French

Novelist Kevin Lambert seeks to understand his northern Quebec roots

Christopher.Sorensen — Mon, 08 May 2023 21:11:52 +0000

Novelist Kevin Lambert seeks to understand his northern Quebec roots

Christopher.Sorensen Mon, 05/08/2023 - 17:11

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Kevin Lambert, a post-doctoral researcher in the department of French, is fascinated with northern Quebec literary narratives – from colonialism to the contemporary (photo courtesy of Kevin Lambert)

Sean McNeely

Topic

Our Community

French

Faculty of Arts & Science

Quebec

Kevin Lambert is hoping to uncover the narrative of his northern Quebec heritage that dates back to the early days of colonialism.

Originally from the Chicoutimi borough of Saguenay, Que., Lambert is an award-winning novelist who turned to books growing up as a way to escape his feelings of isolation in an insular community.

“Everything that was different from the norm was bad,” says Lambert, who joined the ��Ƶ’s department of French, in the Faculty of Arts & Science, earlier this year as a postdoctoral researcher.

“I never played hockey, but I know that in the change rooms homophobic jokes were commonplace. It was difficult to have relationships with other people, so, I preferred to live in books.”

You Will Love What You Have Killed was Kevin
Lambert’s first novel

As his love of books grew, Lambert shifted from reader to writer. His widely acclaimed first novel, You Will Love What You Have Killed, was a finalist for Quebec’s Booksellers’ Prize.

But he’s most noted for his second novel, Querelle of Roberval, which won the Prix Ringuet in 2019 and was shortlisted for the Atwood Gibson Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize last year.

The book’s plot follows a millworkers' strike in the northern lumber town of Roberval. As the strike drags on, tensions escalate between the workers. When a lockout renews their resolve, they rally around the magnetic charisma of Querelle, a charming newcomer from Montreal. By day, he protests and walks the picket lines. At night, he transforms, welcoming young men who flock to his apartment for sexual liaisons. As the dispute becomes more intense, and both sides refuse to yield, class struggles and entitlement ignite in a firestorm of passion that’s both sensual and violent.

“The story shines a spotlight on social and political tensions of life in this remote Quebec company town and the challenges related to sex, lust, loneliness and gay relationships in a remote setting,” Lambert says.

“It’s about the different political relationships between working class people and industry. But I also talk about the relationship between industry and colonial history, because there was a lot of wood cutting in this area – and with that big companies were active in polluting Indigenous territories.”

It’s these themes of clashing groups and colonial history that Lambert seeks to build upon in his research, which will continue at the Université du Québec à Chicoutimi next year.

Part-writer, part-historian, Lambert is fascinated with the narrative surrounding colonialist attitudes in the late 1800s.

“How did colonialism explain or justify itself?” he says. “What language and stories were the government and media using at that time, what type of narrative was being shared to justify Quebec’s transformation to a colonial settlement?

“To send the settlers to steal lands from Indigenous Peoples, you have to have strong storytelling [and] you have to have a strong fantasy of what you are doing to convince people to do it.”

Kevin Lambert’s second novel, Querelle of
Roberval, won the Prix Ringuet in 2019

What makes this field of research so compelling for Lambert is the feeling that he’s covering new ground.

“In French literature, it's a field that is not very much explored,” he says. “Most post-colonial studies have first come in English. Often, we study history in a more nationalistic way. Those subjects have been talked about in Quebec's history, but in a very broad way. What I want to do is work in a small area. It's also a process about my own story because it’s where I come from.”

Capturing that story means understanding multiple perspectives.

“My goal is to deconstruct the main settlers’ narrative, so I need other points of view – for example, women who wrote about their experience during that time and LGBTQ people can bring elements of criticism to this story, because the main narrative is a nationalist heroic view with only male figures.”

Eager to dive into historical archives, journals, memoirs and photos, Lambert also intends to explore how these narratives continue to circulate in contemporary Quebec literature.

