Modern Literature & Culture Research Centre & Gallery

Dr. Laura Cameron holds a PhD in English from McGill University (2015), where she specialized in Canadian modernist poetry and literary history. Laura’s SSHRC-funded dissertation, written under the supervision of Dr. Brian Trehearne, focused on the prolonged periods of poetic silence that divide the creative careers of several prominent mid-twentieth-century Canadian writers, including P.K. Page, Phyllis Webb, and Leonard Cohen. She has published portions of this research in Canadian Literature and Canadian Poetry: Studies, Documents, Reviews. Laura also taught in Canadian, American, and British literature at McGill and at Bishop’s University, where she was an Assistant Professor (limited-term) in 2016-17. At Bishop’s, she designed courses such as Introduction to Indigenous Literatures in Canada, English Writers of Quebec, and The Gothic Tradition. As a Visiting Research Fellow at the MLC Research Centre, Laura is completing a book manuscript entitled “Poetic Silence and the Modern Canadian Creative Career,” which considers the fertile creative state of poetic “silence” among a diverse group of late modernist poets in Canada. She is also involved in the preparations for the Toronto 2019 Modernist Studies Association conference.

 

Peer-Reviewed Publications

Cameron, Laura, ed. "'So often I look up at you and tell you things, and you listen!': The Correspondence of Louise Morey Bowman and Amy Lowell." Canadian Poetry: Studies, Documents, Reviews (Fall 2018). Forthcoming issue.

Cameron, Laura. “P.K. Page’s Poetic Silence.” Canadian Poetry: Studies, Documents, Reviews 75 (Fall/Winter 2014): 42-60.

Cameron, Laura. “‘The Great Dreams Pass On’: Phyllis Webb’s ‘Struggles of Silence.’” Canadian Literature 217 (Summer 2013): 72-86. Read the abstract here.

 

Selected Peer-Reviewed Conference Papers

Cameron, Laura, and Claudine Gelinas-Faucher. "Leonard Cohen, Critic of '50s Hipsterism." NeMLA Conference, 21-24 March 2019, Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center, Washington, DC.

Cameron, Laura. “‘So often I look up at you and tell you things, and you listen!’: The Correspondence of Louise Morey Bowman and Amy Lowell.” British Association for Canadian Studies Conference, 22–23 April 2016, British Library, London, England.

Cameron, Laura. “‘My unexpected entry / into the door of my mind’: P.K. Page’s Encounters with Modernism Abroad.” Space Between Society Conference, 17–19 July 2014, Institute of English Studies, University of London, London, England.

Cameron, Laura. “The Mysterious and the Mundane: Accounting for Poetic Silence.” ACCUTE Conference, 24–27 May 2014, Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences, Brock University, St. Catharines, ON.

Cameron, Laura. “The ‘Sense of an Audience’: Phyllis Webb Promoting Poetry in the 1950s.” Public Poetics: Critical Issues in Canadian Poetry and Poetics Conference, 20–23 September 2012, Mount Allison University, Sackville, NB.

Recent News

Gaurangi Batish joins MLC

Gaurangi Batish joins MLC

Gaurangi aspires to articulate the centre’s core values and vision through her contributions to the centre’s social media platforms.

Caitlin O’Keeffe joins MLC

Caitlin O’Keeffe joins MLC

At the MLC, Caitlin is excited to explore modernist women artists, the modernism archive and collection of modernist ephemera.

Cigdem Asatekin MacInnis joins MLC

Cigdem Asatekin MacInnis joins MLC

Cigdem joins the MLC and will be involved in research administration, exhibitions and events.

Amina Chaudhry joins MLC

Amina Chaudhry joins MLC

Amina assists Dr. Irene Gammel with her course ENG 710 Special Topics in Canadian Literature: Contemporary Life Writing.

The Great War in Literature and Visual Culture

MLC Themes

The Great War in Literature and Visual Culture

Amid the unprecedented social change of World War I, women renegotiated their identities by dramatically changing the way they engaged with the arts. But how did they do so? And how did everyday citizens engage with the war?

Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven

MLC Themes

Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven

Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven, considered by many to be the mother of Dada, was a daringly innovative poet and an early creator of junk sculpture. “The Baroness” was best known for her sexually charged, often controversial performances.

Modernism in the World

MLC Themes

Modernism in the World

Recent research has departed from the Euro-centric and national view of Modernism to include approaches and methods studying Modernism across national boundaries and across different art forms to include fashion, dance, performance, technology, and visual culture.

Lucy Maud Montgomery

MLC Themes

Lucy Maud Montgomery

L.M. Montgomery is perhaps Canada's most important literary export. She was prolific writer of over 500 short stories and poems, and twenty novels, including the beloved Anne of Green Gables.

Canadian Modernism

MLC Themes

Canadian Modernism

The works of numerous Canadian authors who lived during the modernist era may well constitute the most central and experimental articulation of Canadian modernism in prose, allowing authors to stage cross-cultural, controversial, and even conflicted identities.

Modernist Biography and Life Writing

MLC Themes

Modernist Biography and Life Writing

Life writing, including autobiographical accounts, diaries, letters and testimonials written or told by women and men whose political, literary or philosophical purposes are central to their lives, has become a standard tool for communication and the dissemination of information.