West/Border/Road : Nation and Genre in Contemporary Canadian Narrative

A captivating look at how recent Canadian fiction, film, and television appropriate and redefine American genres. A captivating look at how recent Canadian fiction, film, and television appropriate and redefine American genres. "Understanding how Canadian culture negotiates its rapport with American genres has never been more timely given the continued vertical integration of the North American entertainment industry and new modes of technological delivery that challenge Canadian content regulations. West/Border/Road offers an interdisciplinary and cross-generic analysis of contemporary Canadian manifestations of three spatially-coded American genres: the western, the border and the road. It situates close readings of literary, film and television narratives from both English-Canada and Quebec within a larger context of Canadian generic borrowings and innovation. Using an approach of critical nation theory, Roberts calls upon canonical works in Canadian studies, theories of genre and a wide-range of scholarship from related fields (border studies, culture studies, film studies) to examine how genre is appropriated and reworked (or not) in recent representative texts and how these cultural narratives can be read critically for how they engage with discourses of contemporary Canadian nationness. In readings that elucidate Guy Vanderhaeghe's re-writing of the codes of the historical western to include the trauma of Aboriginal peoples, Aritha van Herk's playfully spoof of American western iconography, the politics and perils of the representation of the Canada-U.S. border in CBC-produced crime television and how the road genre inspires and constrains the Québécois and Canadian road movie, Roberts provides a nuanced perspective on Canadian engagement with American cultural forms that are imported but never foreign. A reminder of the power and limitations of American genres, West/Border/Road is a compelling account of how the asymmetrical embeddedness of the Canadian-American cultural relationship is negotiated in today's texts."-- Provided by publisher "Understanding how Canadian culture negotiates its rapport with American genres has never been more timely given the continued vertical integration of the North American entertainment industry and new modes of technological delivery that challenge Canadian content regulations. West/Border/Road offers an interdisciplinary and cross-generic analysis of contemporary Canadian manifestations of three spatially-coded American genres: the western, the border and the road. It situates close readings of literary, film and television narratives from both English-Canada and Quebec within a larger context of Canadian generic borrowings and innovation. Using an approach of critical nation theory, Roberts calls upon canonical works in Canadian studies, theories of genre and a wide-range of scholarship from related fields (border studies, culture studies, film studies) to examine how genre is appropriated and reworked (or not) in recent representative texts and how these cultural narratives can be read critically for how they engage with discourses of contemporary Canadian nationness. In readings that elucidate Guy Vanderhaeghe's re-writing of the codes of the historical western to include the trauma of Aboriginal peoples, Aritha van Herk's playfully spoof of American western iconography, the politics and perils of the representation of the Canada-U.S. border in CBC-produced crime television and how the road genre inspires and constrains the Québécois and Canadian road movie, Roberts provides a nuanced perspective on Canadian engagement with American cultural forms that are imported but never foreign. A reminder of the power and limitations of American genres, West/Border/Road is a compelling account of how the asymmetrical embeddedness of the Canadian-American cultural relationship is negotiated in today's texts."--De l'éditeur The North American entertainment industry is rapidly consolidating, and new modes of technological delivery challenge Canadian content regulations. An understanding of how Canadian culture negotiates its rapport with American genres has never been more timely. West/Border/Road offers an interdisciplinary analysis of contemporary Canadian manifestations of three American genres: the western, the border, and the road. It situates close readings of literary, film, and television narratives from both English Canada and Quebec within a larger context of Canadian generic borrowing and innovation. Katherine Ann Roberts calls upon canonical works in Canadian studies, theories of genre, and a wide range of scholarship from border studies, cultural studies, and film studies to examine how genre is appropriated and sometimes reworked and how these cultural narratives engage with discourses of contemporary Canadian nationhood. The author elucidates Guy Vanderhaeghe's rewriting of the codes of the historical western to include the trauma of Aboriginal peoples, Aritha van Herk's playful spoof on American western iconography, the politics and perils of the representation of the Canada-US border in CBC-produced crime television, and how the road genre inspires and constrains the Québécois and Canadian road movie. A reminder of the power and limitations of American genres, West/Border/Road provides a nuanced perspective on Canadian engagement with cultural forms that may be imported but never foreign. Cover WEST/BORDER/ROAD Title Copyright CONTENTS Acknowledgments Introduction 1 WEST 1 Courage and Restraint in Guy Vanderhaeghe’s Western Trilogy 2 WEST 2 Stampeding Together, Sundance Style, in Aritha van Herk’s (New) West 3 BORDER 1 Post-9/11 Anxiety on the Small Screen in CBC’s Intelligence and The Border 4 BORDER 2 The Edge of America in Border Songs, Frozen River, and Canada 5 ROAD 1 Where the River Meets the Sea: The Politics of Memory in Quebec Road Narrative 6 ROAD 2 Updating the Canadian Road Movie with Hollywood Canucks Conclusion Notes References Index