Marlene Goldman

Dr. Marlene Goldman is a Professor in the Department of English at the University of Toronto. She specializes in contemporary Canadian literature. Her recent research focuses on the intersection between narrative and pathological modes of forgetting associated with trauma, dementia, and Alzheimer’s disease. She is the author of Paths of Desire (University of Toronto Press, 1997), a book on apocalyptic discourse in Canadian fiction, Rewriting Apocalypse (McGill-Queen’s Press, 2005), and (Dis)Possession (forthcoming McGill-Queen’s Press 2011). Currently, she is writing a book entitled Forgotten: Age-Related Dementia and Alzheimer’s in Canadian Literature. Dr. Marlene Goldman was awarded the Canadian National Institute for the Blind's Barbara Tuck-MacPhee Award in 2018.

Research, Conference, and Publication Grants

2018 Nominated for a SSHRC Impact Award
2018 Nominated for an International Governor General’s award
2018 Forgotten chosen as a finalist for the Gabriel Roy Prize
2018 CNIB’s Barbara Tuck-MacPhee Research Grant in support of my film Torching the Duties about Age-Related Macular Degeneration and Charles Bonnet syndrome, $25,000.00
2018 SSHRC Partnership Engage Grant in support of my research on the SymPulse Tele- Empathy Device with Klick Health, $25,000.00
2017 Aging, Communication, Technology (ACT) $5000.00 in support of “Torching the Dusties”

Publications

Books (refereed)

Forgotten: Narratives of Age-Related Dementia and Alzheimer's Disease. McGill-Queen’s Press, 2017. 438 pgs.

DisPossession: Haunting in Canadian Fiction. McGill-Queen's Press, 2012.

Rewriting Apocalypse in Canadian Fiction. McGill-Queen’s Press, 2005, 214 pgs

Paths of Desire: Images of Exploration and Mapping in Canadian Women's Writing. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997 (This book, while based on my thesis, includes an entirely new chapter on Jane Urquhart and significant additions to all of the chapters), 256 pgs

Films

Short Film: Piano Lessons, with Philip McKee. Co-writer, co-director, and producer of short film (11 min.) based on an adaptation of Alice Munro’s short story “In Sight of the Lake.” Submitted to national and international film festivals, April 2017. Private screening at age studies conferences in Graz, Austria April 27, 2017; and Birmingham, UK Dec. 8, 2017. Toronto premiere at the Rendevous with Madness Film Festival 5 Nov. 2017. (For more information about my film projects, see my website: marlenegoldman.ca)

Guest Editor Scholarly Journals

Special Issue of Modern Drama “Aging and the Life Course,” co-edited with Lawrence Switzky,59.2 (Summer 2016).

Special Issue of Occasion “Aging, Old Age, Memory and Aesthetics,” co-edited with A. Charise, L. Hutcheon and Michael Hutcheon, 4 (June 2012); I wrote the introduction.

Special Issue of UTQ, “Models of Mind and Consciousness,” co-edited with J. Matus, 79.2 (Spring 2010), 249 pgs; I co-wrote the introduction.

Special Issue of UTQ, “Ethics and Canadian Literature,” co-edited with K. Kyser 76.3 (Summer 2007), 197 pgs; I wrote the introduction.

Special Issue of UTQ, "Haunting in Canadian Culture" co-edited with J. Saul 75.2 (Spring 2006), 168 pgs; I co-wrote the introduction.

Chapters in Books (refereed)

"What do (Older) Women Want: Sexperts versus the Raging Grannies,” Activist Aging: Older,Bolder, and Changing the World, eds. May Chazan and Melissa Baldwin, Toronto: Women’s Press, 2018.

“Alice Munro’s Dramatic Fictions: Challenging (Dis)Ability by Playing with Oedipus the King and Embracing the Queer Art of Failure,” eds. Lorraine York and Amelia DeFalco. Exquisite Shame': Ethics and Affects in Alice Munro. New York: Palgrave, 2018.

“Gothic and Apocalyptic Portrayals of Dementia in Canadian Fiction.” A. Swinnen and M. Schweda eds. Popularizing Dementia: Public Expressions and Representations of Forgetfulness. Aging Studies series. Bielefeld: transcript, 2015.

