"More clocks than Bibles": Why We Cannot Understand Canada Without Reading Stories About Clocks (original) (raw)

Abstract

The colonization of Canada overlaps closely with the period of time in which accurate clocks became readily available – clocks that, as Robert Levine argues, result in an entirely new way of inhabiting time by manufacturing the very regularity and precision they presume to measure. Looking at three works of Canadian literature spanning the last two centuries – Thomas Haliburton’s The Clockmaker (1836), L.M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables (1908), and Michael Ondaatje’s In the Skin of a Lion (1987) – I highlight the importance of clocks in the Canadian imagination, arguing that images of clocks often reflect deep truths about Canada’s social fabric, colonial status, class divisions, and normative codes of conduct. The clock is a central icon in Canadian consciousness, and we must read its presence carefully to understand social relations of all kinds.

Paul Huebener hasn't uploaded this talk.

Let Paul know you want this talk to be uploaded.

Ask for this talk to be uploaded.