McGill-Queen's University Press Blog

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What you may have missed this week at the MQUP… 

A Gentleman of Pleasure public lecture

National Post review of A Gentleman of Pleasure

Do you know John Glassco?

MQUP presents an excerpt from Singing from the Darktime

Tom Flanagan's Playbook for Ultimate Harper Victory

The Montreal Gazette's poem of the month

 

What else?

Mike Matas Ted Talk: A next-generation digital book

Periodicals Price Survey 2011: Under Pressure, Times Are Changing

Amazon to add library lending to Kindle

Should The Great Gatsby really be called Drink Responsibly?

On Language Nerds and Nags

 

Upcoming

April 29th - Merrily Weisbord in Blue Metropolis' Celebration of Indian Writing: Tribute to Kamala Das

April 30th - Brian Busby in Blue Metropolis' Varied Trajectories: Montreal Writers Richler & Glassco

May 1st -  Merrily Weisbord in Blue Metropolis' Celebration of Indian Writing: India from the Outside

May 1st - Join Rebecca Margolis at the launch of Jewish Roots, Canadian Soil

Concluding Poetry Month 2011

To close poetry month, MQUP presents an excerpt from Singing from the Darktime by S. Weilbach,  a compelling picture of a rural childhood in Germany at a time when the world was about to change.

By 1937 Hitler's power was beginning to penetrate the peaceful agricultural village in the Rhine Valley where S. Weilbach lived with her family. Without warning, her carefree life became a scene of bewildering racial abuse, followed by the violent invasion of her home, the arrest of her father, and the disappearance of her beloved grandmother.

Click for more information on Singing from the Darktime

Or listen to an MQUP podcast featuring the author S. Weilbach.

 

One morning on my solitary way Towards the dreaded school, There was a noise we almost never heard – The roaring of a rapid truck. It drove right past And vanished round a bend. Then as I sat To learn to spell a word, At Teacher’s sudden call The class erupted from their seats, And clustering at the sill, Looked down upon the yard And grinned or laughed. We in the back Were told to rise and look. I barely knew then what I saw – It was so strange It would not fit into my mind: A circle like a children’s game Of fullgrown men I’d never seen before. They circled in the cobbled yard Around and round and round again. While at the side two men in uniform Looked on and smiled. Until an old man stumbled And a swift, swastikaed arm Dragged him apart. Then he was kneed until he almost fell And pushed to where I could not see. And in that silent troupe Treading round and round and round again, I thought I saw my father walk With all those other men. When I came home Our house was quiet, But for my mother’s rapid steps Upstairs from room to room. (Where no one went this time of day.) And when I ran With satchel bouncing at my back To meet my Oma at the stove, Or find her seated on the couch, She was not there. Nor Opa anywhere.

A Gentleman of Pleasure Public Lecture

McGill University recently hosted a public lecture about A Gentleman of Pleasure: One Life of John Glassco, Poet, Memoirist, Translator, and Pornographer by Brian Busby.

Adrian King-Edwards introduced the event's speakers; King-Edwards is the owner of The Word Bookstore, a Montreal fixture and John Glassco haunt.

Along with Brian Busby, speakers included celebrated literary translator and close friend to John Glassco, Sheila Fischman and Dr. Richard Virr, chief curator of McGill Library's Rare Books and Special Collections.

 

Brian Busby on John Glassco's attitude towards his works of pornography

John Glassco's Memoirs of Montparnasse inscription to Kay Boyle

Louis Dudek on Glassco's Memoirs of Montparnasse

Brian Busby on John Glassco's autobiographical sketch

 

Watch the full lecture end to end

Learn more about A Gentleman of Pleasure

Tom Flanagan's Playbook for Ultimate Harper Victory

The Tyee reviews Tom Flanagan's Harper's Team, an insider's account of the four campaigns that made Stephen Harper prime minister of Canada.

