Tag Archives: apology
Theatre of Regret Now Available in Paperback
The Theatre of Regret: Literature, Art, and the Politics of Reconciliation in Canada is now available in paperback via UBC Press. Some of the chapters were developed out of writing that I first shared on this blog. For instance the post “Reconciliation: ‘Like an Echo Turned Inside Out’” is the basis of the book’s conclusion, […]
Theatre of Regret Now Available in Paperback
The Theatre of Regret is now available in paperback from UBC Press.
The Theatre of Regret: Establishing the Politics of Reconciliation after World War II
An immense wave of anti-colonial and anti-imperial activity, thought, and revision has overtaken the massive edifice of Western empire, challenging it, to use Gramsci’s vivid metaphor, in a mutual siege. For the first time Westerners have been required to confront themselves not simply as the Raj but as representatives of a culture and even a […]
“Sorry, Sorry, Sorry, Sorry”: Canadian Political Apologies and the Desire to Repeat
This presentation is a brief theorization of post-Cold War political apologies as Lacanian drive. According to Roy L. Brooks, “we have clearly entered what can be called the ‘Age of Apology’” (3). Since the end of the Cold War, in the shift from realpolitik to what Elzar Barkan calls “the new age of international morality”, […]
The Deconstructed Sorry: Post-Structural Ethics of Apology in the Wake of World War II
At this present moment it must be recognized that “apology” has been reformulated in Canada’s political discourse as a means to control narrative and protect the interests of the status quo. In this post, I would like to offer a brief critique of what might be called the “deconstructive” or “postmodern” approach to apology, which […]
Apology’s Worth It: How Canada Profits from Apology
Cathy Busby. We Are Sorry, detail; fabric panel, 610 cm x 1402 cm; Sorry (Stephen Harper), Sorry (Kevin Rudd), Sorry series inkjet prints, each 112 x 163 cm, Winnipeg Art Gallery, 2010 —— We live in an “Age of Apology“. In a way that was unimaginable during the Cold War, “sorry” is now a primary element […]
Novel Alliances 