Does the person who created that video make any difference to your viewing experience? Does your response make any difference to the creator, for that matter?

This is what I wanted to explore in my master’s thesis as a student in the University of Manitoba’s department of English, theatre, film & media.

Scholars of literary and film studies have been grappling with authorship for decades. Some, like French theorist Roland Barthes, say the only person who matters in the reception of a piece of media is the viewer. Popularly, many audiences put the strongest emphasis on what the author of a work intended to do with it.

What complicates this debate is that all notions of authorship are evolving on social media.

I studied cancellation videos on YouTube, or videos where YouTubers respond to scandals which drastically shifted their audiences’ perceptions of the YouTuber and elicited backlash. YouTubers like James Charles, who was canceled after his friend and fellow YouTuber, Tati Westbrook, accused him of being a bad friend and manipulator, addressed criticisms they anticipated receiving from their audiences in their videos.

The formal properties of these videos–or the editing, scripting, and even the way the YouTuber acts–suggest the author’s anticipation of the audience’s response influences the production of the video.

I noticed this influence persisted in other forms of video on social media too. I also researched TikTok trends like “Two Pretty Best Friends,” which was inescapable at the time I was writing my thesis. The meme developed around TikToker jayrscottyy after he posted a video saying, “I ain’t never seen two pretty best friends. It’s always one of them gotta be ugly.”

Almost all of the memes remixing this TikTok either repurposed aspects of jayrscottyy’s appearance or clips of his voice in their own audio. Some users parodied his video, using soup emojis to represent his eyes, for instance, while others lip-synced his audio and mimicked his unblinking stare.

Even livestreams change the dynamic between authors and audiences. I studied Twitch streamers like Pokimane, and found that her streams were constructed to facilitate a sense of connection between her and her viewers. If Pokimane did not show her face on stream, she sometimes compensated for her absence with placeholder animations showing cartoon representations of her.

Because interactions between authors and audiences can lead to an expectation of intimacy and authenticity, they pose some ethical problems too.

For instance, if an author appears in their own video and audiences have the power to remix elements of the video, what are the ramifications of audiences treating fundamental pieces of authors’ identities, like their faces and voices, as scrap material for internet memes? Furthermore, what are the consequences for creators if viewers believe they are owed explanations and intimate details about their lives?

These questions are relevant to more than just the lives of internet celebrities. Everyone who creates something on social media becomes an author. Sudden, unexpected virality might turn any one of us into authors with global recognition, subjecting all of us to similar expectations of famous creators.

Ultimately, perspectives like Barthes’s and those opposite his are too extreme. In the age of social media, notions of authorship are constantly evolving, and many of these evolutions are influenced by the interaction between authors and their audiences.

Reflecting on my own authorial history, including my time as a grad student, feedback and guidance from my mentors and friends influenced my own production process.

My advisor, Dr. Jonah Corne, guided me as I wrote my thesis and he encouraged me to develop my first sole-authored, peer-reviewed article on Midsommar, which will be published in fall 2024. I anticipated their responses as I wrote and adjusted my writing accordingly, and that dialogic process is evident in the final product.

When I was in the thick of writing my thesis, I could not have anticipated it would be recognized with UM’s Distinguished Master’s Thesis Prize. This is the sort of response to one’s work that inspires emerging scholars and writers to push on and keep creating.

I am starting my PhD in cinema studies at York University in Toronto in September 2024. Moving to a new place and meeting new people is daunting, but if the people I meet are as extraordinary as those I’ve been privileged enough to work with in Winnipeg, the experience will be worth writing home about and maybe even posting to social media.

Jessie Krahn [BA(Hons)/2018, MA/2023] is a 2024 UM Distinguished Master’s Thesis Prize winner. The prize is given out annually to recognize the achievements of Master’s graduates who submitted groundbreaking theses in the previous academic year. View her thesis titled “Here comes the author: evolving notions of authorship on social media.”

Faculty of Arts Outstanding Professor Award

The Outstanding Professor Award is given to a professor in the Faculty of Arts who has best demonstrated excellence in teaching, outstanding research and who has an exemplary record of service.

Dr. Roisin Cossar

This year’s winner, Dr. Roisin Cossar, Professor, Department of History, has excelled in all of these areas. Dr. Cossar is the Director of the Medieval and Early Modern Studies program in the Faculty of Arts and a research affiliate with the Centre on Aging.

