NEW HOPE INTERNATIONAL REVIEW ON-LINE

Mosaic is a substantial quarterly journal from the University of Manitoba. This particular issue is a special issue devoted to children's literature. The topics range from "PRIVATE PLACES ON PUBLIC VIEW: DAVID WIESNER'S PICTURE BOOKS," to "BOSCO AND LE CLEZIO: ELEMENTAL INITIATIONS." The thrust is on sociology and how culture is portrayed in literature - the interaction between society, what authors write about, and how it is written. The work is presented as extremely interesting polemic essays. However, I would like to stick my neck out a very long way, with risk of it being cut off, and suggest an alternative format for some such work.

The format is that usually used when focusing on cultural issues. The basis is to try to understand how we live and why we live like we do. The polemic discussion focuses and concentrates arguments on the topic of interest. Having a science background, I would very much like to see more emphasis on primary sources, with well-defined conclusions. We can discuss and focus all we like, but if we want to move on and possibly act on research findings, or add to them, then conclusions are necessary. I have never understood why so much social science centres on discourse rather than on findings through research, and therefore I would like to look at one of the essays in a little depth. I quote the synopsis of the essay by Julia McQuillan and Julie Pfeifer called "WHY ANNE MAKES US DIZZY: READING ANNE OF GREEN GABLES FROM A GENDER PERSPECTIVE:

Critics struggle to understand how gender influences authors and readers, focussing usually on gender as something that exists purely in individuals. These authors read Anne of Green Gables to demonstrate how what social scientists call "a gender perspective" gives us new insights into literary texts.

Furthermore, one of the problems with polemic discussions like this is the generalisations that need to be used. For instance, on page p18:

These theories presume that gender is something created at conception (biological theories) or in childhood (socialization theories) and that it is not subject to changes. If you have been "socialized" to be a girl you'll always be feminine. But we know that feminine girls sometimes grow up to be unfeminine women: we know that identity is not constant over time.

The lack of attention to structure and power in the sex-role approach to gender is apparent when we think of how absurd the idea of a race role or a class role would be.

McQuillan and Pfeifer do not mention the place of religion in all of this. They say that, in the case of the Anne of Green Gables story:

the final test of her womanhood is to put others' needs before ambition..

In another essay, Sharyne Pearce gives a critique on boys and gender relations under the heading "SECRET MEN'S BUSINESS": NEW MILLENNIUM ADVICE FOR AUSTRALIAN BOYS. Page 59 is given over to a discussion of the need for a son to live with his father in order to grow up to become a responsible adult. It seems that old discussions, which have been dismissed by new evidence, are being dragged up here. Indeed, Pearce points to factors such as poverty and low socio-economic circumstances contributing to unsocial behaviour and poor attainment in boys. Certainly recent surveys in Britain suggest that single parent families are not disadvantaged.

Other essays in this journal take up the gender issue too. Again, arguments are not taken to conclusion. It is a matter of format and is in no way a reflection on the standard of the work. The standard is very high.

This journal is not only of interest to sociology students. As it is cross disciplinary, it addresses issues relating English, literature, and history. It is inspiring to see such a worth-while journal.

A journal for the interdisciplinary study of literature, and, as stated by Dawne McCance in the introduction, this is

an issue on haunting — and/as citationality

This is a journal for the interdisciplinary study of literature — that is, English literature — published by the University of Manitoba. It is in every way a finely produced example of academic research, with 228 pages of text, including many colour and monochrome illustrations, supporting thirteen principal articles. The focus of this special issue is upon Literature and Architecture.

The journal's leading article is an interview led by the journal's editor Dawne McCance with Portuguese architect Alvaro Siza. This is a skillfully conducted piece, lucid and informative, insofar as it recalls this living master's ideals of form, unity, balance, and so forth. But I found it difficult to judge these issues as having a direct bearing upon the study of literature, except through the coincidence of these terms with their very approximate equivalents in poetics. Perhaps, and it is a pity that I am obliged to make this surmise, its purpose here is to act as a frame for what follows.

Among the best of the remaining articles is Mary A. Nicholas's essay, BUILDING A BETTER METAPHOR: ARCHITECTURE AND RUSSIAN PRODUCTION NOVELS, in which a key concept for analysis is the manner in which architecture shapes memory. Similarly, Kerry Dean Carso's, DIAGNOSING THE "SIR WALTER DISEASE": AMERICAN ARCHITECTURE IN THE AGE OF ROMANTIC LITERATURE, is a fascinating and entertaining piece which, in my view, achieves more than any other essay in this issue the kind of intersection between these distinct arts which is especially illuminating. Stephen Collis's, THE FRAYED TROPE OF ROME: POETIC ARCHITECTURE IN ROBERT DUNCAN, RONALD JOHNSON, AND LISA ROBERTSON, is a very effective piece for the same reasons, and Peter Clandfield and Christian Lloyd offer a high-octane reading of GET CARTER and SWING HAMMER SWING! Probably my favourite article here is Paul Robichaud's GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN THE POETRY OF DAVID JONES AND GEOFFREY HILL, which I found an unusually engaging, skilled, detailed and useful reading of two poets whose work I know well. The issue concludes with a re-worked lecture by Michael Benedikt, called THINKING TOWARD ARCHITECTURE, which is conversational, provocative and fun.

Not all of the articles here are as accomplished as these, and several show quirkiness in organization, unevenness in assumptions about the reader's competence with the issues under discussion, a degree of diffuseness and a strangely disjunctive style. So consistent are these traits across the range of authors included that it seems to be evidence of an editorial predilection.

Nevertheless, this remains a very satisfying issue of a professional journal, providing valuable insights in a manner not widely seen outside North America, and well worth investigating.