In-Between – Liminal Spaces in Canadian Literature and Cultures
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Edited By Stefan L. Brandt
In the past few years, the concept of «liminality» has become a kind of pet theme within the discipline of Cultural Studies, lending itself to phenomena of transgression and systemic demarcation. This anthology employs theories of liminality to discuss Canada’s geographic and symbolic boundaries, taking its point of departure from the observation that «Canada» itself, as a cultural, political, and geographic entity, encapsulates elements of the «liminal.» The essays comprised in this volume deal with fragmented and contradictory practices in Canada, real and imagined borders, as well as contact zones, thresholds, and transitions in Anglo-Canadian and French-Canadian texts, discussing topics such as the U.S./Canadian border, migration, French-English relations, and encounters between First Nations and settlers.
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- Frankfurt am Main, Bern, Bruxelles, New York, Oxford, Warszawa, Wien, 2017. 260 pp., 3 ill.
- Cover
- Title
- Copyright
- About the author
- About the book
- This eBook can be cited
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction: The Canadian Cultural Imaginary and Its Liminal Aesthetics (Stefan L. Brandt)
- I. Liminal Landscapes
- Tripping on the Threshold; Groping in the Dark (Aritha van Herk)
- II. Canadian ‘Thirdspace’ – Nation, Language, and Immigration
- Inhabiting Trishanku in Canada: Threshold Experience in the Oeuvre of M.G. Vassanji (Shilpa Daithota Bhat)
- ‘Exclaveness’ and Liminality: Materialities and Rhetorics of Place at the Canadian Border (Peter Goggin)
- Subversion and Self-Definition in Montréal Novels by Dany Laferrière and Rawi Hage (Derek C. Maus)
- III. Ambiguous Fictions – Liminality in the Canadian Novel
- “… beyond the invisible barrier at Portage and Main”: Liminality in John Marlyn’s Under the Ribs of Death (Bernhard Wenzl)
- “not quite human, not quite wolf, but something in between”: Liminal Spaces in Eden Robinson’s Monkey Beach (Patrizia Zanella)
- IV. Hyphenated Canada? Indigenous Voices and Hybrid Identities
- Painting (the) In-Between: Twentieth-Century Indigenous Border Art at Glacier/Waterton National Parks (Alexandra Ganser)
- Narrative Dynamics of Liminality in Naomi Fontaine’s Kuessipan (2011) (Jeanette den Toonder)
- Documenting Oral History and Lessons in Truth Telling in Nadia McLaren’s Muffins for Granny and Tim Wolochatiuk’s We Were Children (Sabrina Völz)
- V. Blurry Visions – Canadian Arts and Liminality
- Abstraction and Mysticism in Bertram Brooker’s Paintings and Novels (Katalin Kürtösi)
- Diane Schoemperlen’s By the Book: Stories and Pictures – Fragments in Contrapuntal Unity (Nikola Tutek)
- VI. Final Thresholds – Loss, Memory, and Dying
- The Melancholy of Urban Childhood: Liminality in Madeleine Thien’s Simple Recipes (Martina Horakova)
- The Politics of Memory and Longing in Kim Thúy’s Ru (Andreea Catrinela Lazăr)
- The Intriguing Liminality of Dying in Keefer’s “Going Over the Bars” (Vesna Lopičić)
- VII. Poetical Observations – Canada as Art
- The Trading Post: Betwixt Wilderness and Civilization (Claire E. Smerdon)
- Poems (George Elliott Clarke)
- Contributors
- Series Index
- Cover
- Title
- Copyright
- About the author
- About the book
- This eBook can be cited
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction: The Canadian Cultural Imaginary and Its Liminal Aesthetics (Stefan L. Brandt)
- I. Liminal Landscapes