She is described by her colleagues as “one of the most innovative and effective teachers at the University of Manitoba” and “one of North America’s foremost Medieval Scholars”. In 2019-2020 she received a SSHRC Insight Grant for the study of “Seasonality and the History of Late Medieval Christianity”.

Dr. Cossar has a longstanding record of service to the University and the discipline. She is a respected member on committees for the Department of History and the Faculty of Arts, and has been a member of the University of Manitoba Senate and the boards of the University of Manitoba Institute for the Humanities (UMIH) and the Centre on Aging, to name a few.

In addition, she is a past winner of teaching excellence awards, a skillful archival researcher, academic author and editor, a generous mentor to graduate students, research trainees and new faculty and an appreciated scholar with an “enthusiastic and informed commitment to the humanities”.

Faculty of Arts Award in Internationalization

The Award in Internationalization is given to a faculty member who promotes an increase in students’ awareness of international culture, perspective and issues. Examples might include courses integrating international experience, teaching material based on research in other countries and facilitating international student exchange.

Dr. Lori Wilkinson

This year’s recipient is Dr. Lori Wilkinson, Professor, Department of Sociology and Criminology and Director of the Immigration Research West research group. Dr. Wilkinson’s fields of specialization include immigration and refugee studies, anti-racism and survey and qualitative methods.

Dr. Wilkinson works to promote and increase students’ awareness of international cultures, perspectives, and issues and has an outstanding record of research and collaboration on issues of pressing global importance. Her research on refugees, displaced peoples, international students and the challenges facing their resettlement is woven into her courses, allowing students to benefit from learning about these globalized problems from the perspective of one of its leading scholars. Her teaching challenges students to think about issues facing the voluntary and involuntary movement of peoples from a global perspective. Dr. Wilkinson’s commitment to globalized, experiential learning is evident through her work with MITACS students, her mentoring of graduate students conducting international themed research and her promotion of international experiences for her students.

Dr. Wilkinson shares her knowledge as a board member of the Immigrant Centre Manitoba, is a key contributor and researcher with the Association of Canadian Studies and the COVID-19 Social Impacts Network established in early 2020 and in June 2020 received funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) to study how COVID-19 impacts populations of Indigenous, racialized persons and newcomers in Canada, the U.S. and Mexico. In March 2020, as a Conference Co-chair, she planned to welcome close to 1000 researchers, policy makers and representatives from community organizations working in the field of immigration and settlement from across Canada and around the world to the National Metropolis Conference here in Winnipeg when it was cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Faculty of Arts Teaching Excellence Awards

Professors and instructors in the Faculty of Arts engage in the excitement of learning and motivate students to challenge their current thinking and to develop their abilities for critical thinking and analysis. Following a nomination and selection procedure, the following faculty members received the Excellence in Teaching Awards for 2020.

Established Faculty: Dr. Dana Medoro, Professor, Department of English, Theatre, Film & Media

Sessional Instructor: Bryce Offenberger, Department of Political Studies

Graduate Student: Melanie Braith, Department of English, Theatre, Film & Media and Tasheney Francis, Department of Linguistics

“There is the performer, the creator, the storyteller. And seated next to her, or perhaps crouched inside her, is the source–that being who has laid down a bedrock of thought, of experience, or perhaps of bewilderment and inexperience, and she is now eager to write out of the sum or distillation of that reserve, to name what Philip Larkin once called ‘the million-petaled flower of being.'”

You may notice that the thought definitely names the writer as a female. It was a statement that needed to be made, Shields believed. The internationally renowned author, who died of breast cancer in July 2003, suggested that women’s lives, along with their writing, have too often been invisible. Shields sought to ameliorate that centuries-long invisibility through her own work. 

Now, a new literary award worth CAD$150,000 will bear the celebrated author’s name. Recognizing “excellence in fiction” and open to all North American female and non-binary writers, the Carol Shields Prize for Fiction will launch in 2022.

