Search for "black history"

Margaret Atwood’s sixth novel, The Handmaid's Tale (1985) is a chilling dystopian vision of the future. It is set in the Republic of Gilead, a totalitarian America in which fundamentalist Christians have killed the president and Congress and imposed a puritanical theocracy. The Handmaid's Tale portrays a loveless police state that oppresses women and regulates all aspects of human life with constant surveillance. The novel won the Governor General's Literary Award and the Arthur C. Clarke Award for Science Fiction Literature. It has sold more than eight million copies in English. The Washington Post’s Ron Charles called it “the most popular and influential feminist novel ever written.” It has been adapted into a feature film, an acclaimed opera, a ballet, an Emmy Award-winning television series and a graphic novel. The Testaments, a highly anticipated sequel written by Atwood, was published in September 2019. It was awarded the Booker Prize in a rare tie with Bernardine Evaristo’s Girl, Woman, Other.

Concert Productions International (familiarly, CPI). Major promoter of rock concerts and tours in North America. It was established in Toronto in 1973 as a subsidiary of WBC Productions Ltd by Michael Cohl, William (Bill) Ballard, and David Wolinsky.

The history of Inuit cultures and the art of the various regions and times can only be understood if the myth of a homogeneous Inuit culture is discarded altogether. Though it has not been possible to determine the exact origin(s) of the Inuit, nor of the various Inuit cultures, five distinct cultures have been established in the Canadian area: Pre-Dorset , Dorset , Thule, Historic and Contemporary.

The Degrassi franchise — consisting of five separate but interrelated TV series, several TV movies and a webseries of shorts — is Canada’s longest-running dramatic series. Following various Toronto youths and their realistic high school experiences, Degrassi has aired off and on for over 40 years, spanning more than 500 episodes. Praised by many as the most successful example of television franchising in Canadian history, Degrassi is licensed in over 140 countries. It has launched the careers of several Canadian talents, most notably Drake. The franchise has received four Primetime Emmy nominations, two International Emmy Awards, 25 Gemini Awards, 16 Canadian Screen Awards and a Peabody Award. It was inducted into Canada’s Walk of Fame in 2023.

 A broad definition of architecture - one that calls for a balance between artistic and technical factors as well as between folk and high-art traditions - is not new.

Beautiful Losers (Toronto and New York, 1966; London, 1970) is a novel by Leonard Cohen.

Film distribution is one of the three main branches of the film industry. It provides the link between film production and exhibition. It is also the most profitable of the three sectors and is dominated by large multinational conglomerates. Film distribution companies supply movies, television programs, videos and new media to outlets such as cinemas and broadcasters. They do so in territories where they have acquired rights from the producers. Traditionally, distribution companies are the prime source for financing new productions. The distribution sector has been called “the invisible art.” Its practices tend to only concern industry insiders and go unnoticed by audiences. American companies dominate film distribution in Canada. They have controlled access to Canadian screens since the 1920s. (See also: Canadian Film History: 1896 to 1938.)

Historically, plank houses were structures built by various Indigenous peoples on the Northwest Coast of Canada, such as the Coast Salish, Kwakwaka’wakw, Nuu-chah-nulth, Nuxalk, Haida, Tsimshian, Gitxsan and Nisga'a. Plank houses varied in size and design, depending on the community. Plank houses still exist in some communities and are used mainly for community and ceremonial purposes. (See also Architectural History of Indigenous Peoples in Canada.)

Beau Dommage was a Quebec folk-rock group that was formed around 1972 and became known for its distinctive urban poetry and songs about adolescence and daily life in Montreal. The group’s second album, Où est passée la noce?, came out in 1975 and was one of the first in the history of music in Canada to go platinum according to the Canadian Recording Industry Association (100,000 copies sold). Beau Dommage was inducted into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2017.

Ararat, Atom Egoyan's movie-within-a-movie, is about the 1915 slaughter of Turkey's Armenian minority, an atrocity that is still officially denied by the Turkish government.

The film Barney's Version (2010), produced by Robert Lantos and directed by Richard J. Lewis, takes on the challenge of adapting Mordecai Richler's unruly onslaught of a final novel.

Combining elements of European and African traditions, jazz is a style of music that originated with African Americans in the early 20th century. It is characterized by its improvisatory nature, rhythmic vitality (i.e., “swing”) and emotional expressiveness. Because jazz predates its earliest documented evidence (i.e., recordings), some controversy surrounds its origins. According to generally accepted theory, however, jazz can be traced to the socio-musical environment of New Orleans at the dawn of the 20th century.

The Redpath Museum is a natural history museum located on the grounds of McGill University, in Montreal, Quebec. Founded in 1882, it is the first purpose-built museum in Canada and one of the oldest continually operating museums in the country. The Redpath’s expansive collection is divided into four broad groups: mineralogy, palaeontology, zoology and world cultures (ethnology). (See also Minerals; Anthropology in Canada.) The collections are housed in a stand-alone museum building of Greek Revival style (see Architecture). In addition to its public education function, the Redpath is an integrated component of McGill University’s Faculty of Science, complete with research labs and undergraduate and graduate courses that make use of the museum’s ample collections.

Robertson Davies’s landmark novel Fifth Business (1970) explores the life and psyche of a seemingly ordinary history teacher, Dunstan Ramsey, who has unwittingly played a key role in some remarkable events. It was the first book of Davies’s Deptford Trilogy, which also includes The Manticore (1972) and World of Wonders (1975). Fifth Business became arguably Davies’s most recognized novel and catapulted him to international recognition.

William Bell’s historical novel Forbidden City (1990) tells the story of Alex, a teenager who accompanies his father on a trip to Beijing, China. Alex’s initial excitement at exploring the history of the city turns to horror when he becomes trapped near the Forbidden City during the Tiananmen Square Massacre. The most popular novel of Bell’s career, Forbidden City was published in 11 countries and eight languages. Reviewers praised its depiction of the on-the-ground reality of the Tiananmen Square Massacre. The novel received Ontario’s Ruth and Sylvia Schwartz Children’s Book Award, the Ontario School Librarians Association Award and the Belgium Award for Excellence.  

Traditionally made of wool and intricately finger-woven into a colourful lengthwise “zigzag” pattern, they have numerous names, including “arrowhead,” “Indian,” “Métis” and “voyageur” sashes.

​The 100th anniversary of Confederation in 1967 coincided with a period of self-definition and national assertion that consolidated national literary institutions and produced works that explored national identity.

Lucy Maud Montgomery’s first novel, Anne of Green Gables (1908), became an instant bestseller and has remained in print for more than a century, making the character of Anne Shirley a mythic icon of Canadian culture. The book has sold an estimated 50 million copies worldwide, been translated into at least 36 languages, as well as braille, and been adapted more than two dozen times in various mediums. A musical version first produced by the Charlottetown Festival in 1965 is the longest running annual musical theatre production in the world, while the award-winning 1985 CBC miniseries starring Megan Follows is the most-watched television program in Canadian history. Thousands of tourists visit Prince Edward Island each year to see the “sacred sites” related to the book, and the sale of Anne-related commodities such as souvenirs and dolls has come to constitute a cottage industry.