Zachary Abram | McGill University (original) (raw)
Papers by Zachary Abram
Le numéro 80 de la Revue Etudes Canadiennes/Canadian Studies se divise en deux parties. Dans un p... more Le numéro 80 de la Revue Etudes Canadiennes/Canadian Studies se divise en deux parties. Dans un premier temps, nous avons choisi de consacrer un numéro thématique au Canada dans la Grande Guerre. Nous avons sollicité des contributions qui faisaient appel à de nouvelles recherches ou à de nouvelles perspectives sur la Grande Guerre vue du Canada, ou sur la manière dont le Canada se souvient de cette guerre, particulièrement à l’approche de la commémoration de la bataille de Vimy en avril 1917. Dans une deuxième partie, nous publions quatre travaux de doctorants présentés lors de journées doctorales organisées par le Centre d’Etudes sur le Canada de l’université de Grenoble, en novembre 2015. Ces journées intitulées « le Canada, la mondialisation et votre thèse » ont montré la vitalité de la relève de la recherche en France sur le Canada
In 1958, Colin McDougall's first novel, Execution, won the Governor General's award for fiction. ... more In 1958, Colin McDougall's first novel, Execution, won the Governor General's award for fiction. The reading public, in Canada and abroad, eagerly awaited a follow-up that would never come. In the decades since its publication, the novel has been critically neglected despite its worthiness as a text that provides crucial insight into the study of Canadian war literature. An examination of the Colin McDougall Archive, housed in the McGill Rare Books and Special Collections Department, proves to be equally fruitful. The "archive," little more than a battered banker's box haphazardly stuffed with notes, some letters, and a notebook, contains multitudes. The McDougall fonds offers unprecedented access to the harrowing process of representing war from experience and raises significant questions of authorship. Why did McDougall never write again? The McDougall papers leave the archivist with the impression that transmuting the experience of war onto the page is a uniquely fraught process. The veteran-penned novel has proven to be a lightning rod for postmodern critics. According to Evelyn Cobley, war, fundamentally, cannot be represented. The desire of many war writers to pay tribute to their brothers in arms is problematic because "the commemorative gesture thus finds itself compelled to name the unnameable again and again." 1 Paul Fussell concurs, writing that war literature is complicit in the way in which the "drift of modern history domesticates the fantastic and normalizes the unspeakable." 2 The humble box of McDougall paraphernalia in Montreal serves as a crucial antidote to this way of thinking and reveals the process of writing war to be a complex one, characterized by guilt, responsibility, and anxiety. 1* Zachary Abram is a doctoral candidate at the University of Ottawa. His dissertation is about representations of the soldier in Canadian novels.
The war novel is a significant genre in twentieth-century Canadian fiction. Central to that genre... more The war novel is a significant genre in twentieth-century Canadian fiction. Central to that genre has been the soldier’s narrative. Canadian war novelists have often situated the soldier’s story in opposition to how war has functioned in Canadian cultural memory, which usually posits war as a necessary, though brutal, galvanizing force. This dissertation on how novelists depict the Canadian soldier represents a crucial opportunity to examine Canadian cultures of militarization and how Canadian identity has been formed in close identification with the mutable figure of the soldier. The most sophisticated Canadian war novels engage with how militarism functions as a grand narrative in Canadian society, while enabling Canadians to speak about issues related to war that tend to be over-simplified or elided. This dissertation examines emblematic Canadian war novels – The Imperialist by Sara Jeanette Duncan, Generals Die in Bed by Charles Yale Harrison, Turvey by Earle Birney, Execution b...
Papers of The Bibliographical Society of Canada, 1969
In 1958, Colin McDougall's first novel, Execution, won the Governor General's award for fiction. ... more In 1958, Colin McDougall's first novel, Execution, won the Governor General's award for fiction. The reading public, in Canada and abroad, eagerly awaited a follow-up that would never come. In the decades since its publication, the novel has been critically neglected despite its worthiness as a text that provides crucial insight into the study of Canadian war literature. An examination of the Colin McDougall Archive, housed in the McGill Rare Books and Special Collections Department, proves to be equally fruitful. The "archive," little more than a battered banker's box haphazardly stuffed with notes, some letters, and a notebook, contains multitudes. The McDougall fonds offers unprecedented access to the harrowing process of representing war from experience and raises significant questions of authorship. Why did McDougall never write again? The McDougall papers leave the archivist with the impression that transmuting the experience of war onto the page is a uniquely fraught process. The veteran-penned novel has proven to be a lightning rod for postmodern critics. According to Evelyn Cobley, war, fundamentally, cannot be represented. The desire of many war writers to pay tribute to their brothers in arms is problematic because "the commemorative gesture thus finds itself compelled to name the unnameable again and again." 1 Paul Fussell concurs, writing that war literature is complicit in the way in which the "drift of modern history domesticates the fantastic and normalizes the unspeakable." 2 The humble box of McDougall paraphernalia in Montreal serves as a crucial antidote to this way of thinking and reveals the process of writing war to be a complex one, characterized by guilt, responsibility, and anxiety. 1* Zachary Abram is a doctoral candidate at the University of Ottawa. His dissertation is about representations of the soldier in Canadian novels.
