This episode features Kate, Kandice, and Michelle's efforts to understand how these paratexts may have informed not only the experience of attending the event in 1984, but also their own experiences listening to the recording of the reading now, in 2021, and their interactions with the surviving archival materials. This led them to interview Ann Cowan-Buitenhuis and Carolyn Tate, who attended and contributed to the organization of the two events. Their contributions provided both memories and facts not captured by the archival remains of the reading.
With additional archival materials available in a supplementary slideshow, this episode takes us beyond the bounds of an ‘audio edition’ to instead consider how the ‘paratexts’ of this reading deepen our understanding of the recording and bring to life the reading of the story by acclaimed Canadian short-story writer Mavis Gallant.
This episode was created by SpokenWeb contributors Kate Moffatt, Kandice Sharren, and Michelle Levy, with additional audio courtesy of the Simon Fraser University Archives and Records Management Department.
SpokenWeb is a monthly podcast produced by the SpokenWeb team as part of distributing the audio collected from (and created using) Canadian Literary archival recordings found at universities across Canada. To find out more about Spokenweb visit: spokenweb.ca . If you love us, let us know! Rate us and leave a comment on Apple Podcasts or say hi on our social media @SpokenWebCanada.
Episode Producers:
Kate Moffatt is a recent graduate of the MA program in SFU’s Department of English. Her research interests lie primarily with women’s pedestrianism in the Romantic period and women’s book history, and she brings a keen interest in the digital humanities, book and literary history, and archives and archival practices to her work as a Research Assistant for SpokenWeb.
Michelle Levy is Co-Director of the Digital Humanities Innovation Lab at Simon Fraser University. She brings a strong theoretical background in literary and sound studies to the SpokenWeb Project, and extensive expertise in data architecture and management that contributes to our creation of metadata standards necessary for the aggregation of diverse corpora of recorded literary readings.
Kandice Sharren is a recent graduate of the PhD program in SFU’s Department of English. Her research focuses on print culture of the Romantic period, and she brings her experience with digital humanities, archival research, and book history to the SpokenWeb project.
Featured Guests:
Ann Cowan-Buitenhuis is retired from Simon Fraser University in Vancouver where she was the Executive Director of the Vancouver campus. During her thirty-four years there she served in many capacities, notably founding the Writing and Publishing Program and co-founding the Canadian Centre for Studies in Publishing. The constant theme in her career has been her interest in literature and communication, her belief in lifelong learning, and the responsibility for educators in the support of civil society. In her retirement to private life she enjoys singing in the Performing Arts Lodge (PAL) Chorus, sharing the lives of family and friends, and pursuing the occasional speaking engagement or program development project.
Carolyn Tate worked as the Director of Information for Continuing Studies at SFU from 1980 to 1982, and as Director of the Liberal Studies program in Continuing Studies at SFU from 1982 to 1987. She has a BA from UBC, an MA from McGill University, an unfinished PhD from University College, University of London, and an LL.B (J.D.) from Queen's University. She is now retired from law and resides in Toronto, Ontario, but takes trips to various continents and has fun with her grandchildren.
Citations:
Coe, Jonathan. “The Life of Henri Grippes.” London Review of Books. Vol. 19, no. 18, 18 September 1997.
Gallant, Mavis. “Grippes and Poche.” The New Yorker, 29 November 1982, p. 42.
vladnegrila. “Flipping through pages 2.” Freesound, 22 April 2017, https://freesound.org/people/vladnegrila/sounds/388870/.
“Delamine.” Blue Dot Sessions. Accessed 18 May 2021. https://app.sessions.blue/browse/track/39295.
“Silver Lanyard.” Blue Dot Sessions. Accessed 18 May 2021. https://app.sessions.blue/browse/track/39298.
Errata:
We refer to the “Liberal Studies Department” in the episode; Liberal Studies was actually a program that was part of Continuing Studies.
