Free Movie Screening

Timothy Leduc, author of Climate, Culture, Change will be participating in an upcoming screening and discussion of the award-winning documentary Climate Refugees. The documentary takes a look at the people displaced by climatically induced environmental disasters: the products of climate change.

Experts predict that instances of extreme weather events such as hurricanes, cyclones, fires and flooding will increase dramatically in the coming years. As areas are hit with these disasters, people will be forced to leave their homes and seek asylum in other parts of the world. It is thought that border conflicts and potentially even wars will be fought over these issues. For the first time ever, climate change is being considered a national security risk.

To learn more about these issues, please attend the free screening of 'Climate Refugees' which will be held at the University of Toronto Campus in the the JJR Macleod Auditorium on Friday, April 29 at 6:30 PM.

The screening will be following by a panel discussion with Timothy Leduc, author of Climate, Culture, Change; Laura Westra, author of Globalization, Violence and World Governance; and Alfredo Barahona, Program Coordinator, Migrant and Indigenous Rights, KAIROS: Canadian Ecumenical Justice Initiatives, and Member of the World Council of Churches' Global Ecumenical Network on Migration.   

Watch the 'Climate Refugees' trailer here:

Glowing Review in Contemporary Women's Writing

Contemporary Women’s Writing has published a glowing review of Engendering Genre: The Works of Margaret Atwood by Reingard Nischik. The book, which was recently awarded the 2010 Best Book award by the Margaret Atwood Society, explores the use of gender and genre in Atwood’s writing. 

Nischik is a renowned Atwood scholar who has authored or edited more than 25 books. She is the Chair of North American Literature at the University of Constance, in Germany.

Here is an excerpt from the review:

Nischik offers a genuinely original take on established critical conversations about Atwood's writing. For the first time, Atwood's literary achievements are set alongside less familiar creative modes, providing a fuller picture of the author's creative history and offering fresh insight into her innovations across literary genres. Especially welcome is the reproduction of material from the Margaret Atwood Collection, housed at the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library at the University of Toronto, which offers a new picture of the author in progress; Nischik explores how Atwood's cartoons – in particular her Kanadian Kultchur Komix/Survivalwoman series – speak to some of the major concerns in her writing but also provide a glimpse of the author in irreverent, playful form.
                                                           -- Ellen McWilliams, Bath Spa University

If you would like to read the review in its entirety, it is available online at the following link: http://cww.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2011/03/11/cww.vpq019.full

To find out more about Engendering Genre, visit the UOP website.

Don’t miss out on these great April Fools jokes!

It’s April Fools day and the hunt is on for the day’s best internet prank. Here are a few that we’ve come across so far:

     - Huffington Post erects Paywall for NYTimes employees
     - GMAIL Motion BETA
     - Release of the Appwood
     - Scholarly Kitchen to Erect Pay Wall
     - (Font Nerds only) Google “Helvetica”
     - Hootsuite’s ‘Happy Owls’
     - Rebecca Black mania

And our personal favourite....

     - Harry Potter’s new TV show, The Aurors 

Which is your favourite? Have we missed any? Let us know! 

Celebrating Canadian Poetry

April is National Poetry Month, and what better way to celebrate than by curling up with the UOP’s new volume of poetry, coming out later this month.

Ricochet, by Seymour Mayne, is a collection of word sonnets – fourteen line poems with only one word per line. Though the poems are short and sweet, including a single sentence (sometimes two,) these sonnets create a world of meaning with their depth and complexity. Seymour Mayne is the author, editor or translator of more than fifty books including Les pluies de septembre (Éditions du Noroît, 2008), and Light Industry (Mosaic Press, 2000).

This bilingual edition includes a version of each poem in both French and English, which presented the additional challenge of translating the sonnets. The brave and capable translator is Sabine Huynh, a novelist, short story writer and a poet in her own right.

Here’s a look at the word sonnet Calendar and its translation. Enjoy!

Calendar

She
awoke
Monday,
it
was
April
on
the
calendar,
December
on
the
snowcovered
ground.

Le calendrier

Elle
se
réveilla
lundi,
le calendrier
indiquait
avril,
la
neige
recouvrant
le
sol,
décembre.

