St. Michael's College, U of T

Book & Media Studies: Program Committee

The Book & Media Studies Program is overseen by an interdisciplinary Program Committee.

Michael Bramah Head of Cataloguing, John M. Kelly Library

Michael Bramah has been a professional librarian since 1987, and has worked in the Kelly Library since 2001. His previous cataloguing experience was gained in Halifax NS and Alexandria VA, where he worked in academic and governmental libraries. His areas of specialization include theology, English literature, and adult literacy.

Professor Patricia Fleming Faculty of Information Science

Patricia Fleming is Professor at the Faculty of Information Studies where she teaches analytical and historical bibliography and book history in the master's and doctoral programs. Her research interests include all aspects of the material text and the circumstances of its production. Recent works are Early Canadian Printing: A Supplement to Marie Tremaine's 'A Bibliography of Canadian Imprints, 1751-1800' and (also with Sandra Alston) Toronto in Print, an exhibition and catalogue celebrating two hundred years of the press in Toronto. As director of the Collaborative Program in Book History and Print Culture, she teaches the core course BKS 1000Y. Recently awarded a Major Collaborative Research Initiatives grant by the SSHRC, she is project director and co-general editor of the national project for ‘A History of the Book in Canada/Histoire du livre et de l’imprimé au Canada’ to be published in three volumes in both French and English. Her own research is concentrated on Volume 1 (beginnings to 1840), a work she is co-editing.

Professor David Galbraith Dept. of English

Professor Francesco Guardiani Dept. of Italian Studies

Francesco Guardiani teaches Italian at the University of Toronto. He is the editor of Quaderni d’italianistica (the official journal of the Canadian Society of Italian Studies) and, with Eric McLuhan, co-editor of McLuhan Studies (www.coolmedia.ca). He has produced a number of books and articles dealing with various aspects and periods of Italian literature, with a preference for Baroque poetry. Among his publications, the following books: La meravigliosa retorica dell'"Adone"di G.B. Marino, Firenze: Olschki, 1989; Ed. Lectura Marini, a critical reading of L'Adone. Ottawa: Dovehouse, 1989; Ed. The Sense of Marino: Literature Fine Arts and Music of the Italian Baroque. Ottawa-New York-Toronto: Legas, 1994; Ed. Going for Baroque: Cultural Transformations 1550-1650. Ottawa-New York-Toronto: Legas, 1999.

Professor Marie Korey Head Librarian, R. Davies Library Massey College

Marie Korey is Librarian of the Robertson Davies Library at Massey College and a member of the Graduate Department of English, serving on the Bibliography Committee of that Department. At Massey College, she is responsible for the Library's special collections in the history of the book and the Massey College Press, a printing shop with five nineteenth-century iron-hand presses and related equipment. She gives printing lectures/demonstrations at the Massey College Press for the Graduate Department of English's 'Bibliography I' course and other courses upon request. Her research has focussed on various aspects of the history of printing, publishing, and collecting (both private and institutional collections). She recently served as co-editor of and a contributor to the exhibition, "Book History and Print Culture", at the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library.

Professor Taras Koznarsky Dept. of Slavic Languages and Literatures

Taras Koznarsky teaches Ukrainian language, Ukrainian and Russian literatures, and comparative/interdisciplinarycourses in Slavic cultures. His interests include literary institutions and cultural identity in nineteenth-century Central and Eastern Europe, the multicultural legacy of Kyiv, and the cultures of modernism and avant-garde in the late Russian Empire- early Soviet Union. His most recent scholarly work is his book "Empire, Identity, and Cultural Exchange: the Shaping of Ukrainian Literary Discourse, 1800-1840 (forthcoming, Harvard University).

