Modern Literature & Culture Research Centre & Gallery

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. Irene Gammel’s Confessional Politics surmises that in this confessional age, "telling all is in”. Her collection of essays explores the association of confession with femininity; the essays examine its function as a gender-specific discourse as they probe its many feminized genres and subgenres.


Ernest Hemingway`s A Moveable Feast

Ernest Hemingway's memoir of Paris was edited after his death by his fourth wife, who made changes that reflected her opinion of his earlier wives. Now Hemingway's original unedited version of A Moveable Feast is available, but does that really make it the 'correct' version?


Ernest Hemingway with his fourth wife Mary, who edited A Moveable Feast and whose additions and deletions reflected her biases regarding her husband's earlier wives - AFP/Getty Images

Read Irene Gammel's full article.

Read Irene Gammel's A Changeable Feast in the Globe and Mail.


A second look at The Second Sex

As a feminist icon and revolutionary thinker, Beauvoir famously rejected conventional marriage and motherhood. She left an indelible legacy with her novels, memoirs and essays, but it was her magnum opus, Le deuxième sexe (1949), that became the bible of feminism. 


Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir in an undated photo.

The new translation of a feminist classic will have readers rethinking not only the work, but Simone de Beauvoir's relationship to Jean-Paul Sartre

Read Irene Gammel's full article.

Read Irene Gammel's The Second Sex in the Globe and Mail.


Revolutionary Rosa 

Rosa Luxemburg, one of greatest minds of the German socialist movement, was killed in Berlin in 1919 during the German revolution.

Providing insight into Luxemburg’s courageous and unconventional life (which included several incarcerations), The Letters of Rosa Luxemburg covers Luxemburg's correspondence from 1891 to 1919. The letters remain timely as they stage the complex gender identity of a free-spirited modern who openly defied the sexual mores of her era.  Ultimately, these letters show the living, breathing and loving woman behind the legend of "Red Rosa.”

Read Irene Gammel's full review of The Letters of Rosa Luxemburg.

Read Irene Gammel's review in the Globe and Mail.

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.