This collection of essays by scholars from Canada, Croatia, India, Italy and Israel maps an important aspect of Canadian culture by exploring the inherent relation between space and questions of subjectivity. Location at first stood out in Canadian literature because survival depended on control of the land; today owing to the technological advances that have eased human exploitation of the ground and its resources, and to some extent enhanced protection against adverse climatic conditions, the preoccupation with space has shifted to incorporate other realities. As manifest in contemporary writing throughout Canada, humans interact with place in order to stengthen their sense of belonging and selfhood.
The essays in Mapping Canadian Cultural Space examine a variety of literary texts by writers from different origins — whether old-timers or newcomers — all aiming at contextualising subjecthood. The critics exploit feminist, philosophical, or postcolonial approaches to investigate the subject. While throwing light on the existence of new, ephemeral, fragmented, fluid space/s alongside old, close-textured, solid space/s, the book seeks to encourage further inquiries into groundings of identity. Highlighting the multiplicity of perspectives characterising Canadian society, this volume will prove useful to students and researchers of Canadian Literature, Comparative Literature, Human Geography, the Social Sciences and Women Studies.