Lexington Books
Pages: 274
•
Trim: 6⅜ x 9
978-1-7936-1184-0 • Hardback • November 2019 • $111.00 • (£85.00)
978-1-7936-1185-7 • eBook • November 2019 • $105.00 • (£81.00)
Susan Ingram is associate professor in the Department of Humanities at York University.
Irene Sywenky is associate professor of comparative literature at the University of Alberta.
Introduction, Susan Ingram and Irene Sywenky
Section 1: Opening Salvoes
Chapter 1: Arguments for Comparative Literature Book Projects, Joseph Pivato
Chapter 2: For a Renewed “Linguistic Turn”: Comparative Studies and the Language-Department Model, Jerry White
Section 2: Comparative Literature in and across Linguistic and Locational Contexts
Chapter 3: Plurilingualism and Collaboration in the Comparatist Emerging Scholar Community in Canada, Jeanne Mathieu-Lessard
Chapter 4: Other Languages of Comparative Literature and Caribbean Poetry about Language, Doris Hambuch
Chapter 5: The Languages of Comparison, Nasrin Rahimieh
Chapter 6: What Is the Continental Identity of Canadian Literature?, Albert Braz
Chapter 7: Comparing Diversities: Morphopoetic Variations, Amaryll Chanady
Chapter 8: The Price of the Future: Crisis and Risk in Contemporary Dystopian Speculative Fiction, Jerry Varsava
Section 3: Critical Engagements
Chapter 9: Reforming Critique: Critical Making as Method and Practice, Monique Tschofen, Nataleah Hunter-Young, Lai-Tze Fan, Daniel Browne
Chapter 10: Pedagogy, Writing, and the Future of Comparative Literature, Eva-Lynn Jagoe
Chapter 11: Responses to Jagoe, Kevin G. Wilson, D.R. Gamble, Jan Plug, Keith O’Regan, Heather Macfarlane, Karin Beeler and Stan Beeler
Section 4: Publications in the Age of Digitality
Chapter 12: The Library in Ruins: Digital Collections and the Idea of the University, Joshua Synenko
Chapter 13: Canadian Comparative Literature in Bits: The Impact of Open Access and Electronic Publication Formats, Markus Reisenleitner
Comparative analysis provides insights not only into literatures, but also into the distinct institutional histories and configurations within and between countries. Canadian Comparative Literature presents a wealth of information on everything unique to complit in Canada. From its number of B.A.-granting programs, to pioneering comparisons of settler-colonial with Indigenous literatures, to experiments with alternative forms of critical composition, this volume reveals the many reasons we have to pay increased attention to the work of Canadian comparatists.
— Thomas O. Beebee, Penn State University
A revelation. These eye-opening essays showcase fresh, distinctively Canadian perspectives on
translation and the plurilingual present, on the linked crises of the humanities, graduate education, scholarly publication and libraries. The volume reenvisions our discipline, Canadian-style, as staunchly plurilingual, in sustained dialogue with multicultural experience, reflecting postcolonial perspectives, and committed to restorative justice. Compulsory reading for all comparatists, especially those below the 49th parallel.
— Katie Trumpener, Yale University
This comprehensive and well-organized volume is a must-read for all scholars of comparative literature around the world. It presents a very strong case for Canadian comparative literature, indeed all comparative literature, in its focus on the problematics of multilingualism and multiculturalism, critical theory, indigenous and settler colonial writing, and its continental and hemispheric orientation, showing a path forward for a comparative study of literature with the potential to decolonize mainstream literary studies. Its criticism of U.S.-dominant comparative literature is trenchant and timely, as is its reflections on the pedagogical and institutional practices of comparative literature in the digital age. To read this book in juxtaposition with similar books from the U.S. is to be reminded of how US-centric and English-centric much of American Comparative Literature has been. I recommend this to those soul-searching American comparatists and to all other comparatists around the world.
— Shu-mei Shih, University of California, Los Angeles; University of Hong Kong