No description available.

This thesis is written in three segments: a novel excerpt, an introduction to the genre of English- Canadian love stories; and a critical reflection on the creative process. The introduction to the genre is written in the style of a book introduction and is intended for a general audience. My ecocritical examination of love stories in English-Canadian fiction concludes that these stories tend to be banal subplots that are nonetheless deeply engaged with nature. In this thesis, “love” always refers to the intimate love shared between two lovers or would-be lovers, be they married or unmarried, gay or straight, very young or elderly. Western culture often posits marriage as the pinnacle of accomplished intimate love, though the books researched for this project profoundly object to this viewpoint. Furthermore, the tendency toward scant, emotionally-impotent, and distinctly un-sexy depictions of love doesn’t register indifference; it registers disillusionment. I assert that a meaningful, distinct, and supportive correlation exists between love stories and nature-human stories in these texts. Where more nature is present, more love is present and vice versa. Where nature is less visible, love is less visible and vice versa. I use the term “ecology of love” to address these instrinsic links—the in between—between humans and nature. The first section of the thesis explores this phenomenon through the story and characters of an original novel excerpt. The second section discusses the reasons for banality, which involve social ennui and disillusionment, geographic obstacles, moral propriety, and the unique conditions that arise in a nation of immigrants.

Issued also as Thesis (Ph. D.)--Columbia University. / Bibliography: p. [201]-210.

Situating oral transcriptions in Aboriginal languages at the beginning of national anthologies creates the impression of a tradition that does not actually exist.

This thesis is written in three segments: a novel excerpt, an introduction to the genre of English- Canadian love stories; and a critical reflection on the creative process. The introduction to the genre is written in the style of a book introduction and is intended for a general audience. My ecocritical examination of love stories in English-Canadian fiction concludes that these stories tend to be banal subplots that are nonetheless deeply engaged with nature. In this thesis, “love” always refers to the intimate love shared between two lovers or would-be lovers, be they married or unmarried, gay or straight, very young or elderly. Western culture often posits marriage as the pinnacle of accomplished intimate love, though the books researched for this project profoundly object to this viewpoint. Furthermore, the tendency toward scant, emotionally-impotent, and distinctly un-sexy depictions of love doesn’t register indifference; it registers disillusionment. I assert that a meaningful, distinct, and supportive correlation exists between love stories and nature-human stories in these texts. Where more nature is present, more love is present and vice versa. Where nature is less visible, love is less visible and vice versa. I use the term “ecology of love” to address these instrinsic links—the in between—between humans and nature. The first section of the thesis explores this phenomenon through the story and characters of an original novel excerpt. The second section discusses the reasons for banality, which involve social ennui and disillusionment, geographic obstacles, moral propriety, and the unique conditions that arise in a nation of immigrants.

For over a century there has been a large ongoing migration from Newfoundland to other parts of Canada and the US. Between 1971 and 1998 alone, net out-migration amounted to 20% of the province’s population. This exodus has become a significant part of Newfoundland culture. While many literary critics, writers, and sociologists have referred to Newfoundland out-migration as a “diaspora,” few have examined the theoretical implications of applying this emotionally charged term to a predominantly white, economically motivated, inter-provincial movement. My dissertation addresses these issues, ultimately arguing that “diaspora” is an appropriate and helpful term to describe Newfoundland out-migration and its literature, because it connotes the painful displacement of a group that continues to identify with each other and with the homeland. I argue that considering Newfoundland a “diaspora” also provides a useful contribution to theoretical work on diaspora, because it reveals the ways in which labour movements and intra-national migrations can be meaningfully considered diasporic. It also rejects the Canadian tendency to conflate diaspora with racialized subjectivities, a tendency that problematically posits racialized Others as always from elsewhere, and that threatens to refigure experiences of racism as a problem of integration rather than of systemic, institutionalized racism. I examine several important literary works of the Newfoundland diaspora, including the poetry of E.J. Pratt and Carl Leggo, the drama of David French, the fiction of Donna Morrissey and Wayne Johnston, and the memoirs of Helen M. Buss/ Margaret Clarke and David Macfarlane. These works also become the sites of a broader inquiry into several theoretical flashpoints, including diasporic authenticity, nostalgia, nationalism, race and whiteness, and ethnicity. I show that diasporic Newfoundlanders’ identifications involve a complex, self-reflexive, postmodern negotiation between the sometimes contradictory conditions of white privilege, cultural marginalization, and national and regional appropriations. Through these negotiations they both construct imagined literary communities, and problematize Newfoundland’s place within Canadian culture and a globalized world.