If you would like more information on Ricochet, check out the UOP website: http://www.press.uottawa.ca/book/ricochet

Great review in 'Journal of Popular Music Studies'

The Journal of Popular Music Studies has published a great review of Sonjah Stanley Niaah’s recent title DanceHall. The book examines the cultural significance of dancehall, a genre of popular Jamaican music. Stanley Niaah looks at the history of Dancehall music and offers the first in-depth look at the performance spaces, lifestyle and meanings that have come out of this art form.

The review is not available online, but here is some of what Stacy J. Lettman had to say:


Sonjah Stanley Niaah’s DanceHall: From Slave Ship to Ghetto offers a new approach to theorizing performance geography and presents a compelling body of research conducted over an eight-year period, from 1999 to 2007. As a theoretical framework, the book fuses together concepts from geography, sociology, and cultural studies as it explores the physical space of the dancehall, the types of events that are staged there, and the rituals that are maintained and that are linked to the experiences and practices of ghetto life—practices that can be traced back to the plantation and to the slave ship. The book offers an ambitious and exhaustive interdisciplinary study of dancehall’s performative spaces in Kingston and the wider Jamaica, spaces which are understood as not only local but also transnational, occupying/inhabiting intersecting spaces within the performative culture of the African diaspora. As the author notes, her work is a necessary intervention in a scholarly discourse that has tended to focus on dancehall’s “excesses and obsessions rather than sociocultural, spatial and historically contextualized readings” (xvi).

-- Stacy J. Lettman, Journal of Popular Music Studies

To find out more about the book, visit the UOP website: http://www.press.uottawa.ca/book/dancehall

Constance Backhouse, lauréate de la médaille David Walter Mundell 2010

Félicitations à Constance Backhouse, auteure du livre De la couleur des lois, qui a été choisie comme lauréate de la médaille David Walter Mundell pour l’année 2010. Le prix rend hommage à ceux et celles qui ont fait une contribution distinguée au droit et aux lettres.

La professeure Backhouse est une spécialiste réputée de droit au Canada qui se concentre particulièrement aux inégalités systémiques. De la couleur des lois expose la discrimination raciale du système judiciaire au Canada entre 1900 et 1950.

De la couleur des lois est la traduction française de Colour-Coded: A Legal History of Racism in Canada (University of Toronto Press, 1999), qui a été gagnant du prix Joseph Brant en 2002.

Pour en lire plus au sujet du prix, veuillez cliquer le lien suivant :
http://www.commonlaw.uottawa.ca/index.php?option=com_content&Itemid=111&id=5579&task=view&lang=fr

Pour commander le livre, visitez: http://www.presses.uottawa.ca/book/de-la-couleur-des-lois

Un dictionnaire à la hauteur des auteurs franco-ontariens

Voici une critique du Dictionnaire des écrits de l'Ontario français qui viens d'être publier dans le journal Le Goût de vivre.

Bonne lecture!

Open publication - Free publishing - More article

Book launch for Climate, Culture, Change

The book launch for Climate, Culture, Change: Inuit and Western Dialogues with a Warming North will be held this Thursday, March 3, 2011. The launch will be hosted by the Iris Speaker Series at York University in HNES 140 from 3:30 – 4:30pm.

In Climate, Culture, Change, author Timothy Leduc works to integrate the Inuit experience of climate change with western climate research. Considering alternative ways of thinking about climate change, Leduc sidelines the common debates on the validity of climate science and the economic viability of responding to climate change. Instead, he approaches current issues such as polar bear decline from both an Inuit and western viewpoint to create a more organic understanding of what is happening in the north.

For more information about the launch, visit the following link:
http://www.irisyorku.ca/irisyorku.ca/iris-speaker-series-presents-book-launch-climate-culture-change-western-and-inuit-dialogues-with-a-warming-north-by-timothy-b-leduc/

Association of American Publishers Announces 2010 PROSE Award Winners: University of Ottawa Press receives honourable mention for ‘My Life’

The Professional and Scholarly Publishing (PSP) Division of the Association of American Publishers recently announced the winners of the 2010 American Publishers Awards for the Professional and Scholarly Excellence (The PROSE Awards). Among the laureates was an honourable mention for the University of Ottawa Press in the ‘Biography & Autobiography’ category for its recent publication ‘My Life,’ the memoirs of Sofia Andreevna Tolstaya.

