What Makes Canada’s Literature “Canadian”?

What makes a piece of literature “Canadian”? Is a piece of writing considered “Canadian” if it takes place in Canada? If the author is a citizen? If it’s the author’s birth place? This question has been long debated amongst Canadian Studies scholars and may never have a conclusive answer. Over the years, the International Journal of Canadian Studies and the Journal of Canadian Studies have both been sources that have facilitated the research of Canada’s literature by scholars, both domestic and abroad. The articles below reflect all the fascinating discoveries and discussions that have taken place over the years and that have expanded the definition of what defines a piece of writing as “Canadian”.

International Journal of Canadian Studies

Kuttainen, Victoria. “Trafficking Literature: Travel, Modernity, and the Middle Ground of Canadian and Australian Middlebrow Print Cultures 1.” International Journal of Canadian Studies 48 (2014): 85-103. Web.

Lang, Anouk. “Canadian Magazines and Their Spatial Contexts: Digital Possibilities and Practical Realities.” International Journal of Canadian Studies 48 (2014): 213-32. Web.

Morgan, Cecilia. ““A Sweet Canadian Girl”: English-Canadian Actresses’ Transatlantic and Transnational Careers through the Lenses of Canadian Magazines, 1890s–1940s.” International Journal of Canadian Studies 48 (2014): 119-35. Web.

Roberts, Gillian. “The Book of Negroes ’ Illustrated Edition: Circulating African-Canadian History through the Middlebrow.” International Journal of Canadian Studies 48 (2014): 53-66. Web.

Roy, Wendy. “Home as Middle Ground in Adaptations of Anne of Green Gables and Jalna.” International Journal of Canadian Studies 48 (2014): 9-31. Web.

Vautier, Marie. “Hemispheric Travel from Europe to Las Américas : The Imaginary and the Novel in Québec and Canada.” International Journal of Canadian Studies 48 (2014): 191-212. Web.

Journal of Canadian Studies

Camlot, Jason. “The Sound of Canadian Modernisms: The Sir George Williams University Poetry Series, 1966-74.” Journal of Canadian Studies/Revue d’études canadiennes 46.3 (2012): 28-59. Project MUSE. Web.

Davis, Laura K. “Hockey in the Canadian Imagination: Three Books on Hockey in Literature, Culture, and History.” Journal of Canadian Studies/Revue d’études canadiennes 46.1 (2012): 241-250. Project MUSE. Web.

Davis, Rocío G. “Locating Family: Asian-Canadian Historical Revisioning in Linda Ohama’s Obaachan’s Garden and Ann Marie Fleming’s The Magical Life of Long Tack Sam.” Journal of Canadian Studies/Revue d’études canadiennes 42.1 (2008): 1-22. Project MUSE. Web.

Fiamengo, Janice. “Looking at Animals, Encountering Mystery: The Wild Animal Stories of Ernest Thompson Seton and Charles G.D. Roberts.” Journal of Canadian Studies/Revue d’études canadiennes 44.1 (2010): 36-59. Project MUSE. Web.

Fuller, Danielle. and DeNel Rehberg Sedo. “A Reading Spectacle for the Nation: The CBC and “Canada Reads”. Journal of Canadian Studies/Revue d’études canadiennes 40.1 (2006): 5-36. Project MUSE. Web.

Garay, Kathleen E. and Christl Verduyn. “”Turning the Knobs on Writers’ Closets”: Archives and Canadian Literature in the 21st Century.” Journal of Canadian Studies/Revue d’études canadiennes 40.2 (2006): 5-17. Project MUSE. Web.

Lecker, Robert. “Nineteenth-Century English-Canadian Anthologies and the Making of a National Literature.” Journal of Canadian Studies/Revue d’études canadiennes 44.1 (2010): 91-117. Project MUSE. Web.

Robbins, Wendy. and Robin Sutherland. and Shao-Pin Luo. “Searching for Our Alma Maters: Women Professors in Canadian Fiction Written by Women.” Journal of Canadian Studies/Revue d’études canadiennes 42.2 (2008): 43-72. Project MUSE. Web.