1970
		3/year
		English, French
		Humanities
		0007-7720 E-ISSN: 1710-114X
		University of Toronto Press - Journals

Editor - Priscilla Walton Priscilla L. Walton is Professor of English at Carleton University, and is also an Associate faculty member in Communication and Film Studies. She is the author of Our Cannibals, Ourselves: The Body Politic (Illinois, 2004), Patriarchal Desire and Victorian Discourse: A Lacanian Reading of Anthony Trollope's Palliser Novels (Toronto, 1995), and The Disruption of the Feminine in Henry James (Toronto, 1992). She is the co-author, along with Manina Jones, of Detective Agency: Women Rewriting the Hardboiled Tradition (California, 1999), and, along with Jennifer Andrews and Arnold E. Davidson, of Border Crossings: Thomas King's Cultural Inversions (Toronto, 2003). She co-edited Pop Can: Popular Culture in Canada (Prentice-Hall, 1999), and edited the Everyman Paperback edition of Henry James's The Portrait of a Lady. Editorial Address Canadian Review of American Studies Priscilla Walton Department of English Carleton University Ottawa, ON K1S 5B6 pwalton@ccs.carleton.ca Associate Editors Sherrill Grace, English, University of British Columbia Yuko Matsukawa, English, SUNY Brockport Bruce Tucker, History, University of Windsor Michael Zeitlin, English, University of British Columbia Review Editors Michael Dorland, Journalism and Communication, Carleton University Jennifer Harris, English, Mount Alison University Editorial Board Martha Banta, English, UCLA William Boelhower, American Literature, University of Texas Gert Buelens, English, Ghent University Jill Conway, History, MIT Thadious Davis, English, Brown University Frances Early, History/Women's Studies, Mount St. Vincent University Michael Fellman, History, Simon Fraser University Serge Guilbaut, Fine Art, University of British Columbia Harry H. Hiller, Sociology, University of Calgary Linda Hutcheon, English, University of Toronto Michael Hutcheon, University Health Network, University of Toronto Victor Konrad, Geography & Environmental Studies, Carleton University Rob Kroes, American Studies, University of Amsterdam Yves Laberge, Philosophy, Laval University Linda Maram, Ethnic Studies, California State University at Long Beach John S. Martin, English, University of Calgary Robert K. Martin, Études anglaises, Universite de Montreal Michèle Mendelssohn, Oxford University Stuart J. Murray, English, Carleton University Jeanne Perreault, English, University of Calgary Ernest Redekop, English, University of Western Ontario Jean Edward Smith, Political Science, University of Toronto David Thelen, History, Indiana University Marcia Valiante, Law, University of Windsor Mary Helen Washington, English, University of Maryland
Submission Guidelines and/or Editorial Policies The journal publishes articles, review articles, and short reviews whose purpose is the multi- and interdisciplinary analysis and understanding of the culture, both past and present, of the United States and of the relations between the cultures of the United States and Canada. We invite contributions from authors in all relevant scholarly disciplines related to the study of the United States, in English or in French. Please visit www.utpjournals.com/cras for full submission guidelines

» Call for Papers - Death in the Cityscape

Call for Papers - Canadian Review of American Studies
Death in the Cityscape

In contemporary literature, the intersection of the space of death and mourning within the confines of the city acts as a method of critiquing our understood modes of living. Since Plato’s Republic, the uneasy interplay of death and memorialization within the polis has been considered. Theorists like Gillian Rose in Mourning Becomes the Law and Sharon Zukin in Naked City have elaborated upon the discourse of space, death, and mourning within an urban setting. This issue of finding a space within the city for the dead remains with us, and recent American economic turmoil places the urban metropolis and its spaces of decay in sharp focus (seen in novels like Teju Cole’s Open City, television shows like The Wire and movies such as Synecdoche, New York). Where in the city is death (dis)allowed? Under what authority does the city, as a social nexus point, memorialize the dead? How does art work in concert with, or against, accepted practices of mourning and memorializing within the city limits? Can one mourn the passing of a city and, if so, how is this enacted? While this abstract focuses primarily on contemporary American work, we welcome papers related to any period of American urban history.

We invite scholarly articles on this topic in any genre of American studies. Submissions should be no more than 8000 words in length. Abstracts of no more than 250 words will be accepted until December 1, 2014. Completed articles must be submitted by April 1, 2015.

