" target=_blank> 10. Janice Williamson - 2008-12-06 07:48:28 |
Last night’s reading by Nicole Brossard & Daphne Marlatt reminded me how a room full of hundreds of smart creative women changes everything. My own intellectual formation at the moment women entered the academy with voices intact and speaking. Barbara’s interview with editor Smaro Kamboureli in Canadian Literature at the Crossroads of Language & Culture (NeWest Press, 2008) tells of a time (not long ago) when it was scandalous and puzzling to teach a course on women’s writing or Canadian/Quebec writing.
On the first evening, Julia Creet introduced the symposium requesting Barbara’s students and collaborators stand. Dozens, a hundred or more women stood up applauding Barbara whose chic black hat brimmed with pleasure-- I sat down behind her and cried at this gathering, this fabulous network of feminist connections across Canada and around the world created by Barbara’s teaching, writing, and publishing. Thank you organizers for making this wonderful event possible. It seemed entirely fitting that it takes place in a dance studio. In an adjacent room young girls swirled their bodies to invisible music while we listened to the readings by Daphne and Nicole last night and chanted a sound poem with Penn Kemp.
Barbara was very important in my own intellectual development. My PhD thesis was on feminist poetics and she was a key member of my committee. As well, I worked as a TA in the Canadian Lit courses at York and on occasion would teach one of her Cdn women’s writing classes when she was off dazzling conference goers elsewhere. While finishing grad school, I began a collection of interviews eventually published by UTP called Sounding Differences; Conversations with Seventeen Cdn Women Writers that looked at questions of difference and power between women. These "oral essays" evolved from the spirit of Barbara’s and Tessera’s process of collaboration.
When I was studying with Brenda Longfellow and others of my generation at York, Dot Tuer, Kass Banning, Pat Elliot, and others formed "The Bad Sisters" and we worked together in reading groups on feminism, psychoanalysis and other critical texts. Barbara’s theorizing crossed media and genres enabling us all in intellectual and political work on film, literature, graffiti, visual art, music, peace-making and malls.
As well, I realize that her own parenting work, sometimes single parenting when her husband was ill, provided me with a model for my own domestic life. I became a single adoptive mother at 48 in an English Dept at UofA where almost all of the women had chosen not to parent, a fact that was influenced in part by how our workplace defined success for women professors. I have a photograph of my daughter in my own Albertan garden inspired by Barbara’s gorgeous Toronto backyard roses. This too is part of her unspoken influence. |
|
9. Susan M. Murphy - 2008-12-05 10:57:40 |
Dear Barbara,
Please accept my hommage offered to you as an outstanding scholar, certainly, but more especially as a shining example of that more rare subspecies who collaborates,on a basis of respect and equality, with younger and less established scholars.
Toutes mes felicitations,
Susan
|
|
8. James L. Gillespie - 2008-12-02 14:31:17 |
With whom else but Barbara could I drop by for tea and then quite casually begin to discuss a concordance of references to issues of temporality in Shakespeare, Marx and Ovid?
A brilliant salute to Barbara on weaving the rich fabric of intellectual fulfillment that she has shared so graciously.
James L Gillespie MFA, PhD
artist, writer, filmmaker
Toronto, ON Canada
|
|
" target=_blank>7. Danielle Fuller - 2008-12-01 19:36:03 |
| I am one of many writers and academics working outside Canada who has not only been inspired and deeply influenced by Barbara’s scholarly work but also by her generosity and friendliness towards others. Although I have never literally been Barbara’s student, she has always proved supportive of me and my work and a welcoming presence whenever I have been in Toronto. I deeply appreciate and thank her for this, and am very sorry that I can’t be there in person to celebrate with you all. Lots of love to you Barbara, and I hope that you have a wonderful time among your many friends and colleagues! Danielle Fuller (University of Birmingham, UK) |
|
6. Patrick Coleman - 2008-11-24 16:07:47 |
Dear Barbara,
I wish I attend the celebration of your work, but I will be there in spirit. I’m so pleased that (some of!) your essays are now gathered into a book as a lasting sign of your theoretial acumen and interpretive discernment of significant literary and linguistic detail.
