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York U. Millennial Wisdom Symposium
York U. Robarts Chair, Writer Susan Swan To Delve Into How The Writer's Conscience Has Help Shaped Canada -- Robarts Centre In Canadian Studies Annual Lecture
Swan's lecture, entitled The Writer's Conscience: or why reports on the death of the author have been greatly exaggerated, is part of Swan's creation, the Millennial Wisdom Symposium, a series of events that started in October featuring prominent writers, historians and archeologists focussing on how they recreate the past in contemporary culture.
"What I've learned running the Millennial Wisdom Symposium is the value of the writer's conscience ๑ an imagination and an instinctive sense of right and wrong. I've come to see that in Canada, it has acted in unique ways, inspiring political, and yes, even moral ways. It's safe to say that without the writer's conscience, Canada wouldn't exist; it certainly would be less Canadian," says Swan, who will argue that as Canadian culture matured, so too did the role of the writer's conscience on it.
Swan's lecture will draw on the intellectual and creative wisdom of symposium participants (Alberto Manguel, Ronald Wright, Anne Michaels, Karen Connelly, Tomson Highway, Greg Gatenby, for example) as well as on earlier Canadian authors Emily Murphy and poet F.R. Scott as she offers some options on the role of the writer in Canada today.
Swan says early 20th century writers such as Hugh MacLennan, of Two Solitudes fame, were required to conjure up a notion of Canada for its citizens and the rest of the world. But now, the new international phase of Canadian literary success ๑ witness authors such as Alice Munroe, Carol Shields, Robinson Davies, Michael Ondaatje and Margaret Atwood ๑ has made it possible for writers here to write without the obligation to explain the country or where they are writing from.
She adds that if in the 20th century, Canadian writers were trying to answer the question -- where is here?, the question for the 21st may well be -- will ๋here' survive? "No longer is it essential for the Canadian writer to mid-wife a national identity and find public spaces to discuss with the readers the paradoxical problems of Canadian identity. Now, the new generation of writers sets its sights on being heard through the clutter of an age dominated by technology and a growing global monoculture that glorifies commercialism and greed," she says. "As Canadian culture matures, the role of the writer may be to act as life-giving voices in a global market place, voices that help to ward off the threat of silence and domination from governments and multinational corporations, sometimes no better than thugs and liars in their refusal to be accountable to ordinary citizens," says Swan.
Swan says this is why the role of the writer in Canada is more important today than ever. "If it's handled well, the new global culture may become a rich creative opportunity. But as societies bring their complex and unique cultural realities to exchange with others, we need perspectives that cherish individual perspectives and freedoms. A beautifully written description of a field or a city street is a way to preserve that field or street, a way often more persuasive than any political lobby. And it is Canadian writers, who come from a country highly skilled in the field of communications, with a long tradition of social compassion who are particularly suited to be leading voices for human freedom in the next millennium."
Swan, who teaches creative writing at York, is the author of five works of fiction, including Governor General nominee, The Biggest Modern Woman of the World (Lester & Orpen Dennys, 1983), and the internationally acclaimed novel, The Wives of Bath (Knopf, 1993), Trillium and UK Guardian Fiction finalist. Both novels are currently being made into films and have appeared in print in more than 12 countries. She is also author of Stupid Boys Are Good to Relax With (Somerville House, 1996).
Since the establishment of the Centre in 1984 , the Robarts Chair has taken on an eclectic range of research into Canadian Studies. This distinguished position held by senior scholars is appointed on an annual basis, thus the research focus of the Centre shifts annually, reflecting the interests and projects of the successive chairs. York film and video studies Prof. Seth Feldman has been appointed as the new Robarts chair for 2000 - 2001. Feldman, a renowned film historian, media critic and broadcaster, will focus his energies on The Triumph of Canadian Cinema, a year-long project which will bring together key Canadian film and television writers, directors and producers to discuss and exhibit their collective achievement in the industry.
The final symposium event is called Historians and their Audiences. It will be held during a dinner for York's International Conference of Historians, Fri., April 14, 7:30 p.m., Harry Crowe Room, Atkinson College, York University. The evening will feature a discussion between Swan and Governor General award-winning fiction writer Guy Vanderhaeghe -- of The Englishman's Boy fame (New Canadian Library, 1997) -- on history and the novelist.
The Robarts lecture, which will be held in the York University Senate Chamber (9th Floor North Ross), is open to the public.
For more information, please contact:
Prof. Susan Swan
Sine MacKinnon
Ken Turriff |
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