Volume 59, Issue 2

One aspect of post-Holocaust Jewish life to which little attention has been paid in the study of Holocaust literature is the experience of migration. This article examines three Canadian Second Generation Holocaust memoirs and their portrayal of migration. Memoirs by Jewish-Canadian authors prove to be particularly beneficial for analyzing aspects of migration because the immigration of Canada’s survivors often took place when their children were old enough to consciously experience it. Lisa Appignanesi’s Losing the Dead (1999), Eva Hoffman’s Lost in Translation (1989), and Elaine Kalman Naves’s Shoshanna’s Story (2003) all depict the challenges of the arrival to 1950s Canada. The memoirs explore the ways in which the young immigrants cope with dislocation, alienation, and belonging. Against the backdrop of a traumatic family history, they experience different forms of ‘cultural crossings’ - for instance, with regard to language, the immigrant’s body, or religious identity. The focus on migration in Second Generation memoirs highlights the transnational and transcultural rather than merely the transgenerational features of Holocaust memory.

Identity formation is inextricably connected to the idea of space; thus it is of special relevance in the context of migration. In her 2005 novel What We All Long For , Dionne Brand depicts Toronto as a space of ambivalence, temporariness, and heterogeneity, as a crossroads of intercultural encounters, a ‘glocal’ space, which influences the characters’ self-images. Brand’s four young protagonists from various ethnic backgrounds define their identities by challenging their parents’ concepts of space and identification. They locate their understandings of self and community entirely within the glocal space of the city. Diverging approaches to space and identity cause major conflicts between the first and the second generation. An analysis of the depiction of glocal spaces, such as the characters’ homes and the city in general, illustrates their effects on identification and generation relationships. The characteristics of the urban glocal setting are reflected on the level of narrative transmission as well as by the use of dynamic images of water and static images of ties that highlight the fluidity of identity and space as well as the limiting nature of family ties.

This paper is situated at the crossroads of English-Canadian and Québécois literature, specifically at its northernmost junction. In the neglected field of comparative Canadian literature, it is fascinating to contrast the portrayal of the North in two distinct cultural and linguistic paradigms while searching for border crossing themes as well as differences. This paper juxtaposes English-Canadian short stories on the North with their Québécois counterparts. A brief summary and analysis of the differing development of the concept of nordicity in Quebec and English Canada, focusing especially on the concept of seasonal nordicity in urban Montreal, is followed by the analyses of an exemplary short story from each of the two national traditions: Monique Proulx’s “Banana Chaudfroid” (1999) and Clark Blaise’s “Words for the Winter” (1973).

This article discusses current challenges of children’s literature in Canada and compares them with past developments, highlighting both governmental guidelines as well as educators’ demands. This discussion serves as the background for an analysis of a new book series entitled “In the Same Boat,” which was introduced by the Canadian publisher Coteau Books in 2001 and 2002. With “In the Same Boat” Coteau Books has published a series of novels for young readers that celebrates the richness of Canada’s cultural heritage and the many different faces that contribute to Canada’s multicultural society. The stories take different forms - adventure, family drama, historical fiction, and fantasy - and give information about a particular culture as a background for the main narrative. They feature young heroes who are as culturally diverse as their authors and who embark on an adventurous journey to their roots.

This article investigates the connections and tensions between Canada’s policy of multiculturalism, its official status as a bilingual country, and the multilingual nature of its society. Taking the dramatically growing ‘third group’ (Canadians of immigrant background who are neither Anglophone nor Francophone) as an example, the article seeks to show that in theory, the guarantee of linguistic rights for individuals and groups is based on both non-instrumental and instrumental language rights. In addition to the language rights approach, other viewpoints such as the politics of recognition and constitutional patriotism are addressed. In practice, while at the federal level official bilingualism is pragmatically justifiable (for the government to function successfully, the number of working languages needs to be limited), at the regional level, measures which more adequately reflect the diversity of Canada’s multicultural society could and should be taken. These measures may include multilingual services for the largest minority groups, options to enhance language retention, specific provisions protecting the individuals’ right to retain and use their language, as well as various other commitments to supporting and encouraging a multilingual environment.

In 1956, when they devised a way out of the Suez crisis, Canadian diplomats were remarkably successful in advancing their nation’s interests by promoting its security, enhancing its global influence, and preserving the international order. Today, the Afghan experience highlights the apparent obstacles to the pursuit of comparable interests in a post-Cold War, post-9/11 world. It is against this background that the present article seeks to reveal the underlying factors that enabled Canada to be effective as a traditional peace keeper at Suez but apparently impede its success as a peace maker in Afghanistan. These factors consist of, on the one hand, external forces beyond Canada’s control, such as an ever more complex world order and the increasingly convoluted nature of contemporary crises. On the other hand, however, there is also the largely homemade problem of a widening ‘commitment-capability gap’: Ottawa is ready to enter poorly defined commitments which it does not have the resources to sustain. As Canadians now debate their post-Afghanistan role on the global stage they should take variations on all four dimensions of context, crisis, capabilities, and commitment into account and formulate a policy that applies the key lesson of its successful Suez diplomacy by linking credible operational commitment to convincing strategic leadership.