The Editor’s Desk
In our inaugural issue, we introduced the late Frank H. Underhill, a twentieth century Canadian historian and wordsmith, to a twenty–first century audience. We promised readers more about Underhill’s thought and concerns, and we did so in part because, as Kenneth C. Dewar notes in our lead essay, Underhill criticised those intellectuals “who lived blameless intellectual lives, cultivated the golden mean, and never stuck their necks out.”
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Fall 2008
Featured Artist
Throughout her career the Canadian–born artist Cecil Buller explored the expressive potential of printmaking. Grounded in a thorough academic training, and influenced by European Post–Impressionism, Buller developed her own, uniquely modern style of art. Despite regular exhibitions, and an impressive output of block prints, Buller never achieved significant fame during her lifetime. In recent years, however, her extraordinary talent has been recognized and celebrated. … more
Cecil Buller “Self Portrait” (1949), wood engraving on wove Japan paper, Carleton University Art Gallery, Gift of Dr. Sean Murphy, 2007.
Essays:
The intellectual: thinker, critic, or dissenter? Frank Underhill was all three – but in Canada? Ken Dewar explains the problem. … more
Think politics divides Canadians at times of economic crisis? Consider art during the Great Depression. Lisa Panayotidis explains how our friend FHU lit a cultural firestorm – over landscape! … more
Review Essays
Singer Joni Mitchell lamented “paved paradise,” while economist Joseph Schumpeter extolled the virtues of “creative destruction.” David Nye examines the contradiction and reflects on American hegemony in our feature review essay … more
Political biography: for Americans, ongoing snapshots of national consciousness; for Canadians, well, one book has seemed enough. Consider John A. Macdonald and D’Arcy McGee, says Duncan McDowall … more
“Book History” has had its ups and downs, for it is less a disciplinary field than a “tropical rainforest,” as its inspiration Robert Darnton once confessed. Paul Keen hacks away at the underbrush to glimpse the biblioscape … more
Does the North makes us Canadian or do Canadians make the North? Kerry Abel reflects on fin de siècle romanticism and the social responsibility of the scholar. … more
“The Civil War sells,” Susan–Mary Grant asks, “but what, exactly, is it selling?” Nothing less, it turns out, than “the meaning of America as a nation.” … more
High Art: purifying, free of politics, elevating the soul. Enter patrons and galleries. Laura Brandon details the consequences… more
Pierre Trudeau as a mystic, a Maoist, a March Hare? David Tough suggests a reality check. … more