Congratulations, and I hope we meet again soon. |
|
" target=_blank>5. Nadine Boljkovac - 2008-11-21 05:17:39 |
Warmest congratulations, dear Barbara, on this incredible, and incredibly well-deserved, honour.
So many of the exciting connections that I am continuing to think through were inspired by your 2003 Deleuze-Godard seminar, which was transformative for me.
Sincerest gratitude and warmest wishes, Nadine
--
PhD Candidate, Film-Philosophy, Cambridge University
MA Film & Video York Graduate |
|
" target=_blank>4. Carla Garnet - 2008-11-09 12:30:38 |
2008 Fall Focus Session
December 3 and 4, 2008, Toronto
Art Institutions and the Feminist Dialectic
Registration Fees; $195 OAAG Members / $250 General
Organized by Carla Garnet for the Ontario Association of Art Galleries
Funded in part by the Museums Assistance Program, Canadian Heritage, Government of Canada
Emelie Chhangur
Christine Conley
Pamela Edmonds
Carla Garnet
Sophie Hackett
Kristina Huneault
Suzy Lake
Allyson Mitchell
Jessica Rose
Camilla Singh
Looking back over the past 35 years, Art Institutions and the Feminist Dialectic aims to explore through working groups and a series of dialogues the unique challenges and opportunities presented by the exhibition, acquisition and preservation of feminist art work by Ontario public art galleries, archives, universities and other public institutions. In an immersive, retreat-like environment, registered delegates will actively contribute to the symposium in working groups, leading to analysis of the following questions;
• How is the art museum a gendered space?
• How does feminist work affect new reading(s) of the public museum?
• What strategies have art curators developed for the presentation, housing and maintenance of feminist art?
• What challenges and opportunities does performance-based work present to public art institutions?
• Can the art museum successfully re-enact performance-based work?
• How do public institutions gain from a conversation with artists about works made as activism?
Reciprocal Fee Option for Professional Artists and Students
Professional artists and students may want to take up the option of contributing a new research project on the feminist dialectic in exchange for full registration as a working delegate to Art Institutions and the Feminist Dialectic, a value equivalent to the registration fee of $250. For professional artists, this research could take any form, comprising what could be considered a meditation on personal or collegial feminist practice equivalent to six (6) working hours. For students, this research should be academically-sound, original, and serve as a form of personal recognition to the other delegates about another feminist artist of influence in the form of a 500-word document that can be added to the delegate kit, equivalent to 25 working hours. Registration is conditional upon receipt of the completed research project by November 24, 2008.
Also of note; ALLYSON MITCHELL
Ladies Sasquatch
January 29 - March 21
Curated by Carla Garnet.
Six, freestanding, figurative, sculptural works by Toronto-based Mitchell actively marry feminist theory with the artist’s favorite material, fun fur. An exhibition catalogue including essays by Josie Mills and Anne Cvetkovich, will be available.
|
|
" target=_blank>3. Julie Rak - 2008-11-06 12:36:50 |
| I did not have the opportunity to be taught by Barbara Godard, but she has taught me so much through her essays, her landmark book collections, and through her example. If it were not for Barbara, so much about feminism and women’s writing in Canada and Quebec would not have been investigated or even thought to be worthy of inquiry. She has mentored many of my colleagues and friends, and in this way has made the field of Canadian literary and cultural studies rewarding for me to work in. Her work on print culture, although it is less known, is equally important to me. Barbara Godard shows me that it is possible to work in the academy without compromising what is important politically and intellectually. For this and so much more, thank you Barbara. |
|
2. Symposium Admin - 2008-11-04 18:30:29 |
 |
|
1. Symposium Admin - 2008-11-04 12:40:10 |
| This site is intended for colleagues and friends who wish to be virtually present at the event. All contributions are welcome. |
|
|
Sign guestbook