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July-August 2009

Review: Nicole Brossard’s latest novel throbs with linguistic menace

Terese SaplysWebsite

Quebec writer Nicole Brossard’s latest novel, Fences in Breathing (translated by Susanne de Lotbinière-Harwood), confronts a subject favoured by a cadre of contemporary literary darlings, Roberto Bolaño, David Foster Wallace, and John Wray among them: namely, a profound distrust in the magic of fiction. A woman of letters herself, Brossard’s Québécoise protagonist, Anne, labours to […] More »
July-August 2009

Creative writing courses: cash cows of the humanities

Darryl WhetterWebsite

While a degree in creative writing may not top your career counsellor’s advice for a quick professional turnaround, the formal study of writing was a North American growth industry even before the recession sent more people back to school (or kept them there longer). In an anguished and incredulous Harper’s article, American writer and professor […] More »
May-June 2009

The privileged Westerner’s guide to talking about the rest of the world

Anna Bowen

When you’re talking international development, words matter There’s nothing like an all-purpose label to bring comfort and order to an otherwise overwhelming world. But what’s comforting to one person can be downright offensive to another. When it comes to the language used to label the “non-Western” world, quotation marks just won’t cut it anymore. What’s […] More »
May-June 2009

Mi’kmaq PhD dissertation a Canadian first

Erin Bosenberg

This June, York University student Fred Metallic hopes to make a bit of Canadian university history. That’s when he plans to complete the first draft of his PhD dissertation, tentatively titled “Mi’gmawei Mawio’mi: Goqwei Wejguaqamultigw?” (The English working title is “Reclaiming Mi’kmaq History and Politics: Living our Responsibilities.”) Written entirely in Mi’kmaq, it will be […] More »