
Publishing Place
Transatlantic Modernity and Periodical Culture on Canada's East Coast
Billy Johnson(Author)
McGill-Queen's University Press
Will be published approx. on 15. December 2025
Book
Paperback/Softback
318 pages
978-0-2280-2589-4 (ISBN)
Description
The 1917 Halifax Explosion all but destroyed a thriving book-publishing industry centred in Halifax and Saint John. In the wake of the devastation, dozens of periodicals emerged in its place, reshaping the social, cultural, and political landscape across the east coast and sparking literary and political discussions that reached beyond the space levelled by the catastrophe.
Publishing Place is both a critical study of periodical form and a cultural history of publishing on the east coast between 1895 and 1935. Billy Johnson examines representative examples - cultural magazines such as Acadiensis, radical publications including the Black-nationalist magazine Neith, and the socialist weekly Maritime Labour Herald - arguing that these periodicals constituted a distinct genre in which literary expression was able to mould collective identities. More than any other medium, periodicals provided writers with a forum to discuss, debate, and create, thus voicing emergent conceptions of place, region, and nation. Johnson's rediscovery of these periodicals fills in a missing chapter of Canadian literature; he also explores their contributions to major intellectual and philosophical movements such as interwar liberalism, socialist feminism, Black nationalism, and regionalism.
East coast periodicals were deeply embedded in the global flows of twentieth-century modernity. Publishing Place demonstrates that they were archetypes for how new ideas of place and identity circulated in print beyond Canda's urban centres.
Publishing Place is both a critical study of periodical form and a cultural history of publishing on the east coast between 1895 and 1935. Billy Johnson examines representative examples - cultural magazines such as Acadiensis, radical publications including the Black-nationalist magazine Neith, and the socialist weekly Maritime Labour Herald - arguing that these periodicals constituted a distinct genre in which literary expression was able to mould collective identities. More than any other medium, periodicals provided writers with a forum to discuss, debate, and create, thus voicing emergent conceptions of place, region, and nation. Johnson's rediscovery of these periodicals fills in a missing chapter of Canadian literature; he also explores their contributions to major intellectual and philosophical movements such as interwar liberalism, socialist feminism, Black nationalism, and regionalism.
East coast periodicals were deeply embedded in the global flows of twentieth-century modernity. Publishing Place demonstrates that they were archetypes for how new ideas of place and identity circulated in print beyond Canda's urban centres.
Reviews / Votes
"Publishing Place is a nuanced, broad, and passionate analysis of how a shifting print culture made visible the complexities that emerged as Canada's three eastern provinces encountered post-World War I modernism, dominating nationalist ideologies, demographic shifts, and the resistance of marginalized groups who sought to reverse their disempowered states. Readers of this engaging book will gain an original and transformative vision of the region." - David Creelman, University of New BrunswickMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
Montreal
Canada
Target group
Professional and scholarly
College/higher education
Illustrations
13 photos
Dimensions
Height: 228 mm
Width: 154 mm
Thickness: 23 mm
Weight
478 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-2280-2589-4 (9780228025894)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Billy Johnson is adjunct professor of English literature and Canadian studies at Dalhousie University.
Content
Figures vii
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction: Print Modernity in the East 3
1 The Construction of Region in Fin-de-Siecle Magazines 29
2 Post-Race, Afromodernism, and Abraham Beverly Walker's Neith 79
3 Culture in a Crisis: Cultural History and East Coast Literature Between the Wars 129
4 Liberal Fantasy, Populist Appeal: Will R. Bird's War Fiction and The Busy East of Canada 157
5 Left Transnationalism, Socialist Feminism, and The Maritime Labor Herald 186
Conclusion: Old Truths, New Fictions 226
Notes 237
Bibliography 265
Index 295
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction: Print Modernity in the East 3
1 The Construction of Region in Fin-de-Siecle Magazines 29
2 Post-Race, Afromodernism, and Abraham Beverly Walker's Neith 79
3 Culture in a Crisis: Cultural History and East Coast Literature Between the Wars 129
4 Liberal Fantasy, Populist Appeal: Will R. Bird's War Fiction and The Busy East of Canada 157
5 Left Transnationalism, Socialist Feminism, and The Maritime Labor Herald 186
Conclusion: Old Truths, New Fictions 226
Notes 237
Bibliography 265
Index 295