Send abstracts and submissions to .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

Possible topics may include:
- Death’s relationship to identity in the American city
- American Cities Characterized
- Post-9/11 American Cities and Identity
- Death and Mourning in the City
- Death and Public Art
- Memorials and Public Mourning
- Urban American: Recession and After

Keywords:
- African-American
- Children’s Literature
- Cultural Studies and Historical Approaches
- Ecocriticism and Environmental Studies
- Ethnicity and National Identity
- Film and Television
- Gender Studies and Sexuality
- Interdisciplinary
- Literary Modernism
- Popular Culture
- Postcolonialism
- Postmodernism and Postmodern culture
- Theatre Studies
- Twenty-First Century Literature
- Visual Art and Culture

» Canadian Review of American Studies - Volume 44, Number 3, Fall 2014

Now available online…
Canadian Review of American Studies - Volume 44, Number 3, Fall 2014
http://bit.ly/CRAS443

» Ceasefire or New Battle? The Politics of Culture Wars in Obama’s Time

With the 2012 U.S. Presidential race in its closing stages, this very timely special issue aims to generate a deeper understanding of the U.S. culture wars. The issue contributes to the ongoing debates on whether or not there are culture wars currently underway in the U.S. and, if there are, who is waging these wars and what are the strategies and motivations behind them. The issue addresses four key research questions - Is a culture war really underway in America?; Is this ‘war�(tm) only between activists and politicians?; Who are the main actors in these wars and how do they try to reach their goals?; and Have we been witnessing a ceasefire in (or transformation of) America�(tm)s culture wars since Obama�(tm)s election in 2008? Guest Editor - Fr�(c)d�(c)rick Gagnon

» States of Emergency: Anxiety, Panic, Nation now available

 

Canadian Review of American Studies

Canadian Review of American Studies is published three times a year by the Canadian Association for American Studies with the support of Carleton University. It publishes essays, review essays and shorter reviews whose purpose is the multi- and inter-disciplinary analysis and understanding of the culture, both past and present, of the United States - and of the relations between the cultures of the U.S. and Canada. It invites contributions from authors in, and outside, all relevant scholarly disciplines, in English and French. Canadian orders include membership in the Canadian Association for American Studies. E-ISSN: 1710-114X ISSN: 0007-7720 COMPLETE ARCHIVE NOW AVAILABLE! Canadian Review of American Studies Online now offers a comprehensive resource for the best work being done in American Studies today. CRAS Online now includes the complete archive of current and previously published articles - more than 1200 articles, reviews and commentaries - going back to 1970(issue1.1). www.utpjournals.com/cras Canadian Review of American Studies is available online at Project MUSE - http://bit.ly/cras_pm CRAS Online - http://bit.ly/crasonline

» Visit Journal Web Site

Special Issue: States of Emergency: Anxiety, Panic, Nation, Volume 42, Number 1

Special Issue: States of Emergency: Anxiety, Panic, Nation

Although it happened over ten years from this writing (January, 2012), the event we now call ‘‘9/11�(tm)�(tm) still seems to have happened very recently. On that terrible day, I was teaching a large lecture class on the West coast of the United States. By 12:30 p.m. (the scheduled start time), the students would all have known about the attacks and, presumably, I thought as I walked from my office to the other end of campus where the class met, they would choose to spend the day with friends, with family, on the phone, glued to the television, at a bar�“certainly not at a 90-minute class on Mary Rowlandson�(tm)s captivity narrative. I wasn�(tm)t even sure why I was going. There were about 120 students enrolled in that class. I would say about 140 showed up. We talked about the Event for the entire 90 minutes. I will never forget the very first comment made in that meeting: ‘‘We have to recognize we are now in a state of emergency.�(tm)�(tm) ‘‘Now,�(tm)�(tm) he said. Still? One would have to be very daft or very deft neither to recognize nor experience the lingering effects of 9/11 in the everyday life of the United States and Canada today. ‘‘Security�(tm)�(tm) has become the stated goal of policy makers, an aspirational ideal of the managers of the republic where not a category of normalized identity for the managed: Airport security; Border Security; ‘‘Security Moms.�(tm)�(tm) Public discourse encourages greater attentiveness to the monstrous and the mundane: Amber alerts; alertness to the ‘‘suspicious�(tm)�(tm); alertness to unattended bags in train stations. … (excerpt from Introduction States of Exception: Anxiety, Panic, and the Nation by Guest Editor Bryce Traister)

