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Literary Collections Canadian

Imagined Nations

Reflections on Media in Canadian Fiction

by (author) David Williams

Publisher
McGill-Queen's University Press
Initial publish date
Mar 2003
Category
Canadian, Canadian
  • Hardback

    ISBN
    9780773525160
    Publish Date
    Mar 2003
    List Price
    $125.00
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9780773570887
    Publish Date
    Mar 2003
    List Price
    $110.00

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Description

In Imagined Nations David Williams explores works by authors such as Alistair MacLeod, Michael Ondaatje, and Timothy Findley, examining the ways in which these writers show how our sense of time and space and our sense of personal and national identities have been altered by changes in modes of communication. He discusses how they have dramatized a series of shifts from the oral clan to the nation of the book (Alistair MacLeod), from print-nationalism to radio-confederacy (Wayne Johnston), and from print-stasis to an electronic space of flows (Michael Ondaatje). Some writers have resisted the threat of filmic images to print-formed communities (Timothy Findley, Guy Vanderhaeghe), while others have sought release from the prison of print (Hubert Aquin), or attempted to infiltrate cyberspace in the border war against globalization (William Gibson). Building on the work of Harold Innis, Williams joins other Canadians such as Marshall McLuhan, Ronald Deibert, and Gerald Friesen in extending and clarifying our understanding of the way differing media environments predispose us to imagine unique forms of political community.

About the author

David Williams is professor of English, St. Paul's College, University of Manitoba, and the author of several novels and critical books, including Imagined Nations: Reflections on Media in Canadian Fiction.

David Williams' profile page

Editorial Reviews

"Original and thought-provoking. I am impressed by the way Williams draws on theory without being overwhelmed by it, and by the way he seeks a balanced view of the merits of each mode. He does not succumb to the nostalgia of orality, or to the revolutionary promise of the computer matrix." Jonathan Kertzer, Department of English, University of Calgary