“I want to see if writers who come from there nowadays carry the same narratives or do they bring other points of view? Do they criticize this narrative in their novels or in their plays? What point of view do Indigenous writers bring, because it's only recently that we have novels written by Indigenous Peoples from this region.”

He’s equally curious to learn more about what he calls, “the queer dimension that appears in the gendered analysis of colonial structures.”

“White colonization is often presented as the logical outcome of male domination – that of ‘pioneers’ over the territory, women and Indigenous Peoples,” Lambert says.

The stereotypical image of a colonial settler family is always presented as heterosexual and patriarchal, he adds, noting that this picture of the family also includes the mistreatment of women, homophobic fear and an aversion to the unions of white and Indigenous Peoples.

“It’s these other narratives, historical and discursive elements summoning sex and gender dynamics that remain to be interpreted.”

Literature, politics, art: How an early French-Canadian magazine helped shape literary culture

Christopher.Sorensen — Wed, 08 Dec 2021 04:04:36 +0000

Literature, politics, art: How an early French-Canadian magazine helped shape literary culture

Christopher.Sorensen Tue, 12/07/2021 - 23:04

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La Revue moderne was a general-interest monthly magazine that targeted a mainly a female audience and became French Châtelaine after it was purchased by Maclean-Hunter (images supplied by Adrien Rannaud)

Topic

In his new book, La révolution du magazine au Québec, the ��Ƶ’s Adrien Rannaud demonstrates how one of Quebec’s first magazines reflected and advanced literature and culture from 1919 to 1960 – and how its impact is still evident today.

Adrien Rannaud (photo by Atwood Photographie)

“This publication, called La Revue moderne, was an ideal starting point for examining the ways that magazines can shape literature,” says Rannaud, an assistant professor of French Studies at U of T Mississauga’s department of language studies.

His research focuses on 19th- and 20th-century Quebec literature, women’s writing, celebrit

y culture and middlebrow literary culture. In all of these areas, he says, studying magazines can be illuminating.

The book’s title refers to how the advent of magazines in the 20th century revolutionized print media.

“Unlike newspapers, magazines were freed from the pressure of reporting on day-to-day news,” he says. “They used images and design to present information in new ways. And they invited readers to take time for themselves to escape from reality, especially with fiction and poetry.”

In the book, written in French, Rannaud notes that English magazines such as Chatelaine, Mayfair and Canadian Home Journal – which co-existed with La Revue moderne – had similarly important roles in the literary world.

“French-Canadian magazines just haven’t received as much academic attention or systematic study as anglophone ones, or as magazines in France,” he says.

La Revue moderne’s founder, who wrote under the pseudonym “Madeleine” and whose real name was Anne-Marie Huguenin, was a celebrity in Montreal’s high society. She wrote for one of the city’s leading newspapers and became known as the “queen of the chronicle.” By the end of the First World War, Rannaud says, she wanted a bigger vehicle to showcase not just her own writing, but that of her fellow up-and-coming young francophone writers.

In the magazine’s first editorial, she laid out her intention to deliver a literary, political and artistic (the three words below the masthead) publication that would “brilliantly attest to the value of our poets [and] writers.” While the magazine was well-received in some circles, its lofty ambitions – and female leadership – didn’t sit well with the male social elite and clergy, says Rannaud. “She was outspoken about her goal of uniting francophone and anglophone culture, and there were a lot of articles that were quite political. It was difficult for a woman in the 1920s to lead an intellectual magazine. She was subject to a lot of anti-feminism.”

The external pressures, combined with commercial necessities, drove Madeleine to shift La Revue moderne’s emphasis away from political and other “serious” content to subjects considered appealing to women. “By around 1922, there were more advice columns, recipes, coverage of society events, and fiction and poetry,” says Rannaud.

It was in this last category, he argues, that La Revue moderne had the most profound effect on Quebec’s cultural history.

