Torontology

grantor: University of TorontoThis thesis reads Toronto-based literature since 1968 against the theory of psychogeography, as used by Iain Sinclair. I begin with Gwendolyn MacEwen as a tutelary psychogeographer, and follow her totemisation of the CN Tower into more recent speculative fiction. The consideration of the parallel between buildings and books opens into consideration of Toronto's literary landscape as marked by alterity, working backwards to paradigmatic psychogeographical texts 'In the Skin of the Lion' and 'Civil Elegies', which map the whole city as alternate. Drawing a theoretical statement for each chapter from psychogeography encyclopedia 'city a-z', the thesis is divided along identity politics lines, considering different literary representations of the city, represented by carnivalesque, queer, Caribbean and adolescent Toronto(s), as they map onto different geographical areas. Following a coda on the career and mythology of Daniel Jones, the conclusion restates the literary ideation of Toronto itself as marginal, inclusive and proliferate.M.A