Études canadiennes / Canadian Studies, 2016
Studies in American Jewish Literature (1981-), 2016
ABSTRACT:A great deal of scholarly attention has been paid to A. M. Klein’s The Second Scroll for... more ABSTRACT:A great deal of scholarly attention has been paid to A. M. Klein’s The Second Scroll for its representation of Jewish identity. The narrator of the novel, however, recognizes that, as the descendant of immigrants, he is “a Canadian Jew marginalized from the Holocaust and the foundation of Israel.” In this sense, the narrator of The Second Scroll experiences a double marginalization resulting in a more complex representation of identity than the novel is usually afforded. Few critics, for instance, acknowledge the novel’s indebtedness to the existential philosophy of Søren Kierkegaard and Martin Buber. A close reading of Klein’s use of British imperial symbols in concert with the foundational texts of existentialism and the work of Louis Althusser disrupts the dominant school of thought regarding The Second Scroll. The novel certainly celebrates Judaism, but it is not meant to represent the consolidation of a Jewish identity or ideology; rather, it is a parable for Canadians. As a result of the interpellation or “hail” of ideology, the narrator and his search for his mercurial Uncle Melech is prompted to assert a distinctly Canadian identity.
The author has granted a nonexclusive license allowing Library and Archives Canada to reproduce, ... more The author has granted a nonexclusive license allowing Library and Archives Canada to reproduce, publish, archive, preserve, conserve, communicate to the public by telecommunication or on the Internet, loan, distribute and sell theses worldwide, for commercial or noncommercial purposes, in microform, paper, electronic and/or any other formats. Bien que ces formulaires aient inclus dans la pagination, il n'y aura aucun contenu manquant.
Studies in Canadian Literature Etudes En Litterature Canadienne, Jun 1, 2013
ince winning the Governor General's Award in 1958, Colin McDougall's only novel, Execution, has b... more ince winning the Governor General's Award in 1958, Colin McDougall's only novel, Execution, has been neglected, despite the richness of a text that provides ample critical avenues into Canadian war literature. Peter Webb calls the novel the "only masterpiece among Canadian Second World War novels" (163). Dagmar Novak praises Execution as "arguably the best Canadian novel about the Second World War" (112). Yet little has been made of the novel's complicated representation of wartime ethics. Even less has been made of its existential underpinnings. In the novel, Padre Doorn, a military pastor, comes face to face with a quintessential existential realization: "The Padre stared unremittingly at the sky, waiting for the parley to openand nothing happened. Nothing except air burst" (145). Furthermore, McDougall's allusions to existentialists like Franz Kafka seem to indicate that he wished Execution to be read within the complex and multifaceted tradition of existential fiction. The novel's ending, however, which features a proxy crucifixion, complicates this interpretation since novels within that tradition, such as Jean-Paul Sartre's Nausea (1938) or Albert Camus's The Stranger (1942), do not typically allow for any kind of spiritual transcendence. Understanding this seemingly irreconcilable tension means eschewing the dominant form of mid-century existentialism characterized by Sartre and Camus in favour of one of existentialism's foundational figures. A close reading of Execution, considering the formative texts of existentialism and a comparative reading of works by its international influences, including Kafka, Herman Melville, and William Faulkner, reveals a valuable theoretical matrix for parsing the difficult philosophy of this neglected novel. For Execution accords with an earlier form of existentialism, one that predates the school's consensus atheism and is articulated primarily by Søren Kierkegaard in Fear and Trembling.
Canadian cultural memory of the First World War is conspicuously asexual considering Canadians ha... more Canadian cultural memory of the First World War is conspicuously asexual considering Canadians had among the highest rates for venereal disease in the British Expeditionary Force. There is an inherited reticence to discuss soldiers’ sex lives. There is no such silence in Canadian war novels. In these novels, sex workers facilitate the forging of a distinctly domestic space. Indicative of the persistent schism between the front and the home-front, however, this proxy space inevitably becomes untenable and the relationship between soldier and sex worker comes to stand in for the fraught relationship between soldier and home-front and vice versa.
