Remediating the First World War : literary and visual constructions of English-Canadian cultural memory
department or school: Arts, Faculty of
department or school: English, Department of
data provider: DSpace
degree campus: UBCV
creator: Fahey, Alicia
issued: 2018-01-05T16:56:01Z
issued: 2017
related degree: Doctor of Philosophy - PhD
degree grantor: University of British Columbia
description: “Great nations write their autobiographies in three manuscripts – the book of their deeds, the book of their words and the book of their art.” When Paul Konody, art advisor for the Canadian War Memorials Fund (CWMF) First World War artist program, began his introductory essay to the exhibition catalogue Art & War (1919) with these words, he was making connections among the disciplines of history (deeds), literature (words), and (visual) art. Konody’s interdisciplinary understanding of representational media provides an appropriate point of entry for this dissertation, which investigates the intersectionalities of English-Canadian First World War art and literature. Building on a theoretical framework rooted in the concept and practice of remediation which, briefly, denotes a material reconfiguration of the original art object when it is later invoked in a literary work, I argue that the revival of Canadian military sculpture and paintings in contemporary First World War literature is evidence of a re-working of cultural memory of the Great War that continues to gain momentum in the immediate present and is indicative of a burgeoning, third phase of the memory boom in which media occupy a central position. Although some of the literary texts I examine apply remediation in its traditional sense, which functions to stabilize the original representation that it invokes, the focus of my study is on reversing this process by examining the ways in which English-Canadian authors have utilized remediation to reconsider official versions of the past through a revisionist lens. I conclude that, at its most effective, remediation operates as an act of intervention by deconstructing the state-sanctioned heroic sacrifice masternarrative that Canada came of age in the Great War and focusing instead on counternarratives that represent the diversity of the war experience. Indeed, my study offers proof that rethinking remediation in terms of deconstruction can reveal the supplementar…
aggregated CHO: https://circle.library.ubc.ca/rest/handle/2429/64264
note: REMEDIATING THE FIRST WORLD WAR: LITERARY AND VISUAL CONSTRUCTIONS OF ENGLISH-CANADIAN CULTURAL MEMORY by Alicia Fahey B.A. (Hons.), Trent University, 2006 B.Ed., Queen’s University, 2007 M.A., Trent University, 2011 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE AND POSTDOCTORAL STUDIES (English) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver) December 2017 © Alicia Fahey, 2017 ii Abstract “Great nations write their autobiographies in three manuscripts – the book of their deeds, the book of their words and the book of their art.” When Paul Konody, art advisor for the Canadian War Memorials Fund (CWMF) First World War artist program, began his introductory essay to the exhibition catalogue Art & War (1919) with these words, he was making connections among the disciplines of history (deeds), literature (words), and (visual) art. Konody’s interdisciplinary understanding of representational media provides an appropriate point of entry for this dissertation, which investigates the intersectionalities of English-Canadian First World War art and literature. Building on a theoretical framework rooted in the concept and practice of remediation which, briefly, denotes a material reconfiguration of the original art object when it is later invoked in a literary work, I argue that the revival of Canadian military sculpture and paintings in contemporary First World War literature is evidence of a re-working of cultural memory of the Great War that continues to gain momentum in the immediate present and is indicative of a burgeoning, third phase of the memory boom in which media occupy a central position. Although some of the literary texts I examine apply remediation in its traditional sense, which functions to stabilize the original representation that it invokes, the focus of my study is on reversing this process by examining the ways in which English-Canadian authors have utilized remediation to r…
has type: Thesis/Dissertation
date issued: 2018-02
is shown at: 10.14288/1.0362875
language: eng
degree discipline: English
provider: Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
publisher: University of British Columbia
rights: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
rights URI: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
scholar level: Graduate
type: Text
identifier URI: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/64264