Since Homer, exile is closely linked to literature and even seems to be consubstancial to the very act of writing. Indeed, countless writers have created in exsilio; one just has to think, among others, of Marot, Du Bellay, Madame de Stael, Victor Hugo or Soljenitsyne. The unbearable feeling of loss and relinquishment provoked by transhumance added to the inevitable solitude are determining factors leading to the creative process. Neo-Quebecois writers are undoubtedly part of this line of expatriate authors. Often autobiographical in nature, their work generally describe the migratory journey of misfits trying to make Quebec culture their own. However, it is difficult to be a foreigner in a society which is asserting its own identity, in this case quite problematic, and the passage from outsider to insider is even more so. In this thesis, the idea of transculturation conceptualised by Fernando Ortiz as well as the Freudian concept of unheimlich (uncanniness) will be applied to the works of Regine Robin, Emile Ollivier, Ying Chen, Sergio Kokis and Mona Latif-Ghattas. The object of this essay is to demonstrate that writing is in fact the sole means for the protagonists to reach a total introjection of space and to find order in the scattered components of their fragmented identity.

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This thesis is concerned with the "Americanity" of Quebec literature and the existence of a cultural formation specific to the New World, based on a context of renewal, distancing and rupture with respect to European influence. The "real maravilloso" is perceived as an inherent American mode of expression, and its presence is examined in the work of Yves Theriault and Alejo Carpentier. An analysis of the short stories, Contes pour un homme seul (1944) by Theriault and "Histoire de lunes" (1933) by Carpentier, and of the novels Agaguk (1958) and Le royaume de ce monde (1949), allows us to compare the evolution from primitivism to the "real maravilloso americano", revealed in the novel through the "figures of the Other" and the status of the character, characterized by duality (contrast between the primitive forces and civilized world), its quest, its integration with nature, and the importance of sacred ritual.

The aim of this research paper is to analyse the literary works and the writers of Italian origin who have actively contributed to the creation of Italian-Canadian immigration literature, and above all, that referent to the Montreal milieu. For this and other reasons, it distinguishes itself from other Italian-Canadian productions and precisely due to this reality, the objective of this research is to: (1) examine its role, its characteristics, the difficulties its writers experience, its literary artistic value and the recognition it receives in our literary environment; (2) compare the creative approach adopted by some writers to the perfect example, Primo Levi; (3) expose its contents and reoccurring themes; (4) examine the question of the literary language of expression of these works; (5) demonstrate the social usefulness of this literary production.

My dissertation examines some of the ways in which new technologies alter traditional readings of the female body and of feminine subjectivity in contemporary fiction. To illustrate these alterations, I have selected two short stories, one by William Gibson and the other by Margaret Atwood, published in the speculative fiction Tesseracts2 anthology in 1987, both of which deal with disease and women's technological access. Within this context, I examine how feminine sexuality and embodiment are deconstructed and re-written. While historically women have been represented as victims of technology and/or intimately connected with the natural world, I propose that women's increased access to both bio-technologies and communications technologies offers an unprecedented route to self-definition and cultural power. I explore ways in which analogue technology mimics women's reproductive enslavement in Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, and in which the emergence of digital technology offers some emancipation in The Blind Assassin. Subsequently, I discuss the intersections of sex work and virtual reality in William Gibson's Cyberpunk Trilogy and associated short fiction, demonstrating that digitality is not a panacea for gendered oppression. However, digitized women may have unexpected opportunities for self-definition. In comparing Gibson's Idoru and Atwood's Oryx and Crake, I discuss how women “created” for the male gaze (either virtually or by cloning) may evade that gaze and both assert their individuality and create communities among women with similar origins. Subsequently, I examine the interconnections among women, animals, and food that emerge within technologized cultures. Self-protective anorexia provides a link among Atwood's earliest writing (The Edible Woman) and her most recent (Oryx and Crake, The Year of the Flood), and suggests that the same technological facility which provides access to power also induces profound bodily anxieties in female characters. Building on those anxieties, I conclude with a discussion of the ways in which disability disrupts expectations of feminine embodiment. The constant abjection of women with disabilities is counter-balanced by those women's ability to create radical innovations of technology that transform the larger culture.

ABSTRACT This dissertation, “The Past is Perfect”: Leonard Cohen’s Philosophy of Time, analyzes the concept of time and aspects of temporality in Leonard Cohen’s poetry and prose, both published and unpublished. Through imagination and memory, Cohen continuously explores his past as a man, a member of a family, and a representative of a culture. The complex interconnection of individual and collective pasts constitutes the core of Cohen’s philosophy informed by his Jewish heritage, while its artistic expression is indebted to the literary past. The poet/novelist/songwriter was famously designated as “the father of melancholy”; it is his focus on the past that makes his works appear pessimistic. Cohen pays less attention to the other two temporal aspects, present and future, which are seen in a generally negative light until his most recent publication. The study suggests that although Cohen’s attitude to the past has not changed radically from Let Us Compare Mythologies (1956) to Book of Longing (2006), his views have changed from bitterness prompted by time’s destructive force to acceptance of its work and the assertion of the power of poetry/art to withstand it; there is neither discontent with the present nor prediction of a catastrophic future. Time remains a metaphysical category and subject to mythologizing, temporal linearity often being disregarded. Although Cohen’s spiritual search has extended throughout his life, his essential outlook on time and the past is already expressed in the early books; his latest publications combine new pieces and selections from previous books of poetry and prose works, confirming the continuity of ideas and general consistency of his vision.

