Canadian Historical Writing: Reading the Remains [Hardcover]

Canadian Historical Writing presents an archaeology of contemporary Canadian historical writing within the theory and practice of historiography. Drawing on international debates within the fields of literary studies and history, the book focuses on the roles played by time, evidence, and interpretation in defining the historical.Preface 1. From Romance to Revision: Historical Writing in Canada 2. Timothy Findley and the Burdens of Metahistory 3. Margaret Atwood in Search of Things Past 4. Armand Garnet Ruffo and the Persistence of Memory 5. Epilogue

A very timely and welcome contribution to current discussions about the representation of Canadian history. Hulan lucidly integrates theoretical and material aspects of archival research. Her analysis of writers' uses of textual and oral records and their creation of fictional documents, alongside close examination of the writers' own archives, casts fresh light on the different strategies developed by a wide range of late twentieth-century literary authors to narrate the past. - Carole Gerson, Professor of English, Simon Fraser University, Canada

Hulan practices deeply what should be the first rule of all interdisciplinary scholarship: respect the disciplines we make contact with. Hulan ponders the odd presentism of literary scholarship about historical fiction and its lack of interest in the responses of contemporary historians after Hayden White. In this book, she remedies both deficits and produces a study that changes the conversation about the 'historical turn' in Canadian fiction. - Lorraine York, Professor of English and Cultural Studies, McMaster University, Canada

Impressively researched and firmly grounded in a sophisticated understanding of the dramatic shifts in historiography and historical fiction over the last four decades, Hulan challenges literary critics in Canada and elsewhere to see historical fiction through new eyes by paying greater attention to thlÌ