Neil Besner
Title:Professor; Provost and Vice-President, Academic
Email:n.besner@uwinnipeg.ca
Biography:
I’m from Montreal but left there early and grew up in Brazil, where I return frequently. I went to high school in the U.S. (1962-66), then started my B.A. at the University of Southern California in L.A., returned to Montreal in 1970, and finished my B.A. (Honors) at McGill (1972). I came West in 1972, finished my M.A. on Saul Bellow at the University of Regina (1974), travelled in Europe and Africa (1974-5) and taught English as a Second Language in Seville, Spain (1975). I taught at UBC (1976-83) and did my PhD there on Mavis Gallant’s fiction, and then started returning eastward when I moved to Calgary to teach at Mount Royal (1983 – 1987). I’ve been at UW since 1987 and taught regularly in the English Department until 2007 and irregularly since then. Both my kids are graduates of UW. I love this place.
Teaching Areas:
Various approaches to 19th, 20thCentury, and contemporary Canadian literature; the short story as genre and form; twentieth century American Fiction and Poetry; Fiction in Translation (particularly Asian, European, and especially South American); Expository writing; and Individual authors: Saul Bellow, Alice Munro, Mavis Gallant, Elizabeth Bishop, and the lyrics of Bob Dylan.
Publications:
Books and Editions
Co-edited, with Maria Conçeição Monteiro and Guillermo Giucci,Além dos Limites: Ensaios para o Século XXI. (超出了限制:论文的Twenty-First Century.) Rio de Janeiro: ed.uerj (State University of Rio de Janeiro Press), 2013.
“和贡献,Carlinda Fragale Pate Nunez and Maria Conceição Monteiro,Diálogos nas Américas - Brasil / Canadá: Culturas e Literaturas / Dialogues in the Americas - Brazil / Canada: Cultures andLiteratures,Number 2. Rio de Janeiro: Editora Caetés, 2010.
“和贡献,Carlinda Fragale Pate Nunez and Maria Conceição Monteiro,(As)simetrias nas Americas: Brasil/Canada: Culturas e Literaturas. (A)symmetries in the Americas: Brazil/Canada:cultures and literatures. Rio de Janeiro: Editora Caetes, 2008.
Edited and introduced,Carol Shields: The Arts of a Writing Life. Winnipeg: Prairie Fire Press, 2003.
Co-edited with Sergio Bellei, special issue ofDesterros(UniversidadeFederal de Santa Catarina, Brazil) on Postcolonialism in Canada and Brazil. 2003.
Translated into English Carmen L. Oliveira,Flores Raras e Banalíssimas:A História de Lota de MacedoSoares e Elizabeth Bishop(Rio de Janeiro: Rocco, 1995):Rare and Commonplace Flowers: The Story of Lota de Macedo Soares and Elizabeth Bishop. New Jersey: Rutgers Univ. Press, 2001.
(Reprint, paperback, Rutgers 2003. Stonewall Honour Book, American Library Association, 2002; Finalist, Lambda Literary Awards, 2002.) Used as the main source for 2013 feature film,Reaching for the Moon,Dir. Bruno Barreto. Portuguese film title:Flores Raras.
Guest editedNew Directions, special issue ofCanadian Literature, No. 158 (Autumn, 1998).
Co-edited with D. Schnitzer and A. Turner, University of Winnipeg,Uncommon Wealth: An Anthology of Poetry in English. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1997.
Edited special issue ofPrairie Fireon Carol Shields, Vol. 16, No. 1. (Spring, 1995).
Co-edited, with David Staines, Univ. of Ottawa,The Short Story In English. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1991.
Introducing Lives of Girls and Women. Toronto: ECW Press, 1990.
The Light of Imagination: Mavis Gallant's Fiction. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1988.
2003 -- General Editor,Laurier Poetry Series, Wilfrid Laurier University Press. Responsible for selecting poets and critics and for editing manuscripts. Twenty-two volumes in print and several others in press as of January 2015 (onTim Lilburn, ed. Alison Calder;Al Purdy, ed. Rob Budde;DiBrandt, ed. Tanis McDonald;Don McKay, ed. Meira Cook;LornaCrozier, ed. Catherine Hunter; ChristopherDewdney, ed. Karl Jirgens,Dennis Cooley, ed. Nicole Markotic;Don Domanski, ed. Brian Bartlett;M. Travis Lane, ed. Jeanette Lynes;Louis Dudek, ed. Karis Shearer,George Elliott Clarke, ed. J. P. Fiorentino;Dionne Brand, ed. Leslie Sanders;Nicole Brossard, bilingual edition, ed. Louise Forsyth;Fred Wah, ed. Louis Cabri.;Steve McCaffery, ed. Darren Wershler;EliMandel, ed. Peter Webb;F.R. Scott, ed. Laura Moss;George Fetherling, ed. A Moritz;derek beaulieau, ed. Kit Dobson;Tom Wayman, ed. Percy Owen;Daphne Marlatt, ed. Susan Knutson; andJan Zwicky, ed. Darren Bifford).
Approximately 40 articles, book chapters, and essays in various journals and editions in Brazil, China, the U.S., France, and Canada, mostly in English, a few in Portuguese, and one in French; approximately 85 entries on Canadian, American, Brazilian, and Peruvian writers in various literary encyclopedias; and approximately 90 reviews in newspapers and journals.
Papers on deposit in Special Collections, University of Manitoba, including unpublished novel, athttps://umanitoba.ca/libraries/units/archives/collections/complete_holdings/ead/html/besner.shtm