In Canada, writers of long fiction have recently begun to employ representations of science and to use scientific theories to construct narratives that investigate issues of class, race, sexuality, faith, truth and the ontological understanding of human existence. This turn towards science in creative works of art suggests that scientific discourse in the early twenty-first century has become a space from which to respond to questions about the search for truth after the rise of poststructuralist theory and postmodern culture. My work investigates this recent turn towards science in contemporary Canadian literature as a way of reevaluating the idea that science is associated with a teleological movement towards human progress, and to analyze how scientific representations re-imagine faith and ethics from a secular perspective. The recent shift towards science in the literature of Canada in English suggests a questioning of social conditions which place the human within epistemological spectrums between truth and fiction, faith and reason, and the individual and the universal. In my dissertation questions related to belief and truth are bound up in a cross-textual study that looks at how Canadian literature reevaluates important debates among theology, art, and science in order to access a humanist interpretation of different possible realities. My dissertation investigates: The Bone Sharps (2007) by Tim Bowling; Curiosity: A Love Story (2010) by Joan Thomas; The Origin of Species (2008) by Nino Ricci; The Memory Artists (2004) by Jeffrey Moore; Player One: What is to Become of Us (2010) by Douglas Coupland; Atmospheric Disturbances (2008) by Rivka Galchen, and The Evolution of Inanimate Objects: The Life and Collected Works of Thomas Darwin (1857-1879) (2010) by Harry Karlinsky. / Thesis (Ph.D, English) -- Queen's University, 2012-01-26 11:50:12.999

No description available.

This thesis argues that as historians of English-Canadian poetry, A. J. M. Smith, John Sutherland, Northrop Frye, and Desmond Pacey explicitly promote the value of past conflict reconciled into present harmony. They do so by claiming that such reconciliation marks the maturity of English-Canadian culture. This thesis also argues, however, that the interactive progression of their histories implicitly undermines this value. It does so because each critic appreciates a different group of poets for realizing their shared cultural ideal, thereby establishing contradictory representations of what they all claim to be the culmination of English-Canadian literary history. The thesis concludes that while their lingering sense of present cultural maturity should now be fully renounced, the value these critics place on reconciliation is well worth preserving and transforming.

For over a century there has been a large ongoing migration from Newfoundland to other parts of Canada and the US. Between 1971 and 1998 alone, net out-migration amounted to 20% of the province’s population. This exodus has become a significant part of Newfoundland culture. While many literary critics, writers, and sociologists have referred to Newfoundland out-migration as a “diaspora,” few have examined the theoretical implications of applying this emotionally charged term to a predominantly white, economically motivated, inter-provincial movement. My dissertation addresses these issues, ultimately arguing that “diaspora” is an appropriate and helpful term to describe Newfoundland out-migration and its literature, because it connotes the painful displacement of a group that continues to identify with each other and with the homeland. I argue that considering Newfoundland a “diaspora” also provides a useful contribution to theoretical work on diaspora, because it reveals the ways in which labour movements and intra-national migrations can be meaningfully considered diasporic. It also rejects the Canadian tendency to conflate diaspora with racialized subjectivities, a tendency that problematically posits racialized Others as always from elsewhere, and that threatens to refigure experiences of racism as a problem of integration rather than of systemic, institutionalized racism. I examine several important literary works of the Newfoundland diaspora, including the poetry of E.J. Pratt and Carl Leggo, the drama of David French, the fiction of Donna Morrissey and Wayne Johnston, and the memoirs of Helen M. Buss/ Margaret Clarke and David Macfarlane. These works also become the sites of a broader inquiry into several theoretical flashpoints, including diasporic authenticity, nostalgia, nationalism, race and whiteness, and ethnicity. I show that diasporic Newfoundlanders’ identifications involve a complex, self-reflexive, postmodern negotiation between the sometimes contradictory conditions of white privilege, cultural marginalization, and national and regional appropriations. Through these negotiations they both construct imagined literary communities, and problematize Newfoundland’s place within Canadian culture and a globalized world.