States of Exception: Anxiety, Panic, and the Nation

By Bryce Traister
Although it happened over ten years from this writing (January, 2012), the event we now call ‘‘9/11â€(tm)â€(tm) still seems to have happened very recently. On that terrible day, I was teaching a large lecture class on the West coast of the United States. By 12:30 p.m. (the scheduled start time), the students would all have known about the attacks and, presumably, I thought as I walked from my office to the other end of campus where the class met, they would choose to spend the day with friends, with family, on the phone, glued to the television, at a barâ€"certainly not at a 90-minute class on Mary Rowlandsonâ€(tm)s captivity narrative. I wasnâ€(tm)t even sure why I was going. There were about 120 students enrolled in that class. I would say about 140 showed up. We talked about the Event for the entire 90 minutes. I will never forget the very first comment made in that meeting: ‘‘We have to recognize we are now in a state of emergency.â€(tm)â€(tm) ‘‘Now,â€(tm)â€(tm) he said. Still? One would have to be very daft or very deft neither to recognize nor experience the lingering effects of 9/11 in the everyday life of the United States and Canada today. ‘‘Securityâ€(tm)â€(tm) has become the stated goal of policy makers, an aspirational ideal of the managers of the republic where not a category of normalized identity for the managed: Airport security; Border Security; ‘‘Security Moms.â€(tm)â€(tm) Public discourse encourages greater attentiveness to the monstrous and the mundane: Amber alerts; alertness to the ‘‘suspiciousâ€(tm)â€(tm); alertness to unattended bags in train stations. … (excerpt from Introduction States of Exception: Anxiety, Panic, and the Nation by Guest Editor Bryce Traister) DOI: 10.3138/cras.42.1.1

Does the Declaration of Independence Declare a State of Emergency?

By Paul Downes
The Declaration of Independence announces that a state of emergency is in effect on account of King George's manifest failure to protect his colonial subjects from the horrors of a politico-legal state of nature. But it can also be read to announce the end of a particular way of thinking about the relationship between sovereignty and emergency. The Lockean political philosophy underpinning the Declaration rejects the immediate equation of the state of nature with a state of emergency, an equation associated with the work of Thomas Hobbes and condemned for helping to sustain a pernicious form of political power. The Declaration could then be said to have effected a politicization of emergency insofar as it introduced a distinction between the emergency that helps to sustain arbitrary authority and the emergency situation provoked by that very complicity. But what is the relationship between democratic sovereignty and declarations of emergency? Has emergency and its relationship to sovereign power simply become naturalized or strategically obfuscated since the revolution? This paper prepares the ground for a consideration of such questions. DOI: 10.3138/cras.42.1.7

Pretexts: Some Thoughts on the Militarization of Print Rationality in the Early Republic

By Eric Wertheimer
This essay simply asks how "the culture of the pretext" prepares a nation not just for a war, but for modern war, with its peculiar mediational circumstances. Focussing on James Madison and his arguments and stratagems leading to the War of 1812, the essay briefly describes and conceptualizes the manufacturing of an emergency that mobilizes a public inclined to fragmentation and dissensus. The constitutional directives laid out by republican print textuality are, in this argument, stressed in ways that endure through American civic and political life. DOI: 10.3138/cras.42.1.21

The Man Without a Country and America's Post-war Crisis of National Belonging

By Peter Gibian
Hale's "The Man Without a Country" turns on itself: The Man without a Country emerges not as the story's one-dimensional villain but as its complex hero-a new sort of cosmopolitan patriot. With its powerful evocation of sentimental attachment to the figure of the American expatriate voyager, Hale's tale reflects the author's struggle to re-assert the sentimental power of an imagined community in the new context of a wide-ranging global existence. Hale may have begun writing in response to the crisis of national belonging triggered by the Civil War, hoping that this piece of invented folklore would reinforce or restore an older mode of bounded American national self-definition, but "The Man without a Country" in fact anticipates the outline of an alternative vision and stance reflecting the new international situation emerging over the course of the 19th-century-giving us a prescient portrait of an American identity that finds itself most fully in trans-national situations. DOI: 10.3138/cras.42.1.36

