send two copies of completed papers, along with a copy on disk (double spaced, max. 25 pages) and a brief professional bio (50 words) by December 1, 2004 to:

Dr. Marlene Goldman and Dr. Joanne Saul, c/o University of Toronto Quarterly, 334 Larkin Building, 6 Hoskin Avenue, Trinity College, University of

Toronto, Toronto, ON M5S 1H8

Queries: (416) 978-3055 or utq@chass.utoronto.ca

“SURF’S UP!”

THE RISING TIDE OF

ATLANTIC-CANADIAN

LITERATURE

OCTOBER 15-17, 2004

ACADIA UNIVERSITY, WOLFVILLE, NS

The last few decades have been marked by a distinct surge in literary activity in Atlantic Canada, during which Atlantic writers have become increasingly prominent, both nationally and internationally. In recognition of the growing volume and profile of Atlantic-Canadian literature, the English department of Acadia University is hosting a conference on contemporary Atlantic-Canadian literature as part of its ongoing Thomas Raddall Symposium series.

The keynote speakers are author, editor and surfer Lesley Choyce and playwright Wendy Lill. There will be also be literary readings by fiction writers Lynn Coady and Michael Crummey and by poets Anne Compton and Harry Thurston. Conference activities include a wine-and-cheese, a tour of award-winning Gaspereau Press’s print shop, and a banquet.

The scholarly side of the conference will feature new perspectives on topics like regionalism, tourism, landscape, and community and on authors such as Alistair MacLeod, Lisa Moore, David Adams Richards, Don Domanski, Wayne Johnston and George Elliott Clarke. The aim of the conference is to give Atlantic-Canadian writing its due, not through uncritical celebration but through critical appraisal, addressing the complexities of individual writers’ works, as well as broader concerns such as the forces behind this current proliferation of literary activity, and the cultural place of Atlantic Canada in Confederation.

For information on the conference and/or registration forms, please contact:

Dr. Herb Wyile Department of English, Acadia University Wolfville, NS,

Canada B4P 2R6 Email: Email: herb.wyile@acadiau.ca

Tel: 902-585-1255 Fax: 902-585-1070

See our website: http://ace.acadiau.ca/~hwyile/surfsup/index.html