Modern Literature & Culture Research Centre & Gallery

Walter Lai is a PhD student in the joint Communication and Culture graduate program with Ryerson and York Universities (2014-2018). Walter holds an MA from Ryerson’s Literatures of Modernity program (2012) and a BA Honours in English from the University of Toronto Scarborough (2011).  Walter’s research interests include trauma and illness studies, life writing and (auto-)biography, as well as comics studies. In addition to his scholarly work, Walter is a creative writer associated with the Creative Organization of Writers. At the MLC Research Centre, he is involved in researching areas in life-writing and history with focus on World War I.

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Recent News

Saluting Mary Riter Hamilton: A Personal Reflection on the New Heritage Minute

Saluting Mary Riter Hamilton: A Personal Reflection on ...

Historica Canada has released a new Heritage Minute, featuring Mary Riter Hamilton, Canada’s first woman battlefield artist.

Attention Students — Call for Student Volunteer Docents

Attention Students — Call for Student Volunteer ...

Become a docent at the MLCRC exhibition Threads of History: Repatriating World War II Quilts at Toronto City Hall.

Payton Knox joins MLC

Payton Knox joins MLC

Payton is involved in providing grading support for the course ENG 240: Contours of Creativity.

MLC Annual Impact Report 2023 - 2024

MLC Annual Impact Report 2023 - 2024

The MLC Research Centre is proud to present a summary of its annual achievements.

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.