More than 45 awards were presented February 3, 2011 at the PSP Annual Conference in Washington, DC. Winners included Elsevier, American Psychological Association, Oxford University Press, John Wiley & Sons, University of Texas Press, Getty Publications and American Chemical Society.

A full list of winners can be found at the following link: http://www.proseawards.com/current-winners.html

The Association of American Publishers is the national trade association of the U.S. publishing industry. AAP’s members include most of the major commercial publishers in the U.S., as well as smaller and non-profit publishers, university presses and scholarly societies. The 2010 PROSE Awards received a record-breaking 491 entries from over 60 publishers across the country.

Une ancienne de l’Université d’Ottawa partage son expérience personnelle de l’Holocauste

Il y a soixante-dix ans, Truda Rosenberg, alors âgée de 19 ans, entreprend sa première année universitaire à Lwòw, sa ville natale de Pologne. Elle est fiancée à un homme qu’elle a rencontré au cours de son emploi à temps partiel.

Au mois de juin 1941, les nazis arrivent. À partir de ce moment, la jeune femme commence à lutter simplement pour survivre.

Aujourd’hui, Dr Rosenberg est une psychologue réputée et une figure de proue au sein de la communauté juive. Le 28 février, cette ancienne de l’Université d’Ottawa célébrera la traduction de ses mémoires sur la période de la guerre, qui viennent tout juste de paraître en français.

Dans son livre intitulé Sans masque, Dr Rosenberg décrit les horreurs qu’elle a vécues pendant l’Holocauste et les moyens qu’elle a pris pour survivre. Elle a notamment utilisé une série de fausses identités pour cacher ses origines juives, ce qui n’a pas empêché les nazis de la mettre à bord d’un train en direction de Belzec, camp de la mort où 500 000 Juifs ont été massacrés. Truda Rosenberg a aussi été emprisonnée dans un camp de travail et vendue comme esclave à un officier allemand. Tous les membres de sa famille immédiate ont péri. C’est la « profonde conviction selon laquelle tout le monde a le droit et le devoir de veiller à la survie de son esprit, de son corps et de son âme » qui lui a permis de surmonter toutes ces épreuves.

Même si pour la plupart d’entre nous, ses expériences semblent impossibles à comprendre, Dr Rosenberg rappelle qu’elle ne fut qu’une victime parmi tant d’autres Juifs ayant souffert les pires outrances aux mains des nazis. Elle écrit : « à aucun moment, ni dans le passé, ni maintenant, je n’ai qualifié mes expériences d’uniques. Leur existence est un fait et je les présente ici comme le témoignage d’un témoin direct, une version de ce que beaucoup d’entre nous ont connu sur une base quotidienne. »

Dr Rosenberg livre un précieux témoignage sur l’adversité et la cruauté humaine que des millions de Juifs ont endurées pendant la Deuxième Guerre mondiale. Son histoire dépeint la résistance de l’esprit humain ainsi que notre capacité de nous adapter aux pires circonstances. Son récit de la guerre pousse le lecteur à réfléchir aux gestes de bonté et de cruauté commis des deux côtés et à faire face à notre humanité intrinsèque.

« La guerre oblige tout le monde à faire des compromis moraux, affirme Truda Rosenberg. Vous n’avez pas toujours le temps de soupeser les conséquences et souvent, vous devez agir pour ne pas mourir. Ce n’est que plus tard, si vous survivez, que vous avez l’occasion de réfléchir à vos gestes et, bien sûr, vous traînez un sentiment de culpabilité vis-à-vis des personnes que vous avez dû abandonner. La tristesse qui nous envahit lorsque nous songeons à ceux qui n’ont pas survécu est compensée seulement par les grandes réalisations accomplies, souvent en leur nom, par les survivants. »

Sans masque a été traduit de l’anglais original par Christine Klein-Lataud et publié par les Presses de l’Université d’Ottawa.