- Tripping on the Threshold; Groping in the Dark (Aritha van Herk)
- II. Canadian ‘Thirdspace’ – Nation, Language, and Immigration
- Inhabiting Trishanku in Canada: Threshold Experience in the Oeuvre of M.G. Vassanji (Shilpa Daithota Bhat)
- ‘Exclaveness’ and Liminality: Materialities and Rhetorics of Place at the Canadian Border (Peter Goggin)
- Subversion and Self-Definition in Montréal Novels by Dany Laferrière and Rawi Hage (Derek C. Maus)
- III. Ambiguous Fictions – Liminality in the Canadian Novel
- “… beyond the invisible barrier at Portage and Main”: Liminality in John Marlyn’s Under the Ribs of Death (Bernhard Wenzl)
- “not quite human, not quite wolf, but something in between”: Liminal Spaces in Eden Robinson’s Monkey Beach (Patrizia Zanella)
- IV. Hyphenated Canada? Indigenous Voices and Hybrid Identities
- Painting (the) In-Between: Twentieth-Century Indigenous Border Art at Glacier/Waterton National Parks (Alexandra Ganser)
- Narrative Dynamics of Liminality in Naomi Fontaine’s Kuessipan (2011) (Jeanette den Toonder)
- Documenting Oral History and Lessons in Truth Telling in Nadia McLaren’s Muffins for Granny and Tim Wolochatiuk’s We Were Children (Sabrina Völz)
- V. Blurry Visions – Canadian Arts and Liminality
- Abstraction and Mysticism in Bertram Brooker’s Paintings and Novels (Katalin Kürtösi)
- Diane Schoemperlen’s By the Book: Stories and Pictures – Fragments in Contrapuntal Unity (Nikola Tutek)
- VI. Final Thresholds – Loss, Memory, and Dying
- The Melancholy of Urban Childhood: Liminality in Madeleine Thien’s Simple Recipes (Martina Horakova)
- The Politics of Memory and Longing in Kim Thúy’s Ru (Andreea Catrinela Lazăr)
- The Intriguing Liminality of Dying in Keefer’s “Going Over the Bars” (Vesna Lopičić)
- VII. Poetical Observations – Canada as Art
- The Trading Post: Betwixt Wilderness and Civilization (Claire E. Smerdon)
- Poems (George Elliott Clarke)
- Contributors
- Series Index
Abstraction and Mysticism in Bertram Brooker’s Paintings and Novels (Katalin Kürtösi)
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Extract
← 162 | 163 →
Katalin Kürtösi
Abstraction and Mysticism in Bertram Brooker’s Paintings and Novels
He had concerned himself too much with words—puzzling over them—wrestling with them—as Jacob did with the Angel—trying to wring their secret from them.
Bertram Brooker, Think of the Earth (1936), 283.
Abstract: The essay looks at the most productive decade of Bertram Brooker’s artistic activities highlighting the interplay between his determination to become a modernist artist in painting, his comments on the state of the arts in Canada and the frequent use of melodramatic elements in his fiction. This painter was the first in Canada to mount an exhibition of abstract pictures in January 1927. He had close connections with members of the Group of Seven and Brooker regularly published reviews and articles about exhibitions. In the early 1930s, his style in painting moved in the direction of (almost) photographic realism, and he started writing fiction. Think of the Earth (1936) won the very first Governor General’s Award.
Introduction
The Canadian Encyclopedia defines Bertram Brooker (1888–1955) as “artist, novelist, poet, journalist, advertising executive” who “became the first Canadian artist to exhibit abstracts in 1927” adding that “(a)s a novelist he won the first Governor General’s Award for fiction with Think of the Earth (1936).” On Wikipedia, he is introduced as “a Canadian writer, painter, musician, and advertising agency executive” (“Betram Brooker”), while The Art History...
