Bart Vautour – Editing Modernism in Canada

Planning to Learn, Learning to Plan

Bart Vautour — Fri, 13 Jun 2014 14:56:18 +0000

This June was my fifth consecutive trip to Victoria for the Digital Humanities Summer Institute (DHSI). What makes the week so vital and productive for me is (at least) twofold: I know I will learn some basic skills and I know that research plans are hatched and developed during the week’s activities. When I began what would become a yearly sojourn to Victoria I suspected the former, and now, five years in, I’ve come to expect the latter.

DHSI has shaped my research in some substantial ways. It was at DHSI that I began talking with Emily Robins Sharpe about working together on a project about Canadian involvement in the Spanish Civil War. Each DHSI our project planning develops in leaps and bounds. We’re able to come together to plan, but also to celebrate the successes of the project. This year we were able to celebrate a “proof-of-concept” website [spanishcivilwar.ca] and a renewed mandate for the project.

What have I learned? Project planning is crucial.

No matter how big or small in scale the project is, planning can make or break the project. Part of planning is simply talking with others and asking questions of colleagues old and new: Have you done something like this before? How did you overcome such-and-such obstacle? Does our timeline seem like something we can accomplish? Do you know and researchers who might like to get involved? And the questions continue…

So, do you have a project in mind that needs better definition? DHSI might just be the perfect place to hatch those plans.

Bart Vautour is Assistant Professor (Limited Term) at Dalhousie University.

Call for Papers: Public Poetics: Critical Issues in Canadian Poetry and Poetics

Bart Vautour — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 12:57:44 +0000

Mount Allison University, Sackville NB, 20–23 September 2012

Poetic discourse in Canada has always been changing to assert poetry’s relevance to the public sphere. While some poets and critics have sought to shift poetic subjects in Canada to make political incursions into public discourses, others have sought changes in poetic form as a means to encourage wider public engagement. If earlier conversations about poetics in Canadian letters, such as those in the well-known Toronto Globe column “At the Mermaid Inn” (1892-93), sought to identify an emerging cultural nationalism in their references to Canadian writing, in the twentieth century poetics became increasingly focused on a wider public, with little magazines, radio, and television offering new spaces in which to consider Canadian cultural production. In more recent decades, many diverse conversations about poetics in Canada have begun to emanate from hyperspace, where reviews, interviews, Youtube/Vimeo clips, publisher/author websites, and blogs have increased the “visibility” of poetry and poetics.

Acknowledging the work that emerged from the 2005 “Poetics & Public Culture in Canada Conference,” as well as recent publications considering publics in the Canadian context, we are interested in examining a growing set of questions surrounding these and other discursive shifts connected with Canadian poetry and poetics. How have technological innovations such as radio, television, and the Internet, for example, made poetry and poetics more accessible or democratic? How does poetry inhabit other genres and media in order to gesture toward conversations relevant to political, cultural, and historical moments? What contemporary concerns energize those studying historical poetries and poetics? How do commentators in public and academic circles construct a space for poetry to inhabit?

The conference sets out to explore the changing shapes of and responses to poetic genres, aesthetic theories, and political visions from a diverse range of cultural and historical contexts. In the interest of reinvigorating conversations about the multiple configurations of poetics, poetry, and the public in Canada, we invite proposals for papers (15–20 minutes) on subjects including, but not limited to:

–Public statements/declarations of poetics

–Publics and counterpublics in Canadian poetry

–The politics of public poetics

–Tensions between avant- and rear-garde poetics in Canada

–Shifting technological modes of poetic and critical production (print/sound/video/born-digital)

–Poetics of/as Activism

–Public Intellectualism and Poetics

–Recovery and remediation of Canadian poetry and poetics

–Poetics and collaboration in Canada

–People’s poetry and /or the People’s Poetry Awards

–Poetry and environmental publics in Canada

Proposals should be no more than 250 words and should be accompanied by a 100-word abstract and a 50-word biographical note. Please send proposals to publicpoetics@mta.ca by 29 February 2012. For more information visit www.publicpoetics.ca.

In conjunction with the conference, a one-day workshop will be hosted by The Canadian Writing Research Collaboratory / Le Collaboratoire scientifique des écrits du Canada. This purpose of this workshop (CWRCshop) is to introduce, in accessible and inviting ways, digital tools to humanities scholars and to encourage digital humanists, via a turn to close reading, to connect with the raw material, which is the basis of digitization efforts.