“Their Dark Cells”: Transference, Memory, and Postmemory in John Mighton’s Half Life.Canadian Literature and Cultural Memory, eds. Eleanor Ty and Cynthia Sugars. Don Mill, ON: Oxford UP, 2014. 118-133.

“Thomas King and the Art of Unhiding the Hidden.” Thomas King: Works and Impact. Ed. Eva Gruber, Rochester, N.Y.: Camden House, 2011.

“Talking Crow: Jane Urquhart’s Away” Resurgence in Jane Urquhart’s Prose and Poetry, eds. Héliane Daziron-Ventura and Marta Dvorak. Brussels: Peter Lang, 2010. 129-144.

“Memory, Diaspora, Hysteria: Margaret Atwood’s Alias Grace.” Memory and Migration. Ed. J. Creet and A. Kitzman, University of Toronto Press. 210-234.

“Coyote’s Children and the Canadian Gothic: Sheila Watson’s The Double Hook and Gail Anderson-Dargatz’s The Cure for Death by Lightning” Australian Canadian Studies special issue on “Canadian Literature and the Postcolonial Gothic.” Eds. C. Sugars and Gerry Turcotte. 15-44. Rpt. In Unsettled Remains, ed. Sugars and Turcotte, Wilfrid Laurier P, 2009.

“The Life Wheel: Representations of Buddhism in Michael Ondaatje’s Anil’s Ghost.” Comparative Cultural Studies and the Writing of Michael Ondaatje. ed. Steven Totosy, Purdue UP. 117-37.

“Transvestitism, Drag, and Becomings: A Deleuzian Analysis of the Fictions of Timothy Findley.” Deleuze and Literature, ed. Ian Buchanan and John Marks. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 2000. 194-228.

“Margaret Atwood’s Wilderness Tips: Apocalyptic Cannibal Fiction,” Etudes Canadiennes 46 (1999): 93-110. Rpt. in Eating Their Words: Cannibalism and the Boundaries of Cultural Identity, ed. Kristen Guest, SUNY P, 2001. 167-85

“The End(s) of Myth: Apocalyptic and Prophetic Fictions in Headhunter" ECW 64 (1998): 32-55. Rpt. in Paying Attention: Critical Essays on Timothy Findley. Ed. Anne Geddes Bailey and Karen Grandy. Toronto: ECW, 1998. 32-55.

"Go North Young Woman: Representations of the Arctic in the Writings of Aritha van Herk." Echoing Silence: Essays on Arctic Narrative. Ed. John Moss. University of Ottawa P, 1997. 153-62. A version of this essay was reprinted in Aritha van Herk, ed. C. Verduyn by Guernica P, 2000. 31-44.

“Translating the Sublime: Jane Urquhart's The Whirlpool,” Canadian Literature 150 (1996): 23-42. Rpt. Jane Uquhart: Essays on Her Works. Ed. by Laura Ferri, University of Siena, Italy, 2005. 83-114.

“A Taste of the Wild: a Critique of Representations of Natives as Cannibals in Late-Eighteenth-and Nineteenth-Century Canadian Exploration Literature.” Literary Studies East and West 10 (1996): 43-64.

"Naming the Unspeakable: the Mapping of Female Identity in Maxine Hong Kingston's The Woman Warrior." International Women's Writing: New Landscapes of Self. Eds. Marjanne Goozé and Anne Brown. Wesport, CT: Greenwood, 1995. 223-32.

Articles in journals (refereed) 

“Re-Imagining Dementia in the Fourth Age: the Ironic Fictions of Alice Munro.” Ageing, Dementia and the Social Mind (Sociology of Health and Illness journal and monograph series ed. C. Gilleard and P. Higgs). 2016 Jun 6.

With Sarah Powell. “Alzheimer’s, Ambiguity, and Irony: Alice Munro’s ‘The Bear Came over the Mountain’ and Sarah Polley’s Away from Her.” Canadian Literature 225 (Summer 2015): 82-99.

“The Trope of Spirit Possession in the Early Writing of Dionne Brand,” in Dina Georgis, Katherine McKittrick and Rinaldo Walcott, eds. No Language Is Neutral: Writings on Dionne Brand. Topia 34 (2015): 141-156.

