Eva Darias-Beautell is a Professor of Canadian literatures in English at the University of La Laguna. She is a regular visiting scholar at Canadian universities and has published extensively on contemporary Canadian literatures and cultures. Her books include the edited collections Unruly Penelopes and the Ghosts: Narratives of English Canada (Wilfrid Laurier UP, 2012) and The Urban Condition: Literary Trajectories Through Canada’s Postmetropolis (Vernon Press, 2018). She has successfully directed seven fully-funded international research projects. Her current
research is within the grant The Premise of Happiness: The Function of Feelings in North American Narratives (PID2020-113190GBC21). Darias-Beautell also leads the group TransCanadian Networks: Excellence and Transversality from Spain about Canada towards Europe (RED2018-102643-T).

Abstract

This lecture examines contemporary Canadian fiction and film in English through the lens of Zygmunt Bauman’s concept of liquid modernity, a term he applies to the pervasive sense of instability that defines late modern life. For Bauman, modernity is defined by a deep awareness of precarity, in which social structures, individual and collective identities become increasingly contingent and fragmented. I aim to explore how urban Canadian literature and cinema express and navigate this ontological condition. Specifically, I will look into how these texts represent the "liquid city," engaging with, responding to, or resisting its manifestations. Key issues include gentrification, urban alienation, and the heightened vulnerability that comes with these processes. The analysis will briefly focus on a selection of texts that foreground these discussions: Everything Will Be (Dir. Julia Kwan, 2014); The Better Mother (Jen Sookfong Lee, 2011); Double Happiness (Dir. Mina Shum, 1994); Five Little Indians (Michelle Good, 2020); and The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open (Dir. ElleMáijá Tailfeathers and Kathleen Hepburn, 2019).