The PUBLIC POETICS conference is organized by Bart Vautour (Mt. A), Erin Wunker (Dal), Travis V. Mason (Dal), and Christl Verduyn (Mt. A). The conference is sponsored by the Centre for Canadian Studies at Mount Allison University, the Canadian Studies Programme at Dalhousie University, and The Canadian Writing Research Collaboratory / Le Collaboratoire scientifique des écrits du Canada. We plan to publish a selection of revised/expanded papers as a special journal issue and/or a book with a university press.

the student/editor…

Bart Vautour — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 17:09:00 +0000

A day late and a blogger short…

A blogger (bloggist?) I am not. A doctoral student with a deadline—that’s me. This is not going to be a well-wrought, lengthy treatise. Instead, it is going to be a quick [read short] thought. I’m going to embrace the cursory (this sounds somewhat compelling, or at least it might…I haven’t read all the way to the end). So, please allow me think as I type: though set in electro-stone this is still and always a draft. OK? OK, we’ve agreed. Good. Onward.

While I’ve been involved with EMiC from its beginning, I’ve recently taken a break. I think the break lasted for six months or thereabouts. No scanning, no tei, no collation of variants, no writing of textual or explanatory notes, no reading in the realm of textual studies, no attending meetings…like, nothing. I’ve forgotten my passwords that might give me access to various editorial wonders. I needed the break. The break started when I submitted a MS of This Time a Better Earth to the director and general editor of U of Ottawa P’s Canadian Literature Collection, who also happens to be my doctoral supervisor. And that is just it. It is this tension (and hopefully balance) that exists between scholarly editor and doctoral student that I’d like to write about here… more than write, I think I would like to advocate for the tension/balance in this short “thinking-through-typing” thing (with some reservations…always…with some reservations).

Now near the end of the long haul, I am starting to realize just how long a haul it has been. My seven-year-old niece recently looked at me quizzically and asked if I was still in school. “Yep,” was my simple reply. The quizzical look shifted to one of horror and astonishment: “WHAT GRADE ARE YOU IN?” Twenty-three. That’s right, grade twenty-three. But here is the thing: editing gave me a reprieve. Wrapped up in the institutional mechanisms of a doctoral programme, my perspective was narrowing…the work of putting together a scholarly edition gave reprieve from the effects of what I sometimes think of as the concentric circles of schooling—of specialization. Having a good grasp on one area is all fine and good, but I know that I’m also a bit of a generalist. This predicament may well be unique to me, but something makes me think not. In addition, I’ve talked to many doctoral students who have found it difficult to not to take lengthy breaks between accomplishments (coursework, comps [sometimes 2 or 3 sets], and dissertation). The question (I guess): is a change as good as a break?

In retrospect, I DO remember having a plan when I started my doctoral studies: finish coursework and my qualification exams, then take a step back from jumping through those institutional hoops (17 graduate courses in four years left me a bit harried) and then take the time to jump through hoops of some other kind. Namely, edit a scholarly edition and get some articles out there. And then, after all that, then, write that little thing called a dissertation. Oh yeah, I remember now, that thing I did the planning for years ago while I was in an MA programme.

The plan worked, at least for the most part. I was able to take my leave from things. I was able to switch it up while still being productive. My scholarly research is not like my scholarly editing and the differences kept me out of the doldrums. The trick, methinks, is not to let editorial projects get too big (should doctoral students start career-length projects when the current climate leaves us unsure of careers?) When I sent away my edited MS I knew that I wouldn’t have to look at it for months. That, let me tell you, was a good feeling. And now completing my dissertation has 93.48% of my attention (did you know that 47.34% of statistics are made up on the spot?).

Obviously, I’ve rejoined the editorial fold here at Dalhousie. I’ve written a post for the blog. I’ve even started attending our group meetings again. I’m also back to work on the edition of Livesay’s Right Hand Left Hand…but I’m not getting carried away… I’ve got a dissertation to finish…

Versioning Livesay’s “Spain”

Bart Vautour — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 16:45:42 +0000

G’Day Folks;

I hope you are all finding your way into summer mode since returning from UVic. I had my first lake swim of the summer on Friday afternoon. It was glorious.

I’ve not had a single sighting of a bunny since my return…I got used to them but now they are strange again. Ok; on to DEMiC things…

One of my main interests in approaching TEI and XML is how to present non-hierarchical versions of texts (mostly poems, I guess) within an explicitly hierarchical encoding structure. As a result, I am less interested at this point in the issues of explanatory mark-up and more interested in structural issues.