Becoming-Woman: Masculine Emergency After 9/11 in Cormac McCarthy

By David R. Jarraway
In Cormac McCarthy's most recent fiction, it's the crisis of masculinity in particular which must be signally re-imagined from becoming-woman as a kind of state of emergency (à la President George Bush) to its opposite as an emergent occasion for reassessment and reconfiguration in so-called post-feminist discourse (à la philosopher Gilles Deleuze). In the ever-expanding textual space that opens up, for instance, in No Country for Old Men (2005), between the hyperviolent and sociopathic behaviour of the ghastly Chigurh, and the more empathic and quiescent Sheriff Ed Tom Bell, readers of McCarthy's latest fiction experience a quite palpable shift away from the model of American masculinity instinct with cruelty and isolation famously remarked upon by D. H. Lawrence and Leslie Fiedler (among others), and so visibly sublimated in America's invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq immediately following the 2001 attacks. DOI: 10.3138/cras.42.1.49

A State of Necessity: International Legal Obligations in Times of Crises

By Avidan K. Kent, Alexandra R. Harrington
The purpose of the necessity doctrine is to assist countries in dealing with crises. The necessity doctrine allows, under certain conditions, a State to breach its international obligations in order to cope with the crisis it faces. The conditions of the necessity doctrine have been, and continue to be, clarified by international bodies such as the International Law Commission, and adjudicative tribunals such as the International Court of Justice. In recent years, the necessity doctrine has been the center of several international investment law cases, mainly following Argentina's financial crisis. The application of the doctrine's conditions by some of these tribunals has not been uniform, and has been criticized by academics and practitioners. This article provides an overview of the necessity doctrine and asks whether it can be used to justify measures concerning some of the near future's most urgent challenges. DOI: 10.3138/cras.42.1.65

Suffer the Children: National Crisis, Affective Collectivity, and the Sexualized Child

By Susan Knabe
This article takes up the explicit and implicit political deployment of children in relation to two recent enactments of childhood innocence and vulnerability: Dateline NBC's wildly popular series, To Catch a Predator, where men who think they are meeting an underage child for sex are caught on camera, exposed, and arrested; and the phenomenon of Purity Balls, a growing practice within fundamentalist Christian communities, in which a daughter pledges her virginity to her father during a yearly father-daughter formal ball. The article situates these particular examples within the political and ideological utilization of children that has been increasingly apparent within the American political landscape in the latter quarter of the twentieth century. It also draws on the theoretical work by Lee Edelman, Lauren Berlant, and Peter Coviello in order to explore the political and cultural implications of the way that the trope of childhood vulnerability circulates to reiterate a particular kind of heteronormative, patriarchal social imaginary, what Edelman identifies as reproductive futurism, and to anticipate the constitutive effects of vicarious trauma for imagining the nation. DOI: 10.3138/cras.42.1.82

Rehearsing for the Plague: Citizens, Security, and Simulation

By Melanie Armstrong
Daily practices of bioterrorism preparedness are producing a security community in which citizens are bound together by common biological risk, access to care during times of crisis, and the ability and authority to provide care in an emergency. Through the study of national-level exercise programmes and city-wide preparedness plans in Albuquerque, New Mexico, this ethnographic research asks how communities are materially and ideologically organized around the idea of mitigating biological risk. The dual acts of planning for bioterrorism and simulating a response prescribe a distinct role for government in caring for a population, and not just during times of crisis. This paper explores the outcomes of publicly rehearsing the care practices of government through bioterror simulation by considering how restructuring health systems around the idea of biopreparedness confounds the specter of war with life-giving acts of health care, offering citizens a way of living within the state of emergency. DOI: 10.3138/cras.42.1.105

Other Issues

Aesthetics of Renewal; or, Everything Old Is New Again , Volume 44, Number 2, Summer 2014
Canadian Review of American Studies 42.3, December 2012 - Ceasefire or New Battle? The Politics of Culture Wars in Obama's Time , Volume 42, Number 3
Fall 2014, Volume 44, Number 3
2005, Vol. 35, No. 1