Modern Literature & Culture Research Centre & Gallery

Shalika Sivathasan holds an MA in Contemporary Literature, Culture, and Theory (2014) from King's College London in the UK. She completed her BA with High Distinction in 2013 at the University of Toronto St. George, majoring in History and with minors in English and Political Science. Her research interests include the intersections of concepts of home, culture, and identity throughout colonial, postcolonial, and diasporic texts. Shalika's Master's dissertation focused on representations of trauma, and their implications for Human Rights discourse, through the works of Joy Kogawa and Michael Ondaatje. Shalika joined the MLC with the desire to further develop her research skills and to explore current scholarship within the fields of Canadian literary and cultural production.

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Recent News

Sana Munir joins MLC

Sana Munir joins MLC

Sana is engaged in archival research and annotating articles related to the Telling COVID-19 Stories project.

Brenda Aleman joins MLC

Brenda Aleman joins MLC

Brenda assists the MLC Research Centre director and team with arts and research administration, while also supporting the MLC archive.

Angela Larosa joins MLC

Angela Larosa joins MLC

Angela assists with social media content, researching avant-garde women and issues of creative resilience during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Jeanette LaPolla joins MLC

Jeanette LaPolla joins MLC

Jeanette provides research and support for the Lorna Stevens Collection digitizing and archiving WWI and WWII rare archival holdings.

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.