Generic Subjects: reading Canadian death notices as life writing

Abstract

This paper studies contemporary Canadian death notices, considering the relation of this form of life writing to the public sphere. A genre that intersects the public and private, personal and communal, the death notice constitutes a key site for examining contemporary cultural practices. Instances of what Sidonie Smith and Julia Watson call ‘everyday autobiographies’, death notices show ordinary citizens writing themselves and their loved ones into identities and histories that dominant society has deemed acceptable. In this eulogistic and euphemistic form, generic and societal norms are at work that limit the possibilities for subjects and narratives and dictate who should be mourned and how. In this paper I examine the opportunities within this formulaic genre for telling the life stories of both the deceased and the survivors and for creating individual and collective identities that reflect multiple communities and generations. I consider as well the idea(l)s of subjectivity and nation that this popular form circulates and reinforces.