For 141 years, The Ryerson Press was both a cultural engine for and a reflection of Canadian society. Founded in 1829 as the Methodist Book Room, it was Canada’s first English-language book publisher and became the largest textbook publisher in Canada. Its contributions to Canadian literature, particularly under long-time editor Lorne Pierce, were considerable. In 1970, however, the press was sold to American branch plant McGraw-Hill, causing a cultural and nationalist crisis in the publishing community. The purpose of this thesis is to explanation many of the factors causing the United Church to sell the House. The purchase of an expensive and outdated printing press in 1962 has been blamed for the sale, as has the general state of Canadian publishing at the time. However, the whole story is much more complex and includes publication choices, personnel shifts, management failures, financial ruin, organizational politics, inflation, and the massive cultural shift of the late 1960s. Specifically, the thesis looks at the succession crisis that followed Lorne Pierce’s retirement, the Woods, Gordon Management Report, the New Curriculum, The United Church Observer, the practice of hiring ministers as managers, the formation of the Division of Communication, the proposed merger of the United Church of Canada with the Anglican Church of Canada, and falling church membership.

My dissertation examines some of the ways in which new technologies alter traditional readings of the female body and of feminine subjectivity in contemporary fiction. To illustrate these alterations, I have selected two short stories, one by William Gibson and the other by Margaret Atwood, published in the speculative fiction Tesseracts2 anthology in 1987, both of which deal with disease and women's technological access. Within this context, I examine how feminine sexuality and embodiment are deconstructed and re-written. While historically women have been represented as victims of technology and/or intimately connected with the natural world, I propose that women's increased access to both bio-technologies and communications technologies offers an unprecedented route to self-definition and cultural power. I explore ways in which analogue technology mimics women's reproductive enslavement in Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, and in which the emergence of digital technology offers some emancipation in The Blind Assassin. Subsequently, I discuss the intersections of sex work and virtual reality in William Gibson's Cyberpunk Trilogy and associated short fiction, demonstrating that digitality is not a panacea for gendered oppression. However, digitized women may have unexpected opportunities for self-definition. In comparing Gibson's Idoru and Atwood's Oryx and Crake, I discuss how women “created” for the male gaze (either virtually or by cloning) may evade that gaze and both assert their individuality and create communities among women with similar origins. Subsequently, I examine the interconnections among women, animals, and food that emerge within technologized cultures. Self-protective anorexia provides a link among Atwood's earliest writing (The Edible Woman) and her most recent (Oryx and Crake, The Year of the Flood), and suggests that the same technological facility which provides access to power also induces profound bodily anxieties in female characters. Building on those anxieties, I conclude with a discussion of the ways in which disability disrupts expectations of feminine embodiment. The constant abjection of women with disabilities is counter-balanced by those women's ability to create radical innovations of technology that transform the larger culture.

The decade 1940-1950 represents a decisive stage in the evolution of the relations between the Quebec literary scene and France. Whereas before the war, literary discourse keeps on upholding, in a dogmatic way, the superiority of French culture and literature, the next period is characterized, on the contrary, by a reassessment of this postulate. / The historical circumstances justify the setting up of exceptional institutional conditions. Some French writers and critics, in exile in North America, partake, to varying degrees, in the French Canadian literary scene. The backing of these intellectuals is not unrelated to the process of modernization and autonomization undertaken at that time by the major sectors of the Quebecer literary apparatus. / A conflict of interest in the publishing sector as well as ideological differences spark a controversy between Robert Carbonneau and some members of the Comite National des Ecrivains. This "quarrel", to quote Charbonneau, is an unprecedented example of direct confrontation between Quebecer and French literary agents. On this occasion, Robert Charbonneau redefines French Canadian literature outside of France's sphere of influence, France being a country whose status he wishes to limit to that of just one foreign reference among many. / This desire for autonomy can also be found in literary texts which, using means available to them, bear witness to an appreciable decline of the French literature. But whereas literary discourse attempts to resist annexation to French literature, the literary apparatus is subject, upon the Liberation, to a material and symbolic domination by the French authorities, a domination it cannot fight. In this respect, the conditions of literary production in the fifties are paradoxical since the text, while voicing its rejection of the French institution and its French Canadian identity, continues to receive its ultimate consecration from France.

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