Public Intellectual and the Culture of Hope

Joel Faflak is professor of English and Theory at Western University, where he was also the Inaugural Director of the School for Advanced Studies in the Arts and Humanities.Jason Haslam is an associate professor in the Department of English at Dalhousie University.

“Focused on the troubled and animated discourse networks of culture, hope, and public intellectualism, this collection of essays by Polanyi Prize–winning scholars sets a new benchmark for the excellence and promise of humanities scholarship. Following Dr Polanyi’s ‘commitment to both research and social action as they epitomize the scholar as citizen,’ the editors have marshalled a series of essays by some of Canada’s most outstanding scholars that consider that task from a wide variety of perspectives and in a fully critical and self-conscious manner.”- Michael O’Driscoll, Department of English and Film Studies, University of Alberta

• AcknowledgementsForeword (John Polanyi, Nobel Laureate in Chemistry)Introduction: Public Hopes (Joel Faflak: University of Western Ontario, English and Jason Haslam: Dalhousie University, English)Part One: Public Readings1. “Maga-Scenes: Performing Periodical Literature in the 1820s”(Angela Esterhammer: Principal of Victoria College, Professor of English, University of Toronto)2. “‘A Wicked Whisper’: Censorship and Affect in Coleridge’s ‘The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere’”(Julia M. Wright: Dalhousie University, English)3. “Sense and Sensibility: Anatomies of Hope in Romantic-Century Medical Pedagogy”(James Allard: Brock University, English Language and Literature)4. “‘I know the difference between what I see and what I only want to see’:Remembering India’s Partition through Children in Cracking India”(Nandi Bhatia: University of Western Ontario, English)Part Two: Public Performances5. “Margaret Cavendish’s Civilizing Songs”(Katherine R. Larson: University of Toronto, English)6. “Get Happy! American Film Musicals and the Political Technology of Utopianism”(Joel Faflak: University of Western Ontario, English)7. “To Be (Or Not To Be): Ernst Lubitsch’s Irrepressible Theatrical Liberalism”(Andrea Most: University of Toronto, English, American Literature and Jewish Studies)8. “Inglourious Criticism, Basterd Fantasies: RanciÈre, Tarantino and the Intellectual Spectacle of Hope”(Jason Haslam: Dalhousie University, English)Part Three: Public Matters9. “Beyond the Book: Reading as Public Intellectual Activity”(Daniel Coleman: McMaster University, English and Cultural Studies)10. “The Political Nature of Things: David Suzuki and the Canadian Public”(Imre Szeman: University of Alberta, English and Film Studies)11. “The Immaterial Matters”(R. Darren Gobert: York University, English)12. “Higher Education and the End(s) of Time”(Patrick Deane: President and vice-chancellor of McMaster University)List of ContributorsIndex