Professor Richard Landon Director, Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library

Richard Landon is Director of the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library and Professor of English. He has taught courses on aspects of the history of the book and bibliography for many years in the Graduate Department of English and the Faculty of Information Studies. Among his recent publications are Gibbings & Grey and the Charm of Birds (1998), In Retrospect: Designer Bookbindings By Michael Wilcox (1998), The Beauty Beneath the Skin: Eleven Early Explorers (1998), The Antiquarian Book Trade in Britain 1695-1830: the Use of Auction and Booksellers' Catalogues (PBSA, 89:4 (1995) 409-17). He recently initiated the exhibition "Book History and Print Culture" and its accompanying catalogue.

Professor Mark McGowan Principal, St. Michael’s College (on Sabbatical)

Mark McGowan is a specialist in the religious, social, migration, and educational history of Canada and is well known in the Canadian media for his analysis of Vatican affairs and the development of religion in Canada. In 1999 he published The Waning of the Green: Catholics, the Irish and Identity in Toronto, 1887-1922 (McGill-Queen’s) which won both the Brant Prize (OHS) and the Clio Award (CHA). Mark has just completed the first full-length biography of Michael Power (1804-1847), the first bishop of Toronto and a booklet for the Canadian Historical Association, Creating Canadian Historical Memory: The case of the Famine Migration of 1847. A recipient of two University teaching awards, Mark is deeply committed to undergraduate teaching and has helped found the Book and Media Studies Program at St. Michael’s and is piloting SMC’s contribution to the new Concurrent Teacher Education Program. He lives in Whitby, Ontario, with his wife Eileen and their five children.

Professor Heather Murray Dept. of English

Heather Murray is Associate Professor in the Department of English. Her work focusses on the history of English studies, with the history of the discipline in Canada being an especial area of interest. Work in this area has been published in Working in English: History, Institution, Resources (University of Toronto Press 1996) and some articles and bibliographies. Her most recent book examines English studies outside the academy, in a study titled 'Come, bright Improvement!' The Literary Societies of Nineteenth-Century Ontario (forthcoming). This book looks at literary and philosophical societies, literary and scientific societies, Mechanics' Institutes, debating societies in the African-Canadian community, Chautauqua circles, penny readings, women's study clubs, and dedicated author societies (e.g. Shakespeare and Browning clubs) to see how groups of readers shared and enhanced their reading experiences, in a form of educational and societal activity which continues in the book clubs of today. These societies are contextualized with reference to the state of literacy, availability and circulation of print materials, and the development of academic study, during the time period 1820-1900.

Professor Yannick Portebois Dept. of French Studies

Yannick Portebois is Assistant Professor in the Department of French, and director of the Centre d'études du 19e siècle français/Centre for 19th Century French Studies. Her main areas of interest are: the book trade between England and France (1860-1914), the publication process of French novels in English translations (copyright, illustrations, translation, circulation), the house of Vizetelly and Co., the biographies of Henry, Ernest, Edward and Frank Vizetelly, and reference books written by corrector-typographers for use in printing houses (grammars, dictionaries, etc.). As well, she is very interested in the intellectual history of 19th Century French encyclopaedia.

Professor Dorothy Speirs Coordinator, Dept. of French Studies.

Dorothy Speirs is a Professor in the Department of French Studies. Her interests include Émile Zola and the Naturalist movement, particularly the minor Naturalist authors of the second half of the nineteenth century. She also works in the area of critical editing and of 19th century publishing history in France and in England.

Professor John Zilcosky Dept. of German and Centre for Comparative Literature.

John Zilcosky teaches German and Comparative Literature at the University of Toronto. He is the author of "Kafka's Travels: Exoticism, Colonialism, and the Traffic of Writing"
(2003), which won the MLA's fifth biennial Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize for Studies in Germanic Languages and Literatures. His edited volume, "Writing Travel", will appear in 2007. He has published numerous articles on literary theory and modern European
literature and culture, and has presented lectures in Canada, the USA, Germany, Italy,
Sweden, Ireland, and China. His work has been supported by Fulbright, Humboldt, and SSHRC research grants.