Announcement of the co-winners of the La Revue moderne prize. Gabrielle Roy was recognized for one of her first ever published short stories, which appered in the magazine (from the July 1940 issue)

The magazine launched the careers of many authors, poets and writers, including one of the most famous French Canadian authors: Gabrielle Roy, the author of The Tin Flute and other books. One of her first publications was in La Revue moderne. “Quebec isn’t known for avant garde, or highbrow, literature, but it has a thriving popular culture and literature,” says Rannaud. “La Revue moderne helped cultivate that literature by bringing it to a large audience and inspiring other young writers.”

Beyond its significant shaping influence on literature, the magazine kept pace with changing trends in the broader culture. By the 1940s, women’s rights and celebrity news began to take a prominent place in the magazine. The content also became highly interconnected with radio and television culture, featuring articles on the best and latest programs to listen to and watch.

“The profiles on celebrities and attention to other media were, in some ways, very current,” says Rannaud. “These are things we see everywhere in magazines in 2021. So while La Revue moderne was very old-fashioned in its depiction of women, domestic life and relationships, it also helped pave the way for contemporary publications.”

In 1960, Maclean-Hunter bought La Revue moderne and it became French Châtelaine magazine. The new publication built on the original’s cultural and literary foundations, says Rannaud, pointing to the ongoing tradition in several Canadian magazines of authors publishing short stories and book excerpts.

“Without the revolution La Revue moderne participated in, we wouldn’t have the strong relationship between literature and magazines that we have today.”

Alexie Tcheuyap named U of T’s head of international student experience

Christopher.Sorensen — Fri, 30 Jul 2021 22:01:08 +0000

Alexie Tcheuyap named U of T’s head of international student experience

Christopher.Sorensen Fri, 07/30/2021 - 18:01

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(Photo by Johnny Guatto)

Topic

Faculty of Arts & Science

Alexie Tcheuyap, a professor of French whose scholarship focuses on African literary, cinema and media studies, has been appointed the ��Ƶ’s associate vice-president and vice-provost, international student experience.

Having received governance approval Thursday, Tcheuyap will serve for nearly six years beginning Sept. 1, 2021, including six months of administrative leave. He will be responsible for promoting opportunities for students to learn abroad, overseeing the tri-campus Centre for International Experience, developing global engagement opportunities for all U of T students through curricular and co-curricular initiatives and generally fostering a positive experience for international students at the university.

Tcheuyap says his own experience as an international student – he was educated in Cameroon and in the United Kingdom before moving to Kingston, Ont. for graduate studies at Queen’s University – gives him unique insight into the needs of U of T students who are new to Canada.

“All of this is very personal for me because I came here as an international student and this means I have lived through a lot of the same things as the students whom I will be working to support,” he said.

“In my career as a professor, I have always been very sensitive not only to the experience of students, but of those who are new to the country.”

He added that he arrived in Canada in 1997 carrying two suitcases – one for clothes and another full of books.

“My driver dropped me off [at Queen’s] in front of the university’s Stauffer Library and he said: ‘You brought books here. See that building over there? It’s full of books,’” Tcheuyap recalled.

He went on to earn a PhD in French literature from Queen’s, adding to a doctorate and master’s in the same field from the University of Yaoundé in Cameroon. He taught at the University of Calgary before joining the French department at U of T in 2006 and is a senior fellow of the European Institutes for Advanced Study.

An expert in African literature, cinema and media studies, Tcheuyap counts Ariane Astrid Atodji, Florence Ayisi, Jean-Pierre Bekolo, Assia Djebar, Amina Abdoulaye Mamani, Jean-Marie Teno and Mansour Sora Wade among his favourite African filmmakers. He has written several books, including De l’écrit à l’écran, Postnationalist African Cinemas, Autoritarisme, presse et violence au Cameroun and Avoir peur. Insécurité et roman en Afrique francophone.

The most rewarding part of his job as an instructor, he said, is to introduce native English speakers to the original text of French language works.

Tcheuyap also brings considerable senior leadership experience to his new role.

He served as chair and associate chair of the department of French in the Faculty of Arts & Science and has been the faculty’s vice-dean, academic life and equity since 2019. As vice-dean, Tcheuyap initiated new strategies to develop a more diverse and more inclusive faculty, including the recruitment of several Black and Indigenous scholars.

