Pathways of Creativity in Contemporary Newfoundland and Labrador
The Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador is a mythologized place that resonates with tragic adventure, polar expeditions and Grand Banks fishing; a real and imagined geography with an incredible artistic output that calls for critical discussion. This book examines the diversity of this province’s literature and culture, taking into consideration the expertise of scholars and writers who have first-hand knowledge of its unique context. Chapters on history, travel, fiction, autobiography, poetry, theatre, storytelling, filmmaking, and the visual arts provide an up-to-date survey across a broad range of artistic endeavours, as well as close readings of selected texts.
The questions that fill the pages of Pathways of Creativity in Contemporary Newfoundland and Labrador arise from the awareness its contributors have of historically shared experiences, but also of shared delusions, and their essays provoke contemplation beyond the labels local/global, Newfoundlander/Come-From-Away. Aboriginal histories and writing come to the foreground in this panoramic view that balances descriptions of mainstream, vernacular and Indigenous cultural productions. The final chapter is organized as a multi-voiced interview which serves as a supplement to the academic essays. Here, themes are revisited and personalized as several writers express their feelings about what it means to be a Newfoundlander and an artist.
As such, this book will encourage dialogue about Newfoundland and Labrador’s literary and artistic achievements within the international community of readers and researchers.
María Jesús Hernáez Lerena is an Associate Professor of American and Canadian literatures at the University of La Rioja, Spain. Her books and essays deal with the way stories support the rethinking of time and place. Her articles can be found in University of Toronto Quarterly, Journal of Tourism and Cultural Change, Numéro Cinq, and Short Story Theories: A Twenty-First-Century Perspective, among others. She teaches courses on Canadian literature in a doctoral program presented with the Quality Distinction Award by the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science.
"Pathways of Creativity in Contemporary Newfoundland and Labrador is a significant contribution to scholarly criticism on the cultures of Canada’s most easterly province. All of us working in cultural fields connected to Newfoundland and Labrador owe a debt of gratitude to María Jesús Hernáez Lerena, the Spanish academic who compiled and edited twelve essays from eminent local scholars, artists, and commentators. [...] The collection is remarkable for a number of reasons. First, although the book is weighted toward literary scholarship, it also includes chapters on film, theatre, visual art, and oral storytelling traditions. Such transdisciplinarity in the context of scholarship on Newfoundland and Labrador is innovative and provides a breadth of reference that asks readers to link various creative endeavors. [...] I recommend this collection not just for the way it positions various fields of creativity and scholarship of Newfoundland and Labrador cultures as they are today but also because it indicates possible avenues of where these fields are going. In this regard, Pathways of Creativity in Contemporary Newfoundland and Labrador is a text that will continue to be important as time goes by."
Jonathan Parsons ariel: A Review of International English Literature, 48:2 (2017)
"Pathways of Creativity in Newfoundland and Labrador proves that positivity and ingenuity continue to produce a thriving and evolving culture."
Paul Chafe Ryerson University English Studies in Canada, 42.3-4
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