In Bed with the Word

Daniel Coleman is Professor Emeritus of English and Cultural Studies at McMaster University. He was born and raised in Ethiopia and came to Canada to go to college. After BEd and MA degrees from the University of Regina, and a PhD from the University of Alberta, he went on to teach at McMaster University. He has written scholarly books about literature, masculinity, migration, and whiteness in Canada, and he has written literary non-fiction books about his upbringing among missionaries in Ethiopia, about the spiritual and cultural politics of reading, and about eco-human relations in Hamilton, Ontario, the post-industrial city where he lives. Daniel Coleman has edited books on early Canadian literary cultures, postcolonial masculinities, race, Caribbean-Canadian literature, the state of the humanities in Canadian universities, the creativity and resilience of refugee-d and Indigenous peoples, and international scholarship on Canadian literatures. Some of these books have won awards. He is grateful to live in the traditional territories of the Haudenosaunee and Anishinaabe in Hamilton, Ontario.

• Acknowledgements ixone | Reading & Longing 2two | Reading as Counterculture 18three | Posture 42four | The Structure of Absence 64five | Eating the Book 96References 129Index 133

"Such is the power of reading that it not only nourishes spirituality and enables us to see beyond the limitations of our own experience; it also reinvigorates our cultural politics, says Coleman. The dialogue shared between an author and those who read can change the ways in which we are in the world and produce people empowered to live for justice and compassion. Through dialogue with poetry, history, memoir and fiction, Daniel Coleman demonstrates how spirituality and social change are supported through the disarmingly simple, yet deeply subversive practice of reading. In Bed with the Word invites us into conversation with an author who approaches the world with interest and generosity, handles words with skill and great care, and eagerly extends an invitation to allow ourselves to be transformed and connected by what we read. I realized it had done its work in me when I found myself making plans to read it aloud with friends. It is a deeply satisfying read." Barbara Mutch, Carey Theological College