Tcheuyap succeeds Professor Joseph Wong in the international student experience office; Wong was named vice-president, international earlier this year.

“Professor Tcheuyap is an extraordinary leader at the ��Ƶ, who brings with him tremendous insight into the international student experience, having been one himself in the 1990s,” Wong said.

“He is well known among colleagues for his leadership skills at all levels of the university. His academic background in the humanities will no doubt open up new opportunities in international partnership-building as well as international learning experiences for our students.”

Tcheuyap said he will continue promoting equity, diversity and inclusion in his new role.

“It’s important to ask where our students come from and to make sure that everyone feels welcome on campus, regardless of their background,” he said. “This requires special efforts to attract and retain students from underrepresented groups.”

He also plans to build on Wong’s efforts to create global scholar and global citizen designations for U of T students that are acquired through completing academic or extracurricular activities that foster a global outlook. The designations appear on a student’s co-curricular record or transcript.

“We are very fortunate to have the global scholar and citizen programs,” Tcheuyap said. “We just need to make sure that all students are aware of these possibilities to gain an international perspective.

“It’s not unusual to find a student who was born in Lethbridge or Kingston and who has never left Canada. The world is changing around us. We need to bring these international opportunities to students.

“The world is so rich. We need to encourage students to learn about the world in Toronto or go abroad and harvest international experience and then return to share their newfound knowledge back here.”

U of T prof hosts ‘McLuhanesque’ marathon talk with Margaret Atwood, Mayor John Tory and others

Christopher.Sorensen — Tue, 20 Jul 2021 13:53:21 +0000

U of T prof hosts ‘McLuhanesque’ marathon talk with Margaret Atwood, Mayor John Tory and others

Christopher.Sorensen Tue, 07/20/2021 - 09:53

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Clockwise from top left; John Tory, Riley Yesno, Margaret Atwood, Paolo Granata, Mark Kingwell, Joe Wong, Derrick de Kerckhove and the late U of T professor, philosopher and renowned media theorist Marshall McLuhan.

Yanan Wang

Topic

Global Lens

French

Toronto Rehabilitation Institute

Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy

Faculty of Arts & Science

Indigenous

Marshall McLuhan

Philosophy

St. Michael's College

University Health Network

Victoria College

In the 1970s, the late ��Ƶ professor, philosopher and renowned media theorist Marshall McLuhan regularly hosted gatherings at his home on Monday nights, when an eclectic group of students, fellow faculty and others came together to answer his open-ended question: “What’s on your mind?”

A lengthy discussion would ensue, with no specific agenda or subject. The purpose of the dialogue was not to draw conclusions, but rather to keep the conversation going.

Paolo Granata
(photo by Martyn Jones)

In the same spirit of free-flowing inquiry, Paolo Granata will host the second-annual Global Village Day today – a 12-hour online streaming marathon that runs noon until midnight and features speakers from a range of cultures and disciplines.

“Global Village Day is a way to gather an international community of scholars, thinkers and artists to not only celebrate one of the most iconic Canadian philosophers, but also to conceive of Toronto as a global village,” says Granata, an assistant professor of book and media studies at St. Michael’s College, referencing the term famously coined by McLuhan.

In partnership with the McLuhan Institute and the Marshall McLuhan Estate, the event aims to tackle questions surrounding place, public art and global governance that have arisen from the pandemic. Much like McLuhan’s own gatherings, the discussion aims to be free-flowing and open-ended. The speakers have been placed into groups of three to five, with each group occupying an hour of the marathon. They will address three core questions on lessons from the pandemic and how the global village can be reimagined for a sustainable future.

The event will be highly interactive and participatory, Granata says. The marathon will be streamed live on Facebook and YouTube, and audience members are invited to submit comments and questions, which Granata will in turn pose to the guest speakers.

