The Oxford History of Popular Print Culture (11 volumes)

Edited by Gary Kelly

Volume 8: Popular Print Culture in Canada and the Caribbean

Edited by Gary Kelly and David Buchanan

The Oxford History of Popular Print Culture is an eleven-volume series devoted to the exploration of popular print culture from the beginning of the sixteenth century to the present. The key questions are: What did most people read? Where did they get it? Where did it come from? What were its uses in its readers’ lives? How was it produced and distributed? What were its relations to the wider world of print culture? How did it develop over time? Two volumes are published (Volume 1: Cheap Print in Britain and Ireland to 1660; Volume 6: US Pop Print Culture 1860-1920) and several others are in progress. The General Editor of the series is Gary Kelly at the University of Alberta.

Volume 8: Popular Print Culture in Canada and the Caribbean will explore the production and reception of popular print materials from the seventeenth century to the present in Canada and the Caribbean. The aim is to provide a complete re-evaluation of the history of Canadian and Caribbean literature from the perspective of readers. This requires setting forth a clear and expansive picture of what most people actually read, how they did/do so, in what circumstances, and to what purposes. The volume as a whole will redefine popular print culture in Canadian, Caribbean, and related contexts through the recovery and analysis of neglected forms and authors, material conditions and networks, social relationships and practices.

Although open to a wide range of approaches, we are especially interested in essays that embrace historical-material methodologies such as book history and ethnomethodology. We welcome proposals by emerging and senior scholars from a wide range of disciplines. These may include book history and new media, literary and cultural studies, social history and Canadian studies, study of the Americas and Caribbean studies. We encourage work that emphasizes breadth of coverage (i.e. introductory or survey essays) or in-depth enquiry (i.e. case studies). Interdisciplinary and comparative approaches to address aspects of popular print culture that require renewed attention or have hitherto remained largely untouched are also encouraged. All essays must be written in accessible jargon-free English. But we look forward to submissions that deal with popular print and reading originally in other languages.

Areas of interest include but are not limited to:

• early reading practices;
• print history, literacy, and popular reading;
• religious literature: bibles, tracts, pamphlets, magazines, poetry, novels;
• print and the theatre;
• print for young readers: authors, works, themes, publishers, places;
• downmarket periodicals: newspapers and magazines, mixed format, international content, serialization, popular fiction and poetry;
• books of all kinds: almanacs, school books, cook books, gift books, guide books, self-help books;
• genre fiction: novels: romance, science fiction, fantasy, chick lit;
• text and image: the illustrated press, comics, graphic novels, posters, postcards, bookmarks;
• radical and social problem literature: novels, magazines, pamphlets, newspapers; labour, suffrage, temperance, Christian, socialism;
• non-fiction/reference: encyclopaedias, dictionaries, magazines, creative;
• specific works, periodicals, imprints/brands;
• Canadian/Caribbean authors;
• international authors read in Canada/Caribbean;
• transnational networks: the importation of print, international authorship, transnational publishing, syndication;
• Canadian/Caribbean and international copyright legislation;
• local reading of foreign literature: in translation, in the original language;
• the socialization of reading: canonization, reading in school, at church, in the home;
• contemporary print and reading in cities;
• public libraries: content and use, historical analysis of borrowers’ records, contemporary purchasing and programs;
• community reading practices: national, linguistic, cultural, regional, institutional;
• history of reading practices;
• communication circuits: writing, editing, printing, publishing, marketing, distribution, selling, buying, borrowing, giving;
• large-scale publishing;
• writing for stage, radio, television, and film;
• erotica: magazines, novels;
• recognition: bestseller lists, literary prizes;
• radio, literature, and reading;
• distribution/sellers: chain stores, second-hand shops, supermarkets, drugstores;
• online publishing, selling, and purchasing;
• festivals: of books, reading, genre fiction, poetry;
• reading in everyday life: on the bus, in bed, on vacation, at Christmas, when no one is looking;
• things otherwise difficult to categorize.

Please submit an essay abstract of 300-500 words and a CV of no more than two pages to Gary Kelly (gkelly@ualberta.ca) and David Buchanan (djbuchan@ualberta.ca) by 1 August 2015.