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Or login to access all content.- Cover
- Title
- Copyright
- About the author
- About the book
- This eBook can be cited
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction: The Canadian Cultural Imaginary and Its Liminal Aesthetics (Stefan L. Brandt)
- I. Liminal Landscapes
- Tripping on the Threshold; Groping in the Dark (Aritha van Herk)
- II. Canadian ‘Thirdspace’ – Nation, Language, and Immigration
- Inhabiting Trishanku in Canada: Threshold Experience in the Oeuvre of M.G. Vassanji (Shilpa Daithota Bhat)
- ‘Exclaveness’ and Liminality: Materialities and Rhetorics of Place at the Canadian Border (Peter Goggin)
- Subversion and Self-Definition in Montréal Novels by Dany Laferrière and Rawi Hage (Derek C. Maus)
- III. Ambiguous Fictions – Liminality in the Canadian Novel
- “… beyond the invisible barrier at Portage and Main”: Liminality in John Marlyn’s Under the Ribs of Death (Bernhard Wenzl)
- “not quite human, not quite wolf, but something in between”: Liminal Spaces in Eden Robinson’s Monkey Beach (Patrizia Zanella)
- IV. Hyphenated Canada? Indigenous Voices and Hybrid Identities
- Painting (the) In-Between: Twentieth-Century Indigenous Border Art at Glacier/Waterton National Parks (Alexandra Ganser)
- Narrative Dynamics of Liminality in Naomi Fontaine’s Kuessipan (2011) (Jeanette den Toonder)
- Documenting Oral History and Lessons in Truth Telling in Nadia McLaren’s Muffins for Granny and Tim Wolochatiuk’s We Were Children (Sabrina Völz)
- V. Blurry Visions – Canadian Arts and Liminality
- Abstraction and Mysticism in Bertram Brooker’s Paintings and Novels (Katalin Kürtösi)
- Diane Schoemperlen’s By the Book: Stories and Pictures – Fragments in Contrapuntal Unity (Nikola Tutek)
- VI. Final Thresholds – Loss, Memory, and Dying
- The Melancholy of Urban Childhood: Liminality in Madeleine Thien’s Simple Recipes (Martina Horakova)
- The Politics of Memory and Longing in Kim Thúy’s Ru (Andreea Catrinela Lazăr)
- The Intriguing Liminality of Dying in Keefer’s “Going Over the Bars” (Vesna Lopičić)
- VII. Poetical Observations – Canada as Art
- The Trading Post: Betwixt Wilderness and Civilization (Claire E. Smerdon)
- Poems (George Elliott Clarke)
- Contributors
- Series Index
- Cover
- Title
- Copyright
- About the author
- About the book
- This eBook can be cited
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction: The Canadian Cultural Imaginary and Its Liminal Aesthetics (Stefan L. Brandt)
- I. Liminal Landscapes
- Tripping on the Threshold; Groping in the Dark (Aritha van Herk)
- II. Canadian ‘Thirdspace’ – Nation, Language, and Immigration
- Inhabiting Trishanku in Canada: Threshold Experience in the Oeuvre of M.G. Vassanji (Shilpa Daithota Bhat)
- ‘Exclaveness’ and Liminality: Materialities and Rhetorics of Place at the Canadian Border (Peter Goggin)
- Subversion and Self-Definition in Montréal Novels by Dany Laferrière and Rawi Hage (Derek C. Maus)
- III. Ambiguous Fictions – Liminality in the Canadian Novel
- “… beyond the invisible barrier at Portage and Main”: Liminality in John Marlyn’s Under the Ribs of Death (Bernhard Wenzl)
- “not quite human, not quite wolf, but something in between”: Liminal Spaces in Eden Robinson’s Monkey Beach (Patrizia Zanella)
- IV. Hyphenated Canada? Indigenous Voices and Hybrid Identities
- Painting (the) In-Between: Twentieth-Century Indigenous Border Art at Glacier/Waterton National Parks (Alexandra Ganser)
- Narrative Dynamics of Liminality in Naomi Fontaine’s Kuessipan (2011) (Jeanette den Toonder)
- Documenting Oral History and Lessons in Truth Telling in Nadia McLaren’s Muffins for Granny and Tim Wolochatiuk’s We Were Children (Sabrina Völz)
- V. Blurry Visions – Canadian Arts and Liminality
- Abstraction and Mysticism in Bertram Brooker’s Paintings and Novels (Katalin Kürtösi)
- Diane Schoemperlen’s By the Book: Stories and Pictures – Fragments in Contrapuntal Unity (Nikola Tutek)
- VI. Final Thresholds – Loss, Memory, and Dying
- The Melancholy of Urban Childhood: Liminality in Madeleine Thien’s Simple Recipes (Martina Horakova)
- The Politics of Memory and Longing in Kim Thúy’s Ru (Andreea Catrinela Lazăr)
- The Intriguing Liminality of Dying in Keefer’s “Going Over the Bars” (Vesna Lopičić)
- VII. Poetical Observations – Canada as Art
- The Trading Post: Betwixt Wilderness and Civilization (Claire E. Smerdon)
- Poems (George Elliott Clarke)
- Contributors
- Series Index