How can Canada be narrated and compared with countries in Northern Europe? “Nordic and Baltic Perspectives in Canadian Studies – An Interdisciplinary Approach to Northern Spaces Narratives” contains a collection of articles from various fields in the humanities that introduce major topics of Canadian studies, as they are examined in the Nordic and Baltic countries. We asked the editors Cristophe Premat and Sara Bédard-Goulet to tell us a little bit about the new book and about the benefits of examining an area from a distance.
This new collection focuses on Canadian Studies. Could you tell us a little bit more about
the topics included and the overall theme of the book?
The overall idea of the book is to provide perspectives in Canadian Studies from researchers in the Nordic and Baltic countries, which share common realities with Canada (Northern location, multilingualism, etc.) but are also distant enough to account for the representations of Canadian culture and analyze them in detail. The chapters are written by specialists in arts and humanities, who focus on central topics to Canadian Studies from their respective fields and the theoretical frameworks that they provide.
Two chapters address contemporary cultural productions of the First Nations that reinscribe the presence of these nations in Canadian history. One chapter focuses on Canadian bilingual language-learning policies through a comparative lens that takes Latvia and Estonia as Baltic counterparts. One chapter explores the riddle practices of Newfoundland while another describes the challenges of bilingualism by examining French-language novels written in English-speaking provinces. Two chapters build on environmental humanities to analyze the human-nonhuman enmeshments as their take place within the cultural Canadian context, with its postcolonial relationship to the landscape.
The book reflects the Nordic and Baltic perspectives on cultural studies. What would you say is special about this outlook?
Area studies such as Canadian studies have been mostly developed abroad, following a political impulse in funding research on Canadian culture. Cultural studies have moved away from this diplomatic decision and developed their own theoretical framework to studies cultural phenomena and productions. Because their share common realities with Canada while being distant from it, the Nordic and Baltic countries can provide a relevant view on Canadian culture building on cultural theories and methods that account for the representations of a Northern country such as Canada.
We understand that this book is meant to be used as a textbook for students in cultural
studies, how would you recommend them to approach the topic?
The book provides different frameworks to approach cultural studies, based on the fields of folklore studies, literary studies, linguistics, and art studies, so that students can learn about various theories and methods used in cultural studies and how they are relevant in studying certain topics concerning a cultural area such as Canada.
About the editors
Christophe Premat is Associate Professor in French with a major specialization in Cultural Studies at Stockholm University. His current research focuses on discourse analysis and Native Studies in Canada.
Sara Bédard-Goulet is Visiting Research Fellow in Romance Studies at the University of Tartu (Estonia). Her research interests in the field of contemporary art and French-language literature build on ecocriticism, reader-response theories and psychoanalysis.
How to access this book
Download the book for free via the Stockholm University Press website. It is available as an ePub or PDF file, allowing you to read the book on multiple devices. You may also order a print copy of the book through a number of common online bookstores.
About the publisher Stockholm University Press
Stockholm University Press (SUP) is an Open Access publisher of peer-reviewed academic journals and books. The Press aims to make journals and books affordable, and to give them the widest possible dissemination, to enable researchers around the world to find and access the information they need.
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