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Fiction General

Timing Canada

The Shifting Politics of Time in Canadian Literary Culture

by (author) Paul Huebener

Publisher
McGill-Queen's University Press
Initial publish date
Dec 2015
Category
General, Canadian
  • Hardback

    ISBN
    9780773545984
    Publish Date
    Dec 2015
    List Price
    $125.00
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9780773545991
    Publish Date
    Dec 2015
    List Price
    $43.95
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9780773597730
    Publish Date
    Dec 2015
    List Price
    $43.95

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Description

From punch clocks to prison sentences, from immigration waiting periods to controversial time-zone boundaries, from Indigenous grave markers that count time in centuries rather than years, to the fact that free time is shrinking faster for women than for men - time shapes the fabric of Canadian society every day, but in ways that are not always visible or logical. In Timing Canada, Paul Huebener draws from cultural history, time-use surveys, political statements, literature, and visual art to craft a detailed understanding of how time operates as a form of power in Canada. Time enables everything we do - as Margaret Atwood writes, "without it we can't live." However, time also disempowers us, divides us, and escapes our control. Huebener transforms our understanding of temporal power and possibility by using examples from Canadian and Indigenous authors - including Jeannette Armstrong, Joseph Boyden, Dionne Brand, Timothy Findley, Lucy Maud Montgomery, Gabrielle Roy, and many others - who witness, question, dismantle, and reconstruct the functioning of time in their works. As the first comprehensive study of the cultural politics of time in Canada, Timing Canada develops foundational principles of critical time studies and everyday temporal literacy, and demonstrates how time functions broadly as a tool of power, privilege, and imagination within a multicultural and multi-temporal nation.

About the author

Paul Huebener is the author of Timing Canada: The Shifting Politics of Time in Canadian Literary Culture, which was a finalist for the Gabrielle Roy Prize. He is an associate professor of English at Athabasca University and lives in Calgary, Alberta.
 

Paul Huebener's profile page

Editorial Reviews

“Timing Canada presents a remarkable reimagining of CanLit that goes beyond a thematic reconsideration of texts by offering a new heuristic to imagine the flow of transnational, transcultural influences into and around Canadian society and literature. Combining philosophical, religious, economic, and poetic conceptions of time, Huebener deftly applies this rubric to reveal how the cultural politics of time underpins Canadian literary imaginations.” - Gabrielle Roy Prize jury

"A broad range of historical, philosophical, political, artistic, technological, and advertising sources inform Huebener's rich analysis." Canadian Literature

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