Hailing from 12 different countries, guests will include: world-renowned author Margaret Atwood, a graduate of U of T’s Victoria College; Joe Wong, U of T’s vice-president, international; Mark Kingwell, a writer and professor of philosophy in the Faculty of Arts & Science, Riley Yesno, an Anishinaabe writer who graduated from Victoria College this year; Derrick de Kerckhove, former director of the McLuhan Program in Culture & Technology and a professor emeritus in the department of French; and Roda Muse, secretary-general of the Canadian Commission for UNESCO.

Elizabeth Dowdeswell, Ontario’s lieutenant governor, and Toronto Mayor John Tory, a graduate of U of T’s Trinity College, will kick off the marathon with remarks. In his greeting, Tory will also introduce ArtworxTO: Toronto’s Year of Public Art 2021-2022, a slate of public artworks and related programming set to officially launch this September.

Professor Marshall McLuhan with students and other faculty during one of his famous evening seminars (photo by Robert Lansdale Photography via U of T Archives)

“I’m sure McLuhan would be struck by the vibrant media arts landscape that Toronto has created,” Tory says in a pre-recorded greeting. “And, of course, we can continue to thank him for teaching us that in a diverse city like this, a global village in a big city, communication is vital to understanding and to mutual support.”

U of T has worked with the city and other partners on a number of projects for ArtworxTO, including upcoming exhibitions and programming at the U of T Art Museum on the St. George campus and at U of T Scarborough, collaborating with the city on the annual Nuit Blanche event, student-led research through U of T’s School of Cities to evaluate the Year of Public Art and a future mural honouring Terry Fox at the Toronto Rehabilitation Institute, part of the University Health Network.

The initiatives emphasize how U of T and the city of Toronto are connected, says Barbara Fischer, executive director of the U of T Art Museum.

“The university is at the heart of the city and vice versa,” Fischer says. “The projects will highlight how much art informs our sense of place and how intertwined the city is with the U of T campus.”

Screenshots from last year’s Global Village Day event, which was held online due to the pandemic.

One project is already underway at Hart House Green, where an Indigenous Landscape will ultimately be formed on the site. In the meantime, Assistant Professors Maria Hupfield and Mikinaak Migwans are working with Indigenous artists to develop murals celebrating Indigenous relations to the land that will adorn the hoarding currently used to protect existing trees.

Moreover, U of T Scarborough is working with the city to develop an app that will allow users to take self-guided tours of public art around Toronto. Graduate students are working with the U of T Art Museum to develop the script for the audio tour, which will introduce perspectives and ideas surrounding public art that can be found in various neighbourhoods, parks and streets.

ArtworxTO is part of a years-long effort connected to Toronto’s designation as a UNESCO Creative City of Media Arts, for which Granata was the principal driver in 2017.

“U of T has played an instrumental role in fostering media arts, technology and creativity in the city of Toronto,” Granata says.

While the first Global Village Day took place during the early days of the pandemic last summer, this year’s event will highlight the lessons gleaned from a year and a half of upheaval.

“Now is the time to reflect on a fundamental question: what did we learn during this pandemic?” Granata says. “It is time to take account of all the valuable lessons in terms of cultural participation, higher education and all other fields. What really matters to us in a post-pandemic world? If we don’t address these questions, we may go back to the old normal without really growing as a society.

He added that COVID-19 underscored the need for global governance.

“We need the flexibility of different countries working together and making decisions for the common good.”

While this year’s Global Village Day will once again be entirely virtual, participants will show themselves passing around the marathon’s “torch” on their screens: an object of their choosing that they believe represents the idea of the global village in the 21^st century. At the close of the event at midnight, there will be a toast to McLuhan to mark the 110^th anniversary of his birth on July 21.

“As McLuhan said, ‘I don’t explain, I explore,’” Granata says. “So, we will be explorers celebrating his legacy.”

U of T course explores urban youth languages – in Toronto and around the world

Christopher.Sorensen — Wed, 25 Nov 2020 15:43:12 +0000

U of T course explores urban youth languages – in Toronto and around the world

Christopher.Sorensen Wed, 11/25/2020 - 10:43

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Adeiza Isiaka, a post-doctoral researcher in the Faculty of Arts & Science, is teaching a new U of T course on urban youth languages of the world (photo courtesy of Adieza Isiaka)

Topic

Faculty of Arts & Science

Global

St. Michael's College

Woodsworth College

If you overheard someone saying they’ve been friends “for a minute,” would you assume they just met? If so, you may need to brush up on your urban slang.

