The Promise of Paradise: Utopian Communities in British Columbia by Andrew Scott Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2017 $24.95 / 9781550177718 Reviewed by Keith Norbury First published June 15, 2017 * Five centuries ago, when Thomas More conceived of a fictional perfect society, he named it Utopia, from a Greek word meaning “nowhere.” Three-and-half centuries later,…
Read more #139 Perfection is hard work
The W̱SÁNEĆ and Their Neighbours: Diamond Jenness on the Coast Salish of Vancouver Island, 1935 by Diamond Jenness. Edited and with an introduction by Barnett Richling Oakville, Ontario: Rock’s Mills Press, 2017 $24.95. / 9781772440362 Reviewed by Chris Arnett Revised June 2020 * The overlooked ethnographic work of New Zealand-born Diamond Jenness (1886-1969) has been…
Read more #135 The W̱SÁNEĆ revisited
Exhibiting Nation: Multicultural Nationalism (And Its Limits) in Canada’s Museumsby Caitlin Gordon-Walker Vancouver: UBC Press, 2016$32.95 / 9780774831642 Reviewed by Mike Starr First published April 2, 2017 * In Exhibiting Nation, Caitlin Gordon-Walker explores the ways in which Canadian multicultural nationalism has influenced exhibits at three of the country’s major museums. Gordon-Walker suggests that multicultural…
Read more #112 When good isn’t good enough
ESSAY: Putin’s Potemkin village by Marina Sonkina First published October 27, 2016 * Every two years, Russian-born fiction writer Marina Sonkina of Vancouver takes her SFU and UBC students for a field trip to Russia to enhance their appreciation of the literature, art and cultural history they have been studying — and it keeps getting…
Read more #53 Marina Sonkina’s Russia