“Something Wicked this Way Comes” from Canada!

Written by Curtis Valasek, visiting scholar at the LLL

Portrait of Stanley Pean

Several of the titles from Stanley Pean – one of our newly spotlighted Afro-Canadian, Francophone authors – fit nicely into the spooky season upon us, as Hallowe’en approaches. To think you could enrich your knowledge of French-Canadian literature, Black authors, and the horror genre at the same time in the collections curated by our Literatures & Languages Librarians. Allons-y for some chills & thrills from the Literatures & Languages Library (LLL).
Over the past weeks of the semester, our LLL has brought together one subcollection of works few other university French collections can brag about, Afro-Canadian, Francophone authors. These would be French-speaking (and writing) residents of Canada with African ancestry publishing fiction or poetry. Many have fascinating biographies with origins in Haiti, French-speaking Caribbean Islands, or West African countries, but now often navigate big city living in Montreal, North America’s largest French-speaking metropolitan area.

One such author, Stanley Pean, born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, actually grew up in the Quebecois city of Saguenay, becoming well-known for his voice on the airwaves of Radio-Canada, among many other media outlets (you can find his own webpage en français HERE). Writing both novels and short stories, he has developed a penchant for exploring the creepier, spookier side of fiction, many of them also in the mystery genre. These titles of his below might send shivers down your spine too!

Titles (linked to catalog record)

Bizango, Les Allusifs, 2011

Noirs désirs, Leméac, 1999

La Nuit démasque, Planète rebelle, 2000

Treize pas vers l’inconnu, Pierre Tisseyre, 1996

Le Tumulte de mon sang, Québec Amérique, 1991

Zombi Blues, La courte échelle, 1996

Afro-Canadian Francophone Literature

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Literatures and Languages Library to Participate in Ithaka SR

This academic year the Literatures and Languages Library (LLL) will participate in a joint Ithaka S+R and Modern Languages Association project to gather data on how local faculty carry out their research. Over the course of the year, Paula Carns, Head of LLL, and Matt Roberts, Librarian for English, will work closely with UIUC faculty to learn about their research habits and in response will create services to better meet their needs.

More on the project can be found here: http://www.sr.ithaka.org/blog/announcing-a-new-project-on-language-and-literature/

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University Library expands its holdings of Early American Imprints Online

The University Library now has 2 supplements to Early American Imprints, Series I. Evans

Early American Imprints, Series I. Evans, Supplement from Library Company of Philadelphia, 1670-1819

Early American Imprints, Evans and Shaw-Shoemaker—the definitive resource for researching every aspect of 17th-, 18th-, and early 19th-century America—have been dramatically expanded. From the acclaimed holdings of the Library Company of Philadelphia comes a broad range of recently uncovered books, pamphlets and broadsides, most of which were not included in Charles Evans’ monumental work, Roger Bristol’s supplement, or “American Bibliography,… Learn more.

Early American Imprints, Series I. Evans, Supplement from American Antiquarian Society, 1652-1819

This dramatic expansion of the venerable Evans and Shaw-Shoemaker digital collections of Early American Imprints makes available more than 5,350 rare and unique early American printed documents, all catalogued by the American Antiquarian Society. For today’s students and scholars of early American history, literature and culture, no other collections offer the opportunity to view and search newly available publications spanning the Colonial… Learn more.

 

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The Literatures and Languages Library now has access to Oxford Bibliography in Linguistics

Oxford Bibliographies: Linguistics
Oxford Bibliographies
in Linguistics is an entirely new and unique type of reference tool that has been specially created to meet a great need among today’s students and scholars. It offers more than other bibliography initiatives on- and offline by providing expert commentary to help students and scholars find, negotiate, and assess the large amount of information readily available to them. It facilitates research in a way that other guides cannot by providing direct links to online library catalogs and other online resources. Organizing the resource around discrete subject entries will allow for quick and easy navigation that users expect when working on screen. For more information: http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/obo/page/linguistics.

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The Literatures and Languages Library now has access to Oxford Bibliography in Literary and Critical Theory

  Oxford Bibliography in Literary and Critical Theory

Literary theory has become the hegemonic methodology for the study of text and is often regarded both as a sub-discipline in itself and as a critical tool through which to liberate deeper and more complex meanings from texts. It encompasses a massive range of topics, including periods, movements, themes and works that make it a dynamic field of study. It is constantly evolving as writers from different areas make connections with what might be termed mainstream literary theory and these writers, in turn, become part of the theoretical enterprise. While this presents problems for the classifier and the bibliographer, it is an example of the dynamic and constantly-developing aspects of the field that have made it such an indispensable tool in the area of reading texts, be these texts written, iconic or socio-cultural. As such, this area invites trans-disciplinary collaboration with fields as varied as literature, history, cultural studies, and philosophy making it challenging for students and scholars to stay informed about every applicable area. Given that literary theory draws from other disciplines such as linguistics, philosophy, psychoanalysis, sociology, the social sciences and work from non-Anglophone cultures and traditions, the very scope which makes it a necessary tool for contemporary academics and intellectuals can be off-putting in terms of locating a starting point for any specific inquiry. Oxford Bibliographies in Literary and Critical Theory will offer clearly-signposted pathways through the different areas, and will make clear references to the other disciplines which feed in to, and are often transformed by, literary theory. For more: http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/obo/page/Literary-and-Critical-Theory

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Reading Room gets a fresh coat of paint!

The Reading Room is finally getting painted. The painting will last a couple of months and hopefully will be finished by mid-October. The Literatures and Languages Library will be open during this period, though sections of the room will be off limits to patrons at various times. Here’s a peak at the painting of the ceiling. What a difference the white makes!

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