“A minute” is a phrase that actually means for a very long time, and it’s just one the many words and expressions students are learning about in the new ��Ƶ course: Urban Youth Languages of the World.

Youth across the globe are continually creating new terms and expressions – and their impact and influence can be substantial, says Adeiza Isiaka, a post-doctoral researcher in the Faculty of Arts & Science’s department of French and department of Spanish and Portuguese who is teaching the course.

The creation of urban youth languages involves “youth populations using the grammar of existing languages and inserting novel words and slang,” Isiaka says. “There’s a lot of linguistic innovation going on.”

Isiaka’s course examines urban youth languages that have emerged in Africa, North America and Europe, with a focus on the sociolinguistic concepts of language, multilingualism, lexical innovation and renovation, and language-mixing in relation to youth language practices.

Urban youth language comes in many forms. Isiaka says it could mean new words, words pronounced in a different way, a word with multiple meanings or words taken and adopted from different languages.

What purpose do urban youth languages serve?

“It depends on the context and where this language is used,” Isiaka says, noting youth languages are developing across the world, with Africa being a particularly fertile region.

“It could be used to protest the establishment or to demean colonial legacies of linguistic normativity. In Cameroon, for instance, youth languages are used to protest the dominance of Francophone and Anglophone language norms.

“In South Africa, some youth languages developed as prison languages, particularly during apartheid. They were a way of communicating so youth could have conversations without jailers knowing what they were talking about.”

In Nigeria, youth language is primarily intended to set the younger generation apart from the general population, according to Isiaka.

“It’s a way to show that you're smart, or that you belong to the youth population, and that you're aware of the street.”

Similarly, in North America, youth language development is often driven by current culture trends, including hip hop or rap cultures. At times, it’s been connected to urban gangs or anti-establishment movements, but not always.

“In Toronto, it’s not anti-establishment – it's just something to show that you belong to the city,” says Isiaka. “If you can speak Toronto slang you are indeed a Torontonian.”

Youth languages can be very powerful and often become part of mainstream language, which Isiaka says is ironic considering they were originally intended to create exclusivity.

In Kenya and South Africa, for example, schools are beginning to adopt youth language expressions in their lessons to better interact with students. Media outlets such as television stations and radio stations across Africa are also adopting youth language terms.

“If you have a continent where over 60 per cent of the entire population are youth, it's important to be able to communicate with them,” says Isiaka.

Even U.S. President-elect Joe Biden appears to see the value of youth language. He shocked viewers during a televised debate when he dropped the Arabic word “Inshallah,” responding to when President Donald Trump might share his controversial tax returns.

The term literally means “God willing” in Arabic and Farsi, but among younger populations, it’s a sarcastic term suggesting something that will never happen. The word set Twitter on fire.

Joshua Daley, a first-year student in the linguistics program and a member of Woodsworth College, took the course initially because of his interest in Canadian slang.

“Coming from Nova Scotia to Toronto, I was very interested in the difference in culture and slangs in the two cities,” he says. “This course gives greater insight into the linguistic culture of Toronto but also other parts of the world like Kenya and Cambodia.

“I enjoy the course material, especially how youth languages develop and have bridged the gap into contemporary language. The combinations of different languages to create a dialect is fascinating. I’m currently working on a research project dealing with how youth languages have been affected by the invention of the internet.”

Sara Zawahid, a second-year student in the physical and mathematical sciences program and a member of St. Michael’s College, was intrigued the moment she saw the course title.

“I felt that I could relate to this course since urban youth languages are heavily rooted in my everyday life,” she says. “Also, I saw the potential behind this course as slang has enhanced many pre-existing things, including music, which is a big part of why I enjoy this course so much. We get to look into slang in terms of many different contexts and how they’re used around the world.”