“A Gothic Poetics: Flight and Rescue in Canadian Women’s Writing,” UTQ special issue on Writing the Foreign in Canadian Literature and Humanitarian Narratives ed. Smaro Kamboureli (Spring 2013).

“Madness, Masculinity, and Magic in Robertson Davies’ Fifth Business.” UTQ special issue on Robertson Davies, Ed. Russell Brown and Donna Bennett 78.4 (Fall 2009): 991-999.

“Ethics, Spectres, and Formalism in Sheila Watson’s The Double Hook” English Studies in Canada. (2009): 33.1-2: 189-208.

“Coyote’s Children and the Canadian Gothic: Sheila Watson’s The Double Hook and Gail Anderson-Dargatz’s The Cure for Death by Lightning” Australian Canadian Studies special issue on “Canadian Literature and the Postocolonial Gothic.” 24.2 (2006): 15-44. Eds. C. Sugars and Gerry Turcotte.

“Mapping the Door of No Return: Deterritorialization and the Work of Dionne Brand.” Canadian Literature 182 (Autumn 2004): 13-28.

“Encounters with Alterity: The Role of the Sublime in Susanna Moodie’s and Jane Urquhart’s Writing. Etudes Canadiennes/Canadian Studies 53 (Dec 2003) 101-116.

“A Dangerous Circuit: Loss and the Boundaries of Racialized Subjectivity in Joy Kogawa’s Obasan and Kerri Sakamoto’s The Electrical Field.” Modern Fiction Studies 48.2 (Summer 2002): 362-388.

“A Powerful Joy: Ondaatje’s English Patient and Revelatory Allegory.” University of Toronto Quarterly 70.4 (Fall 2001): 902-22. Special Issue on The Visionary Tradition in Canadian Writing, eds. R. Brown and J.R. Struthers.

“Margaret Atwood's Wilderness Tips: Apocalyptic Cannibal Fiction” Etudes Canadiennes 46 (1999): 93-110. Rpt. in Eating Their Words: Cannibalism and the Boundaries of Cultural Identity, ed. Kristen Guest, SUNY P, 2001. 167-85

“Mapping and Dreaming Native Resistance in Green Grass, Running Water” Canadian Literature (special issue on Thomas King) 161(1999): 18-41.

“The End(s) of Myth: Apocalyptic and Prophetic Fictions in Headhunter" ECW 64 (1998): 32-55. Rpt. in Paying Attention: Critical Essays on Timothy Findley. Ed. Anne Geddes Bailey and Karen Grandy. Toronto: ECW, 1998. 32_55.

“Go North Young Woman: Representations of the Arctic in the Writings of Aritha van Herk.” Echoing Silence: Essays on Arctic Narrative. Ed. John Moss. University of Ottawa P, 1997. 153-62. A version of this essay was reprinted in Aritha van Herk, ed. C. Verduyn. Guernica P, 2000. 31-44.

“Translating the Sublime: Jane Urquhart's The Whirlpool.” Canadian Literature 150 (1996): 23-42. Rpt. Jane Uquhart: Essays on Her Works. Ed. Laura Ferri, University of Siena, Italy, 2005.

"Earth-quaking the Kingdom of the Male Virgin: A Deleuzian Analysis of Aritha van Herk's No Fixed Address and Places Far From Ellesmere," Canadian Literature 13 (1993): 9-21.

"A Genealogy for Lost Women: Daphne Marlatt's Ana Historic," Resources for Feminist Research 21.3+4 (1992): 33-38.

"Penning in the Bodies: The Construction of Gendered Subjects in Alice Munro's 'Boys and Girls.'" Studies in Canadian Literature 15.1 (1990): 62-75.

Papers in conference proceedings (refereed)

“Spirit Possession and the Transformation of Space in the Fiction of Dionne Brand.” Urban and Other Spaces in Canadian Women’s Fiction. University of Innsbruck, Germany, Nov. 23-24, 2007. My keynote address and the conference proceedings appears in Spaces and Gender: Spaces of Difference in Canadian Women’s Writing, eds. Doris g. Eibl and Caroline Rosenthal. University of Innsbruck Press, 2009. 95-108.