Le lancement de Sans masque aura lieu le lundi 28 février 2011 au pavillon Desmarais, salle 12102. Pour obtenir plus d’information, ou pour faire une réservation, visitez le site : http://www.sciencessociales.uottawa.ca/rsvp/fra/

Faculty Author Week at the uOttawa Bookstore

It's Faculty Author Week at the University of Ottawa Bookstore!

For those of you who've been curious about what your professors are up to in their spare time, head to the bookstore this Thursday between 2 and 6pm. You'll be able to snack, chat and browse the stacks while you're at it!

Featured authors include: Damien-Claude Bélanger, Nathalie Bélanger, Lise Boily, Marcel Chartrand, Béatrice Craig, Gordon Digiacomo, Liliane Dionne, Andrew Donskov, David Dyment, Pascale Fournier, William Leiss, Errol Mendes, and Christian Milat.

La Librairie de l’Université d’Ottawa vous invite à célébrer la Semaine des publications professorales du 7 au 11 février 2011, venez rencontrer nos professeurs auteurs lors d’une réception le jeudi 10 février, de 14 h à 18 h. Des rafraîchissements seront servis.

Dancehall: the Carribean book launch

Great news for all those of you who have been looking for a reason to head for warmer climes – as if the weather this week wasn’t enough!

The University of the West Indies' Institute of Caribbean Studies and the UOP invite one and all to attend the launch of DanceHall: From Slave Ship to Ghetto by Dr. Sonjah Stanley Niaah. You’ll likely need a plane to get there, but who can say no to a Jamaican vacation?

Stanley Niaah’s book is the first to document the cultural significance of dancehall, a genre of popular Jamaican music that combines reggae, digital instrumentation and rapid-fire DJ lyrics. Dancehall music came into vogue in Jamaica during the 1980s, and its popularity continues to grow around the world. In DanceHall, Stanley Niaah examines over 400 years of Black Atlantic performance history through the eyes of a native Jamaican, and links it to other genres of music including as American blues, South African kwaito, and Latin American reggaetòn.

The launch will certainly be one for the books (if you’ll forgive the pun,) and will feature conversations with Professors Brian Meeks and Wilma Bailey as well as Jerome Hamilton, the Executive Director at Headline Entertainment, and the beautiful and talented Nadine Sutherland, Recording Artist. As an extra treat, the after party will include a performance by Stone Love, one of the veteran sound systems featured in the book, as well as some other surprises.

Monday, January 31, 2011

Rex Nettleford Hall, Multipurpose Room

University of West Indies, Mona Campus

6:00pm

To help you all get in the right frame of mind for this groundbreaking launch, check out one of Sonjah Stanley Niaah’s favourite dancehall songs:

Interview with Reingard Nischik, winner of 2010 Margaret Atwood Society 'Best Book' Award

On the publication of Reingard M. Nischik's latest book Engendering Genre: The Works of Margaret Atwood, Hildegard Nagler conducted an interview with the scholar. The interview was first published in German. With the kind consent of the journalist, the interview is here published for the first time in an English translation. Translation by Christina Duck Kannenberg and Emily Petermann. Since the time of the interview, the book has been honoured with the 2010 Best Book Award by the Margaret Atwood Society.

To find out more on Engendering Genre  visit the following link: http://www.press.uottawa.ca/book/engendering-genre

===

Professor Reingard M. Nischik is considered a renowned, internationally leading specialist on Margaret Atwood. The Professor of North American Studies at the University of Constance in Germany already dealt with the world-famous Canadian author in her literary theoretically oriented post-doctoral thesis of 1991, and she has now published her second monograph (after editing two article collections) on Atwood.

HN: Professor Nischik, what fascinates you about Margaret Atwood?

RN: Her impressive intellectuality and imaginative power, her immense writing talent, her strong visionary power, her unbelievable productivity and diversity, her wide-reaching knowledge as well as her humour and her ready wit; furthermore, that she is also engaged beyond writing in diverse political and humanitarian projects, often in the public eye but also behind the scenes. As I can say from my own experience during personal meetings over the years, Margaret Atwood has remained a kind, accessible, and sensitive person despite her great success and the international hype surrounding her.