As a full-time professor and part-time dabbler in Reform politics, Flanagan clearly saw Reform as a vehicle for Hayekian changes. His involvement with the young Stephen Harper was tentative at first, but before long they were close associates. They co-authored an important essay: "Our Benign Dictatorship: Can Canada Avoid a Second Century of Liberal Rule?"

Flanagan and Harper learned the ropes of backroom politics as Reform staggered through changes in name, brand and leadership early in the decade. Through it all, Flanagan was clearly taking detailed notes and drawing lessons from the experience.

Fear works

The key lesson: Fear works. Raising money to support Harper's leadership campaign taught him to follow "the time-honoured advice for raising money by direct mail -- make people angry and afraid, and set up an opponent for them to give against."

Read the full article

Or read Tom Flanagan's insights on the current Canadian elections in the Globe and Mail

Recommended Reading

National Day of Remembrance and Action on Mass Atrocities

Co-author of Mobilizing the Will to Intervene, Kyle Matthews, will be taking part in a panel discussion on National Day of Remembrance and Action on Mass Atrocities

 

Wednesday, April 20, 2011 at 7:00pm
Alumni Auditorium
University of Ottawa

The All-Party Parliamentary Group for the Prevention of Genocide and Other Crimes Against Humanity invites you to a panel discussion to mark the first annual National Day of Remembrance and Action on Mass Atrocities

 

Special guests:

• Mr. Alex Neve - Secretary General, Amnesty International Canada

• Mr. Kyle Matthews - Lead Researcher, Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies (MIGS) at Concordia University

• Ms. Naomi Kikoler - Senior Advisor and Program Manager, Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect (GCR2P)

Chaired and moderated by Mr. Allan Rock, President and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ottawa

 

On April 23rd, 2010, the Parliament of Canada officially recognized that day as the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Mass Atrocities. April 23rd was chosen in honour of Lester B. Pearson’s birth date, Canada’s Nobel Peace Prize winner, and recognizes his commitment to peace and international cooperation to end crimes against humanity. This day now serves as a call for Canadians to commemorate those who have suffered in the past and to work towards preventing such atrocities from happening in the future. In the spirit of the day’s mandate, please join us in a panel discussion that will offer an overview of mass atrocities in the world today and the ways in which Canada can be part of their resolution.

For inquiries and RSVP, please contact Renée at prev-gen@parl.gc.ca

 

Despite the handwringing and promises of "never again," the grim recurrences of genocide and crimes against humanity around the world have made it emphatically clear that the international community has been largely ineffective in stopping mass atrocity crimes. Drawing on candid interviews with eighty key figures involved in American and Canadian responses to the Rwandan genocide of 1994 and the Kosovo crisis of 1999, Mobilizing the Will to Intervene explains why and provides a roadmap for change. Click here for more information.

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Copy

James Gannon is a Toronto lawyer with an interest in intellectual property laws. He recently blogged about his thoughts on the issue of copyright:

I was wrong.

After years of reading intellectual property law blogs from some of the greatest legal minds, I’m finally ready to admit that I was wrong. The fight against illegal copying is one that cannot be won. I can no longer deny the simple truth that it is ultimately futile to try to create artificial scarcities in what would otherwise be non-scarce goods. The digital revolution has allowed us to copy and share media for free and we should not let our antiquated laws stop us from enjoying these incredible technologies. It is time to fully embrace the digital revolution.

To be clear, I’m not talking about using P2P programs, cyber-lockers, illegal streaming or any other file-sharing technology.

I’m going to start printing my own money.

Gutenberg did not invent the printing press so that it would be controlled in the hands a few rich and powerful central bankers who desperately cling to outdated business models. With the advent of digital technologies, everyone can and should be free to copy their own money.

Read the full article

A Blindfold reading

Listen to Blindfold discussion and excerpts on RCI.

Blindfold is written by poet John Asfour. Blinded by a grenade in Lebanon as a teenager, Asfour came to Canada armed with James Joyce's words, "For the eyes, they bring us nothing. I have a hundred worlds to create and I am only losing one of them." Blindfold investigates the ways in which disability influences our lives and is magnified in our minds. In a series of thematically linked poems, Asfour draws the metaphor of the blindfold across the eyes of sighted citizens who are impaired by estrangement, emotional complexity, and social pressures.