I figured that Dorothy Livesay’s poem “Spain” would work as a good text to play with and try out multiple methods of editing. After trying a couple of different things, I decided to work with a form of layered parallelisms: at the level of the poem as a whole; at the level of stanzas; and, at the level of the individual line. I took six different versions of the poem and included them all in my XML document:

Spainby Dorothy Livesay

New Frontier Version

When the bare branch responds to leaf and light,
Remember them! It is for this they fight.
It is for hills uncoiling and the green thrust
Of spring, that they lie choked with battle dust.

You who hold beauty at your finger tips
Hold it, because the splintering gunshot rips
Between your comrades’ eyes: hold it, across
Their bodies’ barricade of blood and loss

You who live quietly in sunlit space
Reading the Herald after morning grace,
Can count peace dear, when it has driven
Your sons to struggle for this grim, new heaven.

Marxist Quarterly Version

When the bare branch responds to leaf and light,
Remember them! It is for this they fight.
It is for hills uncoiling and the green thrust
Of spring, that they lie choked with battle dust.

You who hold beauty at your finger tips
Hold it, because the splintering gunshot rips
Between your comrades’ eyes: hold it, across
Their bodies’ barricade of blood and loss

You who live quietly in sunlit space
Reading the Herald after morning grace,
Can count peace dear, when it has driven
Your sons to struggle for this grim, new heaven.

Collected Poems Version

When the bare branch responds to leaf and light
Remember them: It is for this they fight.
It is for haze-swept hills and the green thrust
Of pine, that they lie choked with battle dust.

You who hold beauty at your finger-tips
Hold it because the splintering gunshot rips
Between your comrades’ eyes; hold it across
Their bodies’ barricade of blood and loss.

You who live quietly in sunlit space
Reading The Herald after morning grace
Can count peace dear, when it has driven
Your sons to struggle for this grim, new heaven.

CV/II Version

When the bare branch responds to leaf and light,
Remember them: It is for this they fight.
It is for hills uncoiling and the green thrust
Of spring, that they lie choked with battle dust.

You who hold beauty at your finger-tips
Hold it because the splintering gunshot rips
Between your comrades’ eyes: hold it, across
Their bodies’ barricade of blood and loss.

You who live quietly in sunlit space
Reading the Herald after morning grace
Can count peace dear, if it has driven
Your sons to struggle for this grim, new heaven.

Red Moon Over Spain Version

When the bare branch responds to leaf and light,
Remember them! It is for this they fight.
It is for hills uncoiling and the green thrust
Of spring, that they lie choked with battle dust.

You who hold beauty at your finger tips
Hold it, because the splintering gunshot rips
Between your comrades’ eyes: hold it, across
Their bodies’ barricade of blood and loss.

You who live quietly in sunlit space
Reading the Herald after morning grace,
Can count peace dear, when it has driven
Your sons to struggle for this grim new heaven.

Sealed in Struggle Version

When the bare branch responds to leaf and light
Remember them: It is for this they fight.
It is for haze-swept hills and the green thrust
Of pine, that they lie choked with battle dust.

You who hold beauty at your finger-tips
Hold it because the splintering gunshot rips
Between your comrades’ eyes; hold it across
Their bodies’ barricade of blood and loss.

You who live quietly in sunlit space
Reading The Herald after morning grace,
Can count peace dear, when it has driven
Your sons to struggle for this grim, new heaven.

In the back material I included some basic bibliographic material (which certainly needs to be beefed up) as well as a more complex set of link targets that allow for the parallel structure:

Dorothy Livesay
New Fronier
1937

Dorothy Livesay
Marxist Quarterly
1966

Dorothy Livesay
Collected Poems
1972

Dorothy Livesay
CV/II
1976

Dorothy Livesay
Red Moon Over Spain
1988

Dorothy Livesay
Sealed in Struggle
1995

“s” stands for stanza and “l” stands for line within the “link targets”

Although not written into the XML file, this parallel structure allows for the POTENTIAL versioning of the poem within a web-based interface. In other words, I think I am creating a non-hierarchical BASE for future application. As I said, I THINK I am creating a non-hierarchical BASE… am I?

digital anti-humanism?

Bart Vautour — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 18:25:40 +0000

Does anybody know if there has been much theorization of digital anti-humanism?

version this…

Bart Vautour — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 17:10:19 +0000

starting to learn some possibilities for versioning…