Carol Shields joined University of Manitoba’s department of English in 1980 and taught students here until her retirement in 1999. It was during that time–and while raising a family with her husband Don Shields, a professor and dean of engineering at the U of M–that she wrote the majority of her novels, including  Swann in 1987 and The Republic of Love in 1992. The Stone Diaries won the 1993 Governor General’s Award and the 1995 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, the only book ever to have received both awards. She was named professor emerita upon her retirement in 2000. In January 2003, Shields was further recognized by the U of M with an honorary Doctor of Letters degree; her legacy was honoured in 2016 with a commemorative bust on UM’s Innovation Plaza.

Alison Calder, professor and acting head of English, theatre, film & media in the Faculty of Arts, calls the prize announcement “an exciting development” for North American women and non-binary writers. “And it’s very appropriate that it should be named after Carol Shields, whose own writing celebrates the often unrecognized lives of women,” she says.

“It’s also exciting that the award is named after someone whose writing delineates Winnipeg and Manitoba so beautifully,” she adds.

Women’s writing in the spotlight

Speaking to the Toronto Star, Canadian author and one of the founders of the award Susan Swan says, “The thing is, women have dominated for a while in terms of readership but because a lot of the subjects women write are about relationships and in domestic settings, it’s still not considered serious literature.”

U of M retired English professor and acclaimed author David Arnason praised the work of his friend and colleague, noting that Shields “found the heroic” in ordinary lives.

The annual prize is the first of its kind for women’s fiction in North America. Eligible titles are those published in the U.S. or Canada, including translations from Spanish and French. Authors must be citizens and current residents, of at least five years, of Canada or the U.S.

Its objective is to put the work of women writers in the spotlight, say the founders. The Carol Shields Prize for Fiction mirrors a similar women’s prize in the UK, and is supported by names with serious clout, including Margaret Atwood, Jennifer Egan, Dionne Brand, Marie-Claire Blais, Jane Smiley, Francine Prose and Alice Munro. 

Besides the substantial sum, the winner will receive a residency at the Fogo Island writers’ retreat. The winner will also select an emerging female or non-binary writer to be awarded a year-long mentorship. Prize runners-up will receive university writing residencies in Canada or the U.S.

Shields wrote novels that “traditional male critics would’ve considered ‘lightweight’ because they were set in the home and were about family relationships,” Swan told CNN. “The large amount is a statement of belief in the brilliance of women’s writing.”

Calder agrees. “$150,000 is a life-changing amount of money that will buy valuable writing time for the winner and provide an important public validation of their work,” she says.

Look Homeward, Angel features an all student cast

“The play is ultimately about family, as the vast majority of plays I directed have been,” said Toles, when asked about the main themes of the show. “It seems to me that society written small, and all of the conflicts that spread out to the culture at large, can be found in family drama, if written properly.”

Look Homeward, Angel is a 1958 Pulitzer Prize winning play by Ketti Frings, an American author, playwright and screenwriter. Frings adapted the Thomas Wolfe coming of age novel of the same name into the play that opened on Broadway where it received six Tony Award nominations. Loosely autobiographical, the play follows the lives of Eugene Gant and his family, as they run a North Carolina boarding house in the early 1900s. The play is filled with surprises, thoughtfulness and tension, rounded out by a talented all student cast.

Toles has been connected with the U of M Theatre Program since 1977. His eclectic University College office door, that some say presents his own autobiography, was recently featured in UM Today The Magazine. “What I like about his directorial style is, he cares more about the actor’s relationship with their characters, than the presentational aspect of theatre,” said Actor Sherab Rabzyor Yolmo, talking about Toles’ approach to theatre. “Every word is fully motivated, and if everyone in a cast is doing that, the presentation, the way the show looks, is going to be amazing.”

Look Homeward, Angel runs from November 20-30, in the John J. Conklin Theatre at the Gail Asper Performing Arts Hall in the Taché Arts Complex.  All shows are performed at 7:30 pm, except for a 2:00 pm show on Sunday, November 24.

Perhaps we will see a photo from this production on Toles’ door in the near future.

Look Homeward, Angel
Written by Ketti Frings, directed by George Toles
John J. Conklin Theatre at the Gail Asper Performing Arts Hall
3^rd floor, 150 Dafoe Road, University of Manitoba
Nov 20 to Nov 30
Tickets at the door (cash only): $20 Regular, $15 Alumni/Arts Workers, $10 Students

Looking Ahead:
Macbeth by William Shakespeare runs January 22- February 1, 2020.
Capture Me! by Judith Thompson runs March 11-March 21, 2020.