HN: How would you characterize the writer in five sentences?

RN: Atwood has been the leading Canadian writer for the past four decades. She is perhaps the most diversely talented contemporary writer overall (including male writers). Her literary œuvre, which is difficult to match in its literary quality, its genre variety, and its breadth, is supplemented by her numerous personal appearances (book tours, interviews, speeches, and television appearances), with which Atwood has, since the 1960s, not only definitively put Canada on the international literary map, but which have moreover made her, with her political and social consciousness, one of the most important chroniclers and critics of contemporary western culture. Her international impact is not only due to her literary skill, but is also supported by her media-friendly, charismatic personality, which captivates thousands of listeners at readings in, say, London or New York. Atwood has also always gotten involved on behalf of those who are socially and politically weaker, whether it be – especially in earlier decades – women, politically persecuted authors, or her own country, especially in relation to the politically and economically overly powerful neighbour, the United States.

HN: Do you still remember the day on which you heard of or read Margaret Atwood for the first time?

RN: I can still remember my reaction as a young doctoral student when I read my first Atwood text. It was her second novel, Surfacing (1972). This novel fascinated me immediately in relation to its thematic complexity and force of expression, as well as with regard to its grandiose language style (which here is idiosyncratically based on the protagonist’s characteristics). Atwood has been my favourite writer since I first read her work at the end of the 1970s, and I have never lost sight of her work.

HN: What was your first contact with the successful author like?

RN: In the situation itself I thought the first contact was actually relatively “normal,” as it was very task-oriented. In hindsight, this was one of the so-called mythical moments of my life. For five years I was the chair person of the English-Canadian Literature and Language Section of the Association for Canadian Studies in German-Speaking Countries. In this role back then I tried to convince Atwood to be the keynote speaker at the Association's annual conference in Grainau in the Bavarian Alps. This was in the pre-e-mail era and when a fax machine was still something unusual. We initially corresponded with each other by letter, which, however, led to week-long delays. At the time, Atwood was in the Provence [in France] writing for several months, and the travel agency there could not locate Grainau, the village at the base of the Zugspitz mountain (which today, by the way, has a legendary reputation in international Canadian studies). One afternoon while I was working at home, my telephone rang: “Hi, this is Margaret Atwood.”

We then talked for about 20 minutes and clicked right away. At the conference in Grainau in 1992 she presented a then still unpublished short story, which she had previously asked me to translate into German (“The Little Red Hen Tells All” from Good Bones) – with overwhelming success. I had never experienced such an electrified audience and people still address me about this event today. Atwood and I then spent the two conference days and evenings together – our long acquaintance is thus based on this first personal contact, which then through occasional written correspondence and various personal meetings in Germany, Canada, and the USA has been maintained to this day.

HN: You speak of Margaret Atwood's “unusual productivity.” You yourself have already published four books about the writer. Are there parallels between you?

RN: Atwood is unique. But I'll take up your question playfully. Of my to date twenty-six books there are in fact four dedicated to Margaret Atwood, though in very different ways. One parallel that could be named, then, is the passion for writing about fascinating topics. As Atwood herself once commented on text-creating productivity, including her own: “What drives them to it? Why this boundless outflowing of words? Is writing … − being speech in visual form − … simply a manifestation of being human?”

HN: You were even awarded with the Best Book Award of the Margaret Atwood Society. Is there any room for further development?

RN: Oh yes. For example: this prize is given out for each publication year, thus one can win more than once. I would be glad if my latest monograph (Engendering Genre: The Works of Margaret Atwood, Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 2009) could capture this prize once again. But in 2009 alone five books were published on Atwood internationally. Far more important to me would be for Atwood to finally be awarded the Nobel prize. She was several times close to it. I would be very happy about it, because I am deeply convinced that she has unequivocally earned this prominent award (much more than some previous winners, by the way). I see my own work in research and teaching and also in organizational matters in connection with Atwood as my very small contribution which is also meant to serve this higher goal.

HN: Your main interest is with the innovative way in which gender and genre connect and cross-pollinate each other in Atwood's oeuvre. Why?

