The dismantling of "Understanding Canada"—an international program eliminated by Canada's Conservative government in 2012—posed a tremendous potential setback for Canadianists. Yet Canadian writers continue to be celebrated globally by popular and academic audiences alike. Twenty scholars speak to the government's diplomatic and economic about-face and its implications for representations of Canadian writing within and outside Canada's borders. The contributors to this volume remind us of the obstacles facing transnational intellectual exchange, but also salute scholars' persistence despite these obstacles. Beyond "Understanding Canada" is a timely, trenchant volume for students and scholars of Canadian literature and anyone seeking to understand how Canadian literature circulates in a transnational world. Contributors: Michael A. Bucknor, Daniel Coleman, Anne Collett, Pilar Cuder-Domínguez, Ana María Fraile-Marcos, Jeremy Haynes, Cristina Ivanovici, Milena Kaličanin, Smaro Kamboureli, Katalin Kürtösi, Vesna Lopičić, Belén Martín-Lucas, Claire Omhovère, Lucia Otrísalová, Don Sparling, Melissa Tanti, Christl Verduyn, Elizabeth Yeoman, Lorraine York

To appreciate how and why America's first best-sellers so gripped the American soul, current readers need to recapture the era's cognitive paradigm. In Beyond Understanding, Dr. Henning introduces us to the nineteenth-century mind, influenced, in large part, by eighteenth-century Scottish philosopher, theologian, and rhetorician, George Campbell. Reading «feminine fifties» works in light of Campbell's faculty psychology helps reveal why this fiction so inspired its original readers; further, acknowledging and reevaluating marginalized reading methods supports an expanding literary canon. Finally, revisiting Campbell's «philosophy of rhetoric» encourages current lovers of discourse to experience literature and life holistically - beyond understanding.

Seminar papers.

This book reflects on the culture wars over the historical canon in today's globalizing world. It discusses the attempts to review and transcend the received canon in historical research and teaching in Europe, Canada, the United States and South Africa. In the aftermath of the culture wars, the national and Western canons still largely dominate teaching and public memory. The book addresses the challenge of moving beyond these traditional narratives without sacrificing history as a coherent, attractive, and teachable subject.