 

 

See John Asfour live at Montreal's Blue Metropolis festival April 27th
or at Toronto's Luminato June 14th

 

Check out our twitter feed for more poetry bits throughout the month of April

Stephen Harper’s five-question limit

The Globe & Mail has run an editorial by author of A Secret Trial, William Kaplan:

Five questions. That’s right. The Prime Minister has told journalists travelling on his campaign tour that he will only answer five questions a day.

On the last day of March, reporters in Halifax – standing behind a yellow barricade at least a dozen feet away from Stephen Harper – called out to him to explain why only five questions. He refused to respond. Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff and NDP Leader Jack Layton answer all the questions they’re asked, the reporters pointed out. Why had Mr. Harper limited reporters to five questions a day? He refused to explain. “If there’s another subject, I’ll answer it,” he told them.

When the reporters properly pushed back, getting into a bit of a shouting match with the Prime Minister, he again refused to elaborate. “If there are other subjects I’m not addressing, I’ll take them. What’s the subject? One subject.” Mr. Harper was then asked a question about Libya. He answered it and walked away.

So there we have it: The Prime Minister who promised more openness and accountability, who’s been in power for five years, has told the press to get used to it – you can cover my campaign, but you can ask only five questions.

Read the full article

 

In his best-selling Presumed Guilty William Kaplan chronicled the corruption charges surrounding the $1.8 billion purchase by Air Canada of passenger airplanes from European giant Airbus Industries and concluded - based on the evidence available at the time - that former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney had been the victim of unfounded allegation and reckless innuendo. Discovering that the story was far more complicated, Kaplan sets the record straight in A Secret Trial.

Learn more about A Secret Trial

Follow Fridays

What you may have missed this week at the MQUP… 

Maclean's reviews The Strange Demise of British Canada and highlights the long history of courting the ethnic vote

John Glassco as style icon

Poetry month at the MQUP continues

The Love Queen of Malabar as a bedtime story

 

What else?

Bitter Borders Compilation

How book publishing has changed since 1984

Libraries as disappearing public spaces

Mood enhancing books

The secret history of ads in books

 

Upcoming

April 17th - Merrily Weisbord, author of The Love Queen of Malabar, will speak at the Librairie Paragraphe/Montreal Gazette Books & Breakfast event

April 24th - Kyle Matthew speaks at the University of Ottawa in honor of National Day of Remembrance and Action on Mass Atrocities

April 27th- John Asfour at Blue Metropolis: Headscarves & Blindfolds, Two Arab-Canadian Poets

April 29th - Merrily Weisbord in Blue Metropolis' Celebration of Indian Writing: Tribute to Kamala Das

April 30th - Brian Busby in Blue Metropolis' Varied Trajectories: Montreal Writers Richler & Glassco

May 1st -  Merrily Weisbord in Blue Metropolis' Celebration of Indian Writing: India from the Outside

May 1st - Join Rebecca Margolis at the launch of Jewish Roots, Canadian Soil

Books for bedtime

William St-Hilaire. Picture courtesy of the Globe and Mail

According to the Globe and Mail, William St-Hilaire, president and executive director of the international literary festival Blue Metropolis, currently counts The Love Queen of Malabar as one of her bedtime books. 

The Love Queen of Malabar by Merrily Weisbord is the story of the author's decade-long friendship with controversial Indian poem Kamala Das. Recounting the development of their relationship, Weisbord relates the dramatic events of Das's life, including her transition from celibacy to sexual awakening at age sixty-seven when, provoking the greatest scandal of her notorious life, she converted to Islam for love and renewal.

Meet Merrily Weisbord at the following Blue Metropolis events -

April 29th, 6 pm
Celebration of Indian Writing: Tribute to Kamala Das

May 1st, 3:30 pm
Celebration of Indian Writing: India from the Outside