RN: In my articles and books I have already dealt with diverse aspects of Atwood's multifaceted oeuvre. I tackled the connection between genre and gender questions because I noticed over the years that they are especially significant in Atwood's work as well as being theoretically and analytically challenging, and because this aspect had not yet been specifically examined by scholars. At the same time, I also covered several of the numerous genres treated by Atwood for the first time in a detailed and thorough way, such as Atwood's work and experience with film and film adaptations, her impressive collection of essays, or her funny and at the same time profound comics.

HN: Are there genres that Margaret Atwood has not yet dealt with?

RN: Even in the wider literary context regarding the main genres, nothing comes to mind at the spur of the moment – which again confirms the wide-ranging creativity of this writer. Atwood has, though, more prominent and less prominent genres: she is primarily a poet and fiction writer (novel, short story) and can, for example, not really be called a dramatist – her recently published first drama is a dramatization of one of her own narratives, which itself is difficult to categorize generically (The Penelopiad, 2005).

HN: Which is your favourite of Margaret Atwood's works and why?

RN: That is a very difficult question for me. I am especially fascinated by several of her poems and prose poems, some of her short stories, and several of her novels. But again I don't want to be a spoilsport, so I will now choose her historical novel Alias Grace (1996). I would argue that only a literary genius could write such a text.

The way Canadian history and aspects of general historiography mesh here with Atwoodian narrative art cannot be surpassed. As a scholar interested in narratology, it fascinates me how the reader is shown – seemingly in passing, while under a spell by the plot – how we use narration to construct our world and to some extent that of others as well. The title character Grace Marks is able to save her freedom, if not her life, through her highly intelligent storytelling. In this novel Atwood arrestingly demonstrates the power of words and of imagination. Aside from everything else, this novel is also an overwhelming love story – although it remains unspoken between the characters (and as usual for Atwood, without a happy ending). I can imagine that this novel will one day be required reading for, amongst others, prospective psychoanalysts.

HN: Let’s assume that Margaret Atwood would ask you for a subject for her next book. What would you answer her?

RN: Atwood does not even talk about the projects that she is currently working on, so this question about earlier stages is of course totally unrealistic. But your question is also provocative. Now, after Atwood has dealt with globally essential questions about the course of the world in her dystopias, I would find it interesting to see how she would grapple with topics of less cosmic dimensions, for example the microcosm of the university. This idea is, however, so far-fetched in relation to Atwood's constellation of interests that it would never come about. It is probably better that way, as such a text would certainly be a biting satire. On the other hand, Atwood has an unusual talent for expressing criticism in such a rhetorically attractive way that one does not get offended but rather one can often even be amused about it. She has, for example, an ambivalent, partially very negative image of the USA – but American readers still love her. Even more interesting from my perspective would be a North American or continental American novel, which would deal with, among other things, the current relationship between Canada and the USA. After Atwood's “(inter)national” phase up to the end of the 1980s, in which this relationship was often part of the Canadian search for identity, and her “postnational” phase starting at the beginning of the 1990s, it would be interesting to see how she would depict this exciting but also tense relationship between the neighbours USA and Canada today. But Atwood will go for other topics – she surprises us with each book anew.

HN: Margaret Atwood has been repeatedly considered a candidate for the Nobel Prize. Do you believe that she will receive this award one day? And do you believe that the Nobel Prize would be personally important to Margaret Atwood?

RN: The awarding of prizes is not always justly done, nor is it always unjust. I have believed since the end of the 1970s that one day Atwood will win this prize. In 109 years of the existence of the Nobel Prize (since 1901), not one Canadian writer has received this highest of literary prizes, which in the meantime is really a literary scandal. Even more scandalous is the fact that until now only 11% of all Nobel Prizes in literature have been given to female writers (among 106 Nobel Prize winners there have only been 12 women), although writing is definitely an area in which women are in no way inferior to men (except in prize-winning). In this alone one can see that the awarding of the Nobel Prize is not impartial. I greatly wish that literary quality will prevail and Margaret Atwood will one day win the Nobel Prize: for Canadian literature as a whole, which has also long deserved the recognition of the Nobel Prize committee, but moreover for her own literary achievements, which are Nobel-worthy. I believe that Margaret herself sees this prize with mixed feelings, as even now the hype surrounding her has become ever more difficult to control, and as is well known, one also needs peace and quiet to write. She once said to me: “I do not write to get prizes. One should not write to get prizes.” Perhaps the Nobel Prize would be still more important for a further academic-institutional recognition of Canadian literature as a whole (especially outside of Canada) than for Atwood herself – as she unquestionably already occupies a position at the literary zenith.

