Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 2000. [Vol. 6.] Eger Journal of American Studies. (Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 26)

Book reviews - Judit Ágnes Kádár: Canada and the Millenium—Proceedings of the 2nd Canadian Studies Conference in Central Europe. Editor: Anna Jakabfi

literary scenario ("Canadian Authors Speak"). David Mills' introductory historical survey on Canada's early history entitled "A Journey to Canada" is really an invitation for a broader reading public to focus on the particular Canadian context of studies done by European scholars. This essay starts a series of essays dealing with history and Canadian letters, followed later on by Peter Szaffko's paper on Canadian drama and the problem of canonization, with special reference to history. Szaffko considers two features to characterize the particular Canadian pattern of historical plays, one is the period choice that presents a general interest in outstanding events and characters ranging form the early 19th century up to the 1960s, and the other is the less political than sociological approach dramatists in the three investigated 'canonic' anthologies seem to share. The third essay with a historical perspective is that of Anna BranachKallas. She focuses on postmodern historiographic metafiction and argues that in Canadian the prose texts she analyzed historical characters have equal status with the fictional ones. The present collection of essays offers two interesting treaties in the broad sphere of culture studies. Lawrence L. Szigeti's "Multiculturalism a l'americaine", a highly critical paper on the comparison of the concept of multiculturalism in Canada, U.S. and Central Europe, and Wilfried von Bredow's well-constructed essay on "Ironic Myths of Sovereignty". The latter explores the controversies stemming from the effects of economic globalization challenging the concept of nation state, sovereignty and even political and national identity formulation processes. Referring to findings in the fields of public law as well as political science, Bredow offers us an update and thorough insight into the social context of the millennial Canadian intellectual public arena. The writer investigates two particular sets of myths of sovereignty, that of Quebec and the First Nations' and makes interesting remarks on patterns of contradictory myth formulation. Similarly to Bredow's focus on the global versus national axis, the prominent literary expert David Staines's essay with the same title as that of the whole periodical, investigates the shift of paradigms in recent and contemporary Canadian literature, marked by the writers' shifting interest in exploring not so much the traditional question of "Where is here?" rather "What is there?". This essay is a valuable 218