Paul Litt
Professor (cross appointed to the School of Indigenous and Canadian Studies) - Public History, particularly the heritage imaginary, tourism and historic sites in postwar Ontario; Canadian cultural nationalism and cultural policy; mass media and the politics of image
| Degrees: | B.A. (Toronto), M.A. (Ottawa), Ph.D. (Toronto) |
| Phone: | 613-520-2600 x 4143 |
| Email: | paul.litt@carleton.ca |
| Office: | 1208 Dunton Tower |
Biography
Paul Litt is a historian of late twentieth-century Canada with special interests in culture, nationalism, the politics of image, and public history. His current research project is a study of the mid-twentieth century heritage tourism region of Huronia as a settler cultural nationalist imaginary based on appropriation of the Indigenous past. Paul is cross-appointed between the School of Indigenous and Canadian Studies and the Department of History at Carleton.
Research Interests
- Canadian nationalism
- Post-Confederation Canadian cultural, media and political history
- Public history and memory, with a focus on post-1945 Ontario
- Media and politics
2020-2021
CDNS2300 Critical Nationalism
HIST2301 Canadian Political History
CDNS2310 Introduction to the Study of Canadian Culture
2019-2020
CDNS6900 Core Seminar, Carleton-Trent Joint Doctoral Program in Canadian Studies
CDNS5302 Canadian Cultural Policy
Select Publications
“Bobby and Pierre,” in 1968 in Canada: A Year and its Legacies (Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 2021).
“Uncle Lou, Both Old and New,” in The Unexpected Louis St. Laurent, Vancouver, University of British Columbia Press, 2020, 89-114.
Trudeaumania, Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2016, pp. 424.
Elusive Destiny: The Political Vocation of John Napier Turner, Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2011, pp. 536.
“The Cult of Nation and the Gnat of Culture,” Acadiensis, XXXVIII, 2 (November, 2009) 150-58.
“State Investigation and Support for the Book,” in Carole Gerson and Jacques Michon, eds., History of the Book in Canada, Volume III, 1918-1980, Toronto/Montreal: University of Toronto Press/Les Presses de l’Université de Montréal, 2007, 34-44.
“Canada Invaded!: The Great War, Mass Culture, and Canadian Cultural Nationalism,” in Canada and the First World War, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005, 323-49.
Isotopes and Innovation: MDS Nordion’s First Fifty Years, Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press for MDS Nordion, 2000, pp. 249.
“The Apotheosis of the Apothecary: Retailing and Consuming the Meaning of a Historic Site,” Journal of the Canadian Historical Association, 10, 1999: 297-321.
“Pliant Clio and Immutable Texts: The Historiography of a Historical Marking Program,” The Public Historian, 19, 4 (Fall 1997): 7-28.
Death at Snake Hill: Secrets from a War of 1812 Cemetery, Toronto: Dundurn, 1993 (with R. Williamson and J. Whitehorne), pp. 158.
The Muses, the Masses, and the Massey Commission, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992, pp. 331.
Awards/Honours
Canadian Historical Association Political History Group Book Prize, 2017
Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Research Award, 2017
Co-recipient, Carleton University Research Prize, Building Connections Award, 2016
C.D. Howe Foundation Publication Grant, 2006
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada standard research grant, 2003
National Council for Public History (NCPH) G. Wesley Johnson Prize for the best article in The Public Historian, 1997
Recent Graduate Supervisions
Andrew Walker, “Cultural Policy by and for Artists: The Case of the Professional Chorister in Southern Ontario,” MA thesis, School of Indigenous and Canadian Studies, 2021
Ellis Buschek, “Plating Politics: How Food Was Used to Convey Multicultural Nationhood in 1960s Canada,” MA in Public History Research Essay, Department of History, 2020
Christian Kellor, “‘At the Ordinary, March!’: An Autoethnography of War of 1812 Reenacting,” MA in Public History Research Essay, Department of History, (co-supervision), 2020
Barry Wilson, “Forgetting the Mad Bomber: History, National Narrative and an Unfitting Episode,” MA in Public History Research Essay, Department of History, 2020
Eli Cohen, “Jewish Culinary Identity in Postwar Montreal,” Department of History (co-supervision), MA in Public History Research Essay, 2020
Matthew Cain, ““What Shadows We Are, and What Shadows We Pursue”: A Study of Edmund Burke’s Influence on Canadian Political Culture,” Ph.D., School of Indigenous and Canadian Studies, 2019.
Sarah Chelchowski, “Absent Stakeholders: The Redevelopment of Kingston Penitentiary,” MA in Public History Research Essay, Department of History, 2018.
Kelly Ferguson. “The Origins of the Peacekeeping Myth in 1960s Canada,” MA in Public History Research Essay, Department of History, 2017.
John Valentine, “Football, Nationalism, and Protectionism: The Federal Defence of the CFL,” Ph.D., School of Canadian Studies, 2016
Cassandra Joyce, “Owning the Podium: the competing priorities of participation and excellence in Canadian federal sport policy,” M.A. Research Paper, School of Canadian Studies, 2015.
Brennan McConnell, “A Course for Victory: Gender, Class and Nationalism Depicted through Food in Chatelaine Magazine,” M.A. thesis, Department of History, 2014 (co-supervision).
Lashia Jones, “Interpreting Women’s Work at an Industrial Heritage Site: The Almonte Textile Museum,” M.A. Research Paper, School of Canadian Studies, 2012 (co-supervision).
Chris Uchiyama, “Heritage in the Canadian Environmental Assessment Process,” M.A. thesis, School of Canadian Studies, 2011 (co-supervision).
John Moses, “The Return of the Native (Veteran): Six Nations Troops and Political Change at the Grand River Reserve, 1917-1924,” M.A. thesis, School of Canadian Studies, 2008 (co-supervision).