Reingard Nischik Wins Margaret Atwood Society ‘Best Book’ Award For Second Time

Today, the Margaret Atwood Society announced the winners of the prestigious Margaret Atwood Society Awards. Among them was Engendering Genre: The Works of Margaret Atwood by UOP author Reingard Nischik.
     
The Best Book Award is conferred each year by the Margaret Atwood Society, an international association of scholars, teachers, and students who are devoted to the Canadian icon’s work. Five awards are given to authors in the categories of best book, best article, best dissertation, best graduate essay and best undergraduate essay. The society’s goal is to promote scholarly exchange on Atwood’s oeuvre by providing opportunities for scholars to exchange information.

Engendering Genre explores how Atwood has developed her writing to be gender-sensitive, and argues that her use of gender and genre emphasizes the gender-bias inherent in traditional genres. The book also includes the first in-depth treatment of Atwood’s cartoon art, as well as an interview with the Canadian icon.

“We were thrilled to hear of the society’s choice” said Michael O’Hearn, Director of the University of Ottawa Press. “It is wonderful to see Reingard recognized for her outstanding work.”

Reviewers have had nothing but good things to say:

"Offering interpretations of some of Atwood's best-known and less-familiar works, Nischik has written chapters that are individually strong but which together provide a way to read Atwood's oeuvre as a 'significant cultural document of our times.' Highly recommended."
-- Choice

"Nischik's strength is in the minutiae and in her close reading. This is what Atwood scholarship needs now, and Nischik provides a strong framework for anyone interested in Atwood scholarship, whether one is just starting out or an experienced scholar." -- The Goose

Congratulations, Reingard!!


To find out more about Engendering Genre, or to buy a copy of your very own, visit: http://www.press.uottawa.ca/book/engendering-genre

Le VocabulAIDE: Influences de l’anglais – vraies et prétendues – et usages en transition

Un recensement du VocabulAIDE, le dictionnaire d’anglicismes rédigé par Pierre Cardinal, vient de paraître dans la revue de l’ordre des enseignantes et enseignants de l’Ontario. Pour parler profession recense des ressources utiles pour les professeurs.

Ce qu’ils ont à dire :

Tous ceux qui s’intéressent à la linguistique et à l’évolution des langues devraient feuilleter ce livre… Ce guide vous permettra de vous pencher de plus près sur votre propre usage du français et d’évaluer comment il est influencé par l’anglais. Le guide offre des solutions de rechange aux anglicismes et vous incitera à enrichir votre vocabulaire français. Pour certains, cet ouvrage semblera donner une trop grande place aux emprunts de l’anglais. Mais que vous soyez puriste ou non, ce livre prouvera, d’une façon ou d’une autre, que le français est une langue vivante et en pleine évolution dans notre culture globale. »

Pour lire le recensement au complet, cliquer le lien suivant:
http://pourparlerprofession.oeeo.ca/decembre_2010/resources/reviews.aspx#vocabulaide

Pour en savoir plus sur Le VocabulAIDE, rendez-vous au site web des presses ici:
http://www.presses.uottawa.ca/book/le-vocabulaide

Interview with Author Timothy Leduc

Q: You write that research on climate change should “accept indigenous knowledge as a … source that complements science.” What do you mean by this?

The individual who most influenced my sense of Inuit understandings was Jaypeetee Arnakak. In one of our early conversations, he asked me why I and other Western climate researchers rarely ask Inuit questions about the role of wisdom in an environmental response. He saw this as part of a general tendency in Western research that tends to focus on Indigenous ecological knowledge while marginalizing cultural and spiritual understandings. Indigenous knowledge becomes an object or resource to be used rather than a complementary set of understandings that can broaden our sense of climate change.