Reviews by Zachary Abram
Canadian Literature, 2020
Le numéro 80 de la Revue Etudes Canadiennes/Canadian Studies se divise en deux parties. Dans un p... more Le numéro 80 de la Revue Etudes Canadiennes/Canadian Studies se divise en deux parties. Dans un premier temps, nous avons choisi de consacrer un numéro thématique au Canada dans la Grande Guerre. Nous avons sollicité des contributions qui faisaient appel à de nouvelles recherches ou à de nouvelles perspectives sur la Grande Guerre vue du Canada, ou sur la manière dont le Canada se souvient de cette guerre, particulièrement à l’approche de la commémoration de la bataille de Vimy en avril 1917. Dans une deuxième partie, nous publions quatre travaux de doctorants présentés lors de journées doctorales organisées par le Centre d’Etudes sur le Canada de l’université de Grenoble, en novembre 2015. Ces journées intitulées « le Canada, la mondialisation et votre thèse » ont montré la vitalité de la relève de la recherche en France sur le Canada
In 1958, Colin McDougall's first novel, Execution, won the Governor General's award for fiction. ... more In 1958, Colin McDougall's first novel, Execution, won the Governor General's award for fiction. The reading public, in Canada and abroad, eagerly awaited a follow-up that would never come. In the decades since its publication, the novel has been critically neglected despite its worthiness as a text that provides crucial insight into the study of Canadian war literature. An examination of the Colin McDougall Archive, housed in the McGill Rare Books and Special Collections Department, proves to be equally fruitful. The "archive," little more than a battered banker's box haphazardly stuffed with notes, some letters, and a notebook, contains multitudes. The McDougall fonds offers unprecedented access to the harrowing process of representing war from experience and raises significant questions of authorship. Why did McDougall never write again? The McDougall papers leave the archivist with the impression that transmuting the experience of war onto the page is a uniquely fraught process. The veteran-penned novel has proven to be a lightning rod for postmodern critics. According to Evelyn Cobley, war, fundamentally, cannot be represented. The desire of many war writers to pay tribute to their brothers in arms is problematic because "the commemorative gesture thus finds itself compelled to name the unnameable again and again." 1 Paul Fussell concurs, writing that war literature is complicit in the way in which the "drift of modern history domesticates the fantastic and normalizes the unspeakable." 2 The humble box of McDougall paraphernalia in Montreal serves as a crucial antidote to this way of thinking and reveals the process of writing war to be a complex one, characterized by guilt, responsibility, and anxiety. 1* Zachary Abram is a doctoral candidate at the University of Ottawa. His dissertation is about representations of the soldier in Canadian novels.
The war novel is a significant genre in twentieth-century Canadian fiction. Central to that genre... more The war novel is a significant genre in twentieth-century Canadian fiction. Central to that genre has been the soldier’s narrative. Canadian war novelists have often situated the soldier’s story in opposition to how war has functioned in Canadian cultural memory, which usually posits war as a necessary, though brutal, galvanizing force. This dissertation on how novelists depict the Canadian soldier represents a crucial opportunity to examine Canadian cultures of militarization and how Canadian identity has been formed in close identification with the mutable figure of the soldier. The most sophisticated Canadian war novels engage with how militarism functions as a grand narrative in Canadian society, while enabling Canadians to speak about issues related to war that tend to be over-simplified or elided. This dissertation examines emblematic Canadian war novels – The Imperialist by Sara Jeanette Duncan, Generals Die in Bed by Charles Yale Harrison, Turvey by Earle Birney, Execution b...
Papers of The Bibliographical Society of Canada, 1969
In 1958, Colin McDougall's first novel, Execution, won the Governor General's award for fiction. ... more In 1958, Colin McDougall's first novel, Execution, won the Governor General's award for fiction. The reading public, in Canada and abroad, eagerly awaited a follow-up that would never come. In the decades since its publication, the novel has been critically neglected despite its worthiness as a text that provides crucial insight into the study of Canadian war literature. An examination of the Colin McDougall Archive, housed in the McGill Rare Books and Special Collections Department, proves to be equally fruitful. The "archive," little more than a battered banker's box haphazardly stuffed with notes, some letters, and a notebook, contains multitudes. The McDougall fonds offers unprecedented access to the harrowing process of representing war from experience and raises significant questions of authorship. Why did McDougall never write again? The McDougall papers leave the archivist with the impression that transmuting the experience of war onto the page is a uniquely fraught process. The veteran-penned novel has proven to be a lightning rod for postmodern critics. According to Evelyn Cobley, war, fundamentally, cannot be represented. The desire of many war writers to pay tribute to their brothers in arms is problematic because "the commemorative gesture thus finds itself compelled to name the unnameable again and again." 1 Paul Fussell concurs, writing that war literature is complicit in the way in which the "drift of modern history domesticates the fantastic and normalizes the unspeakable." 2 The humble box of McDougall paraphernalia in Montreal serves as a crucial antidote to this way of thinking and reveals the process of writing war to be a complex one, characterized by guilt, responsibility, and anxiety. 1* Zachary Abram is a doctoral candidate at the University of Ottawa. His dissertation is about representations of the soldier in Canadian novels.
