Areas of Interest
- Book history
- History and theory of reading
- History of English studies
- Nineteenth-century Canadian cultural and intellectual history
- Literature and social reform
Publications
Books
Come, Bright Improvement!: The Literary Societies of Nineteenth-Century Ontario. U Toronto P, 2002.
Working in English: History, Institution, Resources. U Toronto P, 1996.
Articles (2000 to present)
"The CANLIT Project (1973-1981): In Search of the National Reader," forthcoming Canadian Literature
[with Yannick Portebois] , “Steam Writing in the Urli Daze: William Orr, the Canadian Phonetic Pioneer, and the Cause of Phonographic Reform.” Papers of the Bibliographical Society of Canada forthcoming fall 2016.
“Teachers Must Read: Imagining and Instructing the Teacher-as-Reader in Nineteenth Century English Canada.” Papers of the Bibliographical Society of Canada 53:1 (spring 2015): 7-48.
“Alexander and After: Browning Culture, Natural Method and National Education, 1889-1914.” Modern Language Quarterly 75: 1 (June 2014): 149-70.
“Whose Work Are We Doing and Whose Work is It To Do?” [Readers Forum] English Studies in Canada 37,1 (March 2011): 21-24.
“The Way They Stayed: The United Alumnae Association and Women’s Co-Education at Toronto.” Not Drowning But Waving: Women, Feminism, and the Liberal Arts, ed. S. Brown et al. Edmonton: U Alberta P, 2011. 251-70.
“Conventions of Reading.” The Cambridge Handbook of Literacy, ed. D. Olson and N. Torrance. Cambridge UP, 2009. 220-220.
“Introduction” [to Readers’ Forum] English Studies in Canada 34, 4 (Dec. 2008): 1-3.
“The Canadian Readers Meet: The Canadian Literature Club of Toronto, Donald G. French, and the Middlebrow Modernist Reader.” Papers of the Bibliographical Society of Canada 46, 2 (fall 2008): 149-83.
“`Adjusting the Scale of Values’: The Modern Language Association of Ontario, 1886-1916.” English Studies in Canada 33, 1-2 (March-June 2007): 29-51.
“Papers and Publications of the Modern Language Association of Ontario, to 1919. A Chronological Listing.” E-publication at ESC Digital.
“Doubled Lives: Florence Valentine Keys, David Reid Keys, and the Work of English Studies.” University of Toronto Quarterly 76, 4 (fall 2007): 1007-1039.
[With Andrea Rotundo], "Surveying the Habits of Readers”, History of the Book in Canada vol. 3, ed. C. Gerson and J. Michon, U Toronto P/PU Montréal, 2007, 455-59.
“Equal, That is, to the Field Itself: Stylistic Mimesis in Critical Writing.” English Studies in Canada 32: 2-3 (June/Sept. 2006): 4-8.
“'And every Lawyer's Clerk writes verse': Robert Baldwin as Poet, York, 1819,” Canadian Literature 188 (spring 2006): 63-84.
"An Essay on Theory" [review-essay of Terry Eagleton After Theory], English Studies in Canada 30, 4 (December 2004): 473-78. [360 lines heroic couplets]
"Literary Societies," History of the Book in Canada, vol. 2, ed. Y. Lamonde, P. Fleming and F. Black. U Toronto P/PU Montréal, 2005, 473-78.
"Readers and Society," History of the Book in Canada, vol. 1, ed. P.L. Fleming, G. Gallichan, and Y. Lamonde. U Toronto P/PU Montréal, 2004. 172-82.
"Literary History as Microhistory," Home-Work: Postcolonialism, Pedagogy, and Canadian Literature. Ed. C. Sugars. U Ottawa P, 2004. 405-22.
Entries on "Canadian Authors Association," "Arts Organizations," and "Literary Societies," The Oxford Companion to Canadian History, rev. ed., ed. G. Hallowell. Oxford UP, 2004. 47-48; 102-03; 362-63.
"Late Nineteenth-Century Views of the Renaissance in Canada: The Columbian Celebrations of the York Pioneers (Toronto) and the Institut Canadien (Québec) in 1892." Studi Rinascimentali. Rivista internazionale di letteraturs italiana. II:2004: 23-28.
"Working on the Middle Ground: Circles and Cultural Associations as Sources for Intellectual History." Les idées en mouvement: perspectives en histoire intellectuelle et culturelle du Canada. Ed. D.C. Bélanger et al. PU Laval, 2004. 191-98.
"Pioneer Shakespeare Culture: Reverend Henry Scadding and His Shakespeare Display at the 1892 Toronto Industrial Exhibition." Shakespeare in Canada: A World Elsewhere, ed. D. Brydon and I. Makaryk. U Toronto P, 2002. 47-65.
"English Studies in Canada 1992-1999: A Handlist." English Studies in Canada, 26, 3 (Sept. 2000): 251-78.
"Afterword" to Rosanna Leprohon, Antoinette de Mirecourt, or, Secret Marrying and Secret Sorrowing [1862], New Canadian Library, McClelland and Stewart, 2000 :249-55.
"Great Works and Good Works: The Toronto Women's Literary Club 1877-1883," Historical Studies in Education/Revue d'histoire de l'éducation 11, 1 (spring 1999) : 75-95. Rpt. Rethinking Canada: The Promise of Women's History, ed. V. Strong-Boag and A. Perry, Oxford UP, 2002: 102-120.
Policy and Reports (selective)
The Sessional Situation: Sessional/Stipendiary Workers in Canadian Departments of English, 2009-11. Presented to Canadian Association of Chairs of English, May 2010. Available Association of Canadian College and University Teachers of English website
Hiring, Faculty Complement, and Enrolment Patterns in Canadian English Departments, 1987-1997. CACE/ACCUTE 1998. Rpt. ACCUTE Newsletter summer 1998. Featured University Affairs, Aug./Sept. 1998.
Works in Progress
Toronto Bohemia: The Early Years (1925-1950) of the Gerrard Street Village
Book on the history of phonography and spelling reform in pre-1914 Canada.
“Henry Scadding as Bibliophile.”