“War and the Game of Representation in Michael Ondaatje's The English Patient,” Re-Constructing the Fragments of Michael Ondaatje’s Works. Ed. Jean-Michel Lacroix. Paris: Presses de la Sorbonne Nouvelle, 1999. 181-93. [Proceedings of the Ondaatje Symposium]

“Memory and History in the Writings of Timothy Findley.” Proceedings of the Fifth Conference of the International Society for the Study of European Ideas (ISSEI) at the University for Humanist Studies, Utrecht, The Netherlands, August 19-24, 1996. [CDROM], MIT Press, 1998.

Review Articles

Omnibus review of "New Authors--Fiction 1995" for "Letters in Canada." University of Toronto Quarterly 66 (1996/7): 229-44.

Omnibus review of "Established Authors--Fiction 1994" for "Letters in Canada." University of Toronto Quarterly. 65.1 (1995): 1-17

Book Reviews

“You Can Never Go Home Again.” Rev. of Eric Wright’s Finding Home and Gail Anderson-Dargatz’s Turtle Valley. Canadian Literature (Autumn 2008): 179-80.

“There Be Monsters Here.” Rev. of Justin Edwards Gothic Canada. (U of Alberta P) for Canadian Literature 191 (2006): 114- 115.

“The Trickster Discourse of Thomas King.” Rev. of Border Crossings: Thomas King’s Cultural Inversions by Jennifer Andrews et. al. Canadian Literature 183 (Winter 2004): 117-18.

“Rev. of Maggie Helwig. Real Bodies.” University of Toronto Quarterly’s Letters in Canada 2002: 73.1

“Writing a Politics of Perception: Memory, Holography, and Women Writers in Canada by D. Thompson.” University of Toronto Quarterly’s ‘Letters in Canada 2000,’ 71.1 (Winter 2000-01): 392-93.

“Timothy Findley and the Aesthetics of Fascism by Anne Geddes Baily.” University of Toronto Quarterly. ‘Letters in Canada 1998,’ 69.1 (Winter 1999/2000): 340-42.

"The Underpainter by Jane Urquhart." Canadian Literature 161 (1999): 245-47.

"Taken by Daphne Marlatt." Canadian Literature 159 (1998): 185-86.

"Schools of Sympathy by Nancy Roberts.” University of Toronto Quarterly 'Letters in Canada 1997,’ 68.1(1998-99): 393-94.

"Enduring Dreams: an Exploration of Arctic Landscape by John Moss." Arctic 48.4 (1995): 393-94.

"Mapping Our Selves: Canadian Women's Autobiography in English by Helen M. Buss." University of Toronto Quarterly 64.1 (1994): 188-89.

"Risking Who One Is: Encounters with Contemporary Art and Literature by Susan Rubin Suleiman." Toronto Star 2 July 1994: H13.

"Literary Images of Ontario by W.J. Keith." Zeitschrift Fur Kanada Studien 2 (1994): 165-67.

"Road to the Stilt House by David Adams Richards." Malahat Review 76 (1986): 154.

"Glass Houses by Tom Marshal." Malahat Review 75 (1986): 117-19.

"Raspberry Vinegar by Joan Fern Shaw." Malahat Review 75 (1986): 121.

"A Book for Couples: A Guide to Relationships by Hugh and Gayle Prather." Heartwood 7.1 (1988): 2-4.

"The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property by Lewis Hyde." Heartwood 6.1 (1987): 25.

Current Research

Her most recent work examines the connection between shame and stigma, specifically as relates to age. Exploring her subject through the lenses of literature, film, street art, and technology, Dr. Goldman seeks to re-imagine marginalized identities while translating her research into accessible narrative forms. Her current project Performing Shame: Simulating Stigmatized Minds and Bodies will consider the intersections between aging and technology. The recipient of a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Partnership Engage Grant, Dr. Goldman is working in partnership with Toronto-based company Klick Health. Together, they are using innovative technology that simulates the tremors resulting from Parkinson’s disease with the goal of fostering clinical empathy for millions of North Americans living with movement disorders.