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This Is Not a Hoax shows how the work of some contemporary artists and writers intentionally disrupts the curatorial and authorial practices of the country’s most respected cultural institutions: art galleries, museums, and book publishers.
This first-ever study of contemporary Canadian hoaxes in visual art and literature asks why we trust authority in artistic works and how that trust is manifest. Heather Jessup claims that hoaxes, far from being merely lies meant to deceive or wound, may exert a positive influence. Through their insistent disobedience, they assist viewers and readers in re-examining unquestioned institutional trust, habituated cultural hierarchies, and the deeply inscribed racism and sexism of Canada’s settler-colonial history.
Through its attentive look at hoaxical works by Canadian artists Iris Häussler, Brian Jungen, and Rebecca Belmore, photographer Jeff Wall, and writers and translators David Solway and Erin Mouré, this book celebrates the surprising ways hoaxes call attention to human capacities for flexibility, adaptation, and resilience in a cultural moment when radical empathy and imagination is critically needed.
"This volume establishes R. Bruce Elder’s writing as belonging among works of rare analytical depth, and probably unique within the panorama of film theorists. I know of no cineaste more attentive to esthetical and philosophical issues. The tissues of his thought processes manifest constantly in the deluge of original commentary, opening innovative avenues of meaning. Reading this volume is like entering into a fascinating territory of futurist and cubist poetics, with the view of a boundless horizon. Elder, in a systematic way, gathers the boundaries of various theoretical matrixes and melts them to enrich the architecture of cinematographic thinking.”" - Antonio Bisaccia, Director, “Mario Sironi” Academy of Fine Arts; Sassari, Italy, Antonio Bisaccia
"Anyone who walks the streets of Montreal knows just how present Leonard Cohen is. His visage enfolds the city, reminding us about all the ways he transcended politics to seek something spiritual, something aesthetically sustaining. This new collection captures Cohen’s historic cultural impact, but it also defines the myriad ways in which he was always contemporary. Anyone who wants to understand Cohen’s influence and the trajectory of his writing will need this book. Its perceptive introduction helps to frame the evolution of Cohen’s multi-faceted career. It offers a rich conversation among some of the most accomplished critics writing about Cohen today." - Robert Lecker, McGill University
"Limelight charts the evolution of Canadian culture over a century and, in an engaging and accessible style, examines the way Canadian celebrities operate in a global celebrityscape—the ways in which the national and the global interact—with important implications for citizenship. Limelight is informative, entertaining, thought-provoking, and authoritative." - Gillian Roberts, University of Nottingham, editor of Reading between the Borderlines (2018) and Parallel Encounters (WLU Press, 2013)
"The Contemporary Leonard Cohen presents readers with a kaleidoscope of perspectives, illuminating the multifaceted richness of Cohen's body of work, from his earliest writings to the posthumously released productions. Ultimately, our own stance as scholars, artists, and fans of Cohen’s texts, in which we are so often directly addressed, is challenged, making this volume relevant not only to those interested in Leonard Cohen but also to anyone seeking to understand the dynamics of artistic communication." - Francis Mus, Ghent University; University of Antwerp
"A parlour game? A sly wink-and-nod? A cruel but usually harmless trick perpetrated on the unwary? All of my previous associations with the hoax have been overturned by this elegantly argued, deeply thoughtful, and passionately political book. Drawing on an abundance of examples from visual arts and literature produced in Canada, Heather Jessup shows us how these seemingly momentary glitches in the fabric of our deeply held assumptions and conventions have the interruptive power to turn our reflections towards the searing disruptions of colonization, genocide, and institutionally sanctioned cruelty. This is a rare, creative work of cultural scholarship" - Lorraine York, Senator William McMaster Chair, Canadian Literatures and Cultures, McMaster University
"In this immensely readable book, Jessup makes the case for the necessity of disruption. This is Not a Hoax proves that our innate human gullibility can be a powerful tool for questioning the institutions and experiences that shape our lives" - Mandy Len Catron, author of How to Fall in Love with Anyone: A Memoir in Essays