Made in Canada

Journal of Canadian Studies • Revue d'€tudes canadiennes Made in Canada Stephen Bocking T he first four artides in this issue share a focus on phenomena that were transient , but that nevertheless tell us something significant about their time. (This issue also includes a special section, with its own introduction, on Canadian environmental history.) We begin with the most ephemeral ofliterature: pulp fiction. In the 1940s, Canadians seeking titillating reading material briefly enjoyed a home-grown option. Carolyn Strange and Tina Loo tell the story of the brief flourishing of Canadian pulp magazines. Created to replace American pulps kept out by wartime import controls, they provided a distinctive take on sex and crime - salacious, but safe. There were good guys and bad guys, but eventual victory for the right side was never in doubt. Mounties pursued their quarry across prairies and mountain passes, while perpetuating cultural and ethnic stereotypes that reinforced Anglo-Canadian identity. Eric Bedard considers a different literature: La Cognee, the journal of the Front de Liberation du Quebec. During its short life (1963-1967), La Cogni!e presented FLQ militants' view of Quebec society and the prospects of revolutionary change, capturing a unique view of the turbulent 1960s. The militants argued two perspectives: the millenariste, committed to long-term revolutionary change; and the spontaneiste, insistent on the need to shock, through violence, Quebec society into revolution. The irony of October 1970 was that while that event exhibited the emerging dominance of the second perspective, it also forced into oblivion not conventional Quebec society, but the FLQ itself. Amelia Paget lived on the Prairies during the brief period when traditional native ways of life persisted alongside the emerging settler economy. In 1909 she published The People ofthe Plains, an ethnography of the life, customs, and religion of the native peoples of the plains. Exploring the cultural and intellectual contexts of Paget's work, Shelley Hulan suggests that Paget aimed not so much to provide a nostalgic rendering of a vanishing way of life, but to question a dominant assumption of her time: that Native culture could be interpreted and understood by European observers. In doing so, Paget invited her readers to reconsider their perspectives on natives, and their own assumptions of superiority. Today's debates about trade, climate, and Iraq illustrate the challenges involved in pursuing a distinctive Canadian foreign policy. Adam Chapnick examines a time when the prospects for distinctiveness seemed especially auspicious. After the Second World War it appeared possible that a nation could define its foreign policy not just Volume 37 • No. 2 • (Ete 2002 Summer) 5 6 Introduction in terms of national interest, but through its capacity to contribute to better relations between nations. But while Canadian diplomats briefly considered the possibilities of altruism, Canada's participation ~n post-war international affairs, including the regulation of atomic energy and negotiation of a German peace settlement , demonstrated how fleeting was this period of idealism. By the late 1940s Canadian foreign policy-making had resumed its pursuit of national self-interest. Each of these articles tell a larger story. The brief career of Canadian pulp fiction illustrates the unpredictable relations between trade policy, popular entertainment, and cultural nationalism. Insights into the political philosophy of the FLQ give us an essential perspective on this formative era in modern Quebec history. Paget's attempt to question dominant cultural attitudes may help us imagine how, or whether, it is possible to communicate across cultures. And from the idealism briefly evident in mid-century foreign affairs we can learn how principles and profit interact in the formation ofpolicy. These articles examine fleeting phenomena, but they also remind us that such things can have lasting significance. ...