Études canadiennes / Canadian Studies, 2016
Studies in American Jewish Literature (1981-), 2016
ABSTRACT:A great deal of scholarly attention has been paid to A. M. Klein’s The Second Scroll for... more ABSTRACT:A great deal of scholarly attention has been paid to A. M. Klein’s The Second Scroll for its representation of Jewish identity. The narrator of the novel, however, recognizes that, as the descendant of immigrants, he is “a Canadian Jew marginalized from the Holocaust and the foundation of Israel.” In this sense, the narrator of The Second Scroll experiences a double marginalization resulting in a more complex representation of identity than the novel is usually afforded. Few critics, for instance, acknowledge the novel’s indebtedness to the existential philosophy of Søren Kierkegaard and Martin Buber. A close reading of Klein’s use of British imperial symbols in concert with the foundational texts of existentialism and the work of Louis Althusser disrupts the dominant school of thought regarding The Second Scroll. The novel certainly celebrates Judaism, but it is not meant to represent the consolidation of a Jewish identity or ideology; rather, it is a parable for Canadians. As a result of the interpellation or “hail” of ideology, the narrator and his search for his mercurial Uncle Melech is prompted to assert a distinctly Canadian identity.
The author has granted a nonexclusive license allowing Library and Archives Canada to reproduce, ... more The author has granted a nonexclusive license allowing Library and Archives Canada to reproduce, publish, archive, preserve, conserve, communicate to the public by telecommunication or on the Internet, loan, distribute and sell theses worldwide, for commercial or noncommercial purposes, in microform, paper, electronic and/or any other formats. Bien que ces formulaires aient inclus dans la pagination, il n'y aura aucun contenu manquant.
Studies in Canadian Literature Etudes En Litterature Canadienne, Jun 1, 2013
ince winning the Governor General's Award in 1958, Colin McDougall's only novel, Execution, has b... more ince winning the Governor General's Award in 1958, Colin McDougall's only novel, Execution, has been neglected, despite the richness of a text that provides ample critical avenues into Canadian war literature. Peter Webb calls the novel the "only masterpiece among Canadian Second World War novels" (163). Dagmar Novak praises Execution as "arguably the best Canadian novel about the Second World War" (112). Yet little has been made of the novel's complicated representation of wartime ethics. Even less has been made of its existential underpinnings. In the novel, Padre Doorn, a military pastor, comes face to face with a quintessential existential realization: "The Padre stared unremittingly at the sky, waiting for the parley to openand nothing happened. Nothing except air burst" (145). Furthermore, McDougall's allusions to existentialists like Franz Kafka seem to indicate that he wished Execution to be read within the complex and multifaceted tradition of existential fiction. The novel's ending, however, which features a proxy crucifixion, complicates this interpretation since novels within that tradition, such as Jean-Paul Sartre's Nausea (1938) or Albert Camus's The Stranger (1942), do not typically allow for any kind of spiritual transcendence. Understanding this seemingly irreconcilable tension means eschewing the dominant form of mid-century existentialism characterized by Sartre and Camus in favour of one of existentialism's foundational figures. A close reading of Execution, considering the formative texts of existentialism and a comparative reading of works by its international influences, including Kafka, Herman Melville, and William Faulkner, reveals a valuable theoretical matrix for parsing the difficult philosophy of this neglected novel. For Execution accords with an earlier form of existentialism, one that predates the school's consensus atheism and is articulated primarily by Søren Kierkegaard in Fear and Trembling.
Canadian cultural memory of the First World War is conspicuously asexual considering Canadians ha... more Canadian cultural memory of the First World War is conspicuously asexual considering Canadians had among the highest rates for venereal disease in the British Expeditionary Force. There is an inherited reticence to discuss soldiers’ sex lives. There is no such silence in Canadian war novels. In these novels, sex workers facilitate the forging of a distinctly domestic space. Indicative of the persistent schism between the front and the home-front, however, this proxy space inevitably becomes untenable and the relationship between soldier and sex worker comes to stand in for the fraught relationship between soldier and home-front and vice versa.