Winfried Siemerling – Författare

“Sound demands a listener, text requires a reader, and performance necessitates that others be present for the experience. Without those presences, the circuit isn’t complete, the charge will not travel through, the work will not become active in the world.” These words by Kaie Kellough articulate the central idea explored in Call and Response-ability: that Black Canadian works of art cannot be understood apart from the foundational concerns of audience and reception.A richly collaborative assemblage of artist statements, scholarly essays, critical analyses, and reflections, these writings explore what happens when Black Canadian cultural productions and interventions enter the realms of public, institutional, and pedagogical reception. Part 1 foregrounds the voices of word, sound, and visual artists, who reflect on audience during and after the creative process. Part 2, anchored by M. NourbeSe Philip’s signature essay “Who’s Listening? Artists, Audience & Language,” gathers fourteen critical inquiries into writing, theatre, visual art, and sonic practice. Part 3 turns to pedagogy, with reflections on the field and narrated syllabi that can inspire readers, discussion groups, and practitioners alike. A concluding coda considers the ethics of relation, the practice of communal research, and the limits of the archive.This book is an indispensable resource for anyone working with Black Canadian literature, music, visual art, and theatre. Its blend of personal reflection, critical insight, and pedagogical practice also makes it valuable to general readers and community-based audiences seeking to understand how Black Canadian art speaks – and how we might learn to listen.

Winner of the English Book Award, Grand Prix du Livre 2006 de la Ville de Sherbrooke.In this original and groundbreaking study, Winfried Siemerling examines the complexities of recognition and identity, rejecting previous nationalized thinking to approach North American cultural transformations from transnational and interdisciplinary perspectives. Using material from the United States and Canada as case studies and drawing on a wide range of texts and theorists, he examines postcoloniality and cultural emergence from the sixties to the present against earlier backgrounds. Siemerling's argument for a retheorization of the field takes on the full history of multiculturalism debates, including radical readings of W.E.B. Du Bois and Charles Taylor and their relation to G.W.F. Hegel, and challenging many of the models of multiculturalism in use today. Tackling controversial subjects such as identity politics, The New North American Studies proposes a fresh outlook on the most central issues of North American cultural politics, from debates on canon formation to the role of racial and linguistic difference. Concluding with a look at the future of cultural difference, Winfried Siemerling's study is an innovative rethinking of the whole field of North American Studies.

Winner of the English Book Award, Grand Prix du Livre 2006 de la Ville de Sherbrooke.In this original and groundbreaking study, Winfried Siemerling examines the complexities of recognition and identity, rejecting previous nationalized thinking to approach North American cultural transformations from transnational and interdisciplinary perspectives. Using material from the United States and Canada as case studies and drawing on a wide range of texts and theorists, he examines postcoloniality and cultural emergence from the sixties to the present against earlier backgrounds. Siemerling's argument for a retheorization of the field takes on the full history of multiculturalism debates, including radical readings of W.E.B. Du Bois and Charles Taylor and their relation to G.W.F. Hegel, and challenging many of the models of multiculturalism in use today. Tackling controversial subjects such as identity politics, The New North American Studies proposes a fresh outlook on the most central issues of North American cultural politics, from debates on canon formation to the role of racial and linguistic difference. Concluding with a look at the future of cultural difference, Winfried Siemerling's study is an innovative rethinking of the whole field of North American Studies.