Q: You suggest that politicians’ tendency to ‘economize’ the effects of climate change is problematic. Why is that?

It is not that economizing in itself is wrong, but that it is often defined primarily in relation to sustaining unending economic growth. On top of that, this view holds too much un-balanced power. As soon as any scientific research, cultural understanding or religious worldview conflicts with it, these perspectives become marginalized from the corridors of power. This economizing tendency is a pervasive cultural and religious belief that fuels climate change. It is what underlies the continued denial of climate change research and political statements like this one by Prime Minister Harper on the Alberta tar sands: “Digging the bitumen out of the ground, squeezing out the oil and converting it in into synthetic crude is… an enterprise of epic proportions, akin to the building of the pyramids or China’s Great Wall. Only bigger.”

Q: What do you think are some of the most important stories on climate change not being covered by the media?

I sit down in front of the TV and hear a story about climate change, and then another about the tar sands. Despite being intertwined, they are rarely discussed together. The BP oil spill is another example of this disconnect. While there were questions of ecological degradation, it was rarely discussed in relation to the need to shift from fossil fuels in a context of climate change. Whether it is the BP oil spill or tar sands, the dominant media stories focus on how to continue extracting all the resources we can while limiting the harm to the environment. These story-lines reflect the economizing cultural tendency discussed above, and I do not think the disconnection of climate and oil in the popular consciousness is sustainable.

Q: How would you rate the environmental policies of the current Canadian government?

Our government and Prime Minister Harper are, I believe, caricatures of a culture that is in denial of our situation and refuses to change. They seem rational and secular, but are in fact religious fundamentalists who hold sacred and unquestionable an oil-based approach to economic growth. That said, the Conservatives have won two minority governments and despite their questionable environmental positions are still performing well enough in the national polls to maintain power. Canadians are very much a part of the uncertain future that is being imposed on not only the north, but also our children and grandchildren. Climate change is a cultural problem that the Conservative government symbolizes in extreme form, as did American President G. W. Bush and his Republican administration.

Q: How do you envision Canada moving forward to tackle climate change?

Obviously a change in government would be one step forward, but I do not believe that in itself will solve our problem. The issue goes far beyond political parties, for it is grounded in cultural beliefs like never-ending economic growth and the power of technology to solve any crisis. These issues pervade most aspects of all our lives. It is for this reason that I agree with the late John Livingston’s statement that “there can be no technical answer to a moral problem.” There are no band-aid solutions to the climatic situation we find ourselves in.

To find out more about Leduc's new book Climate, Culture, Change visit: http://www.press.uottawa.ca/book/climate-culture-change

To read the interview in full, visit climateculturechange.wordpress.com

Engendering Genre: The Works of Margaret Atwood

The online journal The Goose has published a review of Engendering Genre: The Works of Margaret Atwood by Reingard M. Nischik, which was published by the UOP in early 2010.

This interesting volume studies the relationship between gender and genre in Margaret Atwood’s writing, and includes an intriguing look at some of her cartoon art - some of which is reprinted in the book. It also includes a lighthearted interview with the great Canadian author, titled “From Survivalwoman to Literary Icon” whose topics range from Atwood's beginnings as a cartoonist, to her many pseudonyms, to ways of outfoxing troublesome squirrels.

Nischik is a renowned Atwood scholar, who has authored or edited more than 25 books. She is the Chair of North American Literature at the University of Constance, in Germany. 

This is some of what Jill E. Anderson, from The Goose, had to say:

"The range and depth of Margaret Atwood's literary and artistic work deserves a thorough study such as Reingard Nischik's. Covering the thematic and generic assortment of Atwood's work, Nischik lays before readers the spread of Atwood's talent from her first poetry collection, Double Persephone, published in 1961, through Atwood's poetry, novels, short stories and essays, film adaptations (both aborted and produced), criticism, illustrations, and cartoons. [...] Nischik is  not intimidated by the hugeness and range of Atwood's oeuvre, and she shows her strength particularly in discussing the visual aspects of Atwood's work."

To read the entire review, visit The Goose online at:
http://www.alecc.ca/goose.php

You will find the review at the bottom of page 49.