Dr. James Dopp
Position
Contact
Credentials
BA (Laurier), MA (Victoria), PhD (York)
Area of expertise
Canadian literature; hockey
Jamie Dopp has been a member of the English Department since 1990. He is a Canadian Literature specialist, and has published poetry, fiction, and criticism on a wide variety of Canadian topics. He is also a songwriter and performing musician, and occasionally uses music in the classroom. He is currently at work on a major critical project called Hockey on the Moon: Imagination and Canada's Game, with a projected completion date of 2021.
Books
On the Other Hand. (poems) Victoria: Squeegee Press, 1996.
Prospects Unknown: A Mystery with a Difference. (novel). Victoria: Ekstasis Press, 2000.
The Birdhouse, or. (poems) Victoria: Ekstasis Press, 2002. 1
Now is the Winter: Thinking About Hockey. (essays) Edited with an Introduction with Richard Harrison. Hamilton: Wolsak and Wynn, 2009.
Writing the Body in Motion: Essays on Sports Literature in Canada. (essays) Edited with Angie Abdou. Athabasca UP. 2018.
Driving Lessons. (novel) Victoria: Ekstasis Press, 2020.
Getting Lost, Going Home. (poems) Victoria: Ekstasis Press, 2022.
Not Hockey: Essays on Canada’s Other Sports Literature. (essays) Co-edited with Angie Abdou. Athabasca UP, 2023.
Hockey on the Moon: Imagination and Canada's Game (criticism). Athabasca UP, 2024.
Articles
"Autobiography and John Fowles’s The Tree.” With Barry N. Olshen. Mosaic 22.4 (Fall 1989): 31-44.
“Who Says That Canadian Culture is Ironic?” Double Talking: Essays on Verbal and Visual Ironies in Contemporary Canadian Art and Literature. Ed. Linda Hutcheon. Toronto: ECW, 1992. 39-53.
“Subject-Position as Victim-Position in The Handmaid’s Tale.” Studies in Canadian Literature, 19.1 (Summer 1994): 43-57.
“Metanarrative as Inoculation in What’s Bred in the Bone.” English Studies in Canada 21.1 (March 1995): 77-94.
“Haunted by Ted Bundy: Phil Hall and ‘Male Feminism.’” Open Letter 9.3 (Summer 1995): 93-99.
“Reading as Collaboration in Timothy Findley’s Famous Last Words.” Studies in Canadian Literature 20.1 (Summer 1995): 1-15.
“The Father in the Mirror: Hall, Harrison and the Complexities of Male Inheritance.” Textual Studies in Canada 8 (1996) 109-122.
“Affirming Mystery in Eric McCormack’s The Mysterium.” Canadian Literature 154 (Autumn 1997): 94‑109.
"Getting off a Good One." Mattoid 54 (1999): 46-57.
"A Field of Potentialities: Reading Erin Mouré." Essays on Canadian Writing 67 (1999): 261- 87.
“Win Orr Lose: Searching for the Good Canadian Kid in Canadian Hockey Fiction.” Canada’s Game: Critical Perspectives on Hockey. Edited by Andrew C. Holman. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s Press., 2009. 81-97.
“Hockey Night in Bowering’s B.C.” Open Letter 14.4 (Fall 2010): 78-89.
“Boys on the Defensive: Scott Young and the Myths of Hockey.” Proceedings of the Constructing the Hockey Family Conference. http://www.smu.ca/campus-life/putting-it-on-ice-proceedings.html. 2013. 9,000 words.
"(Mis)Deeds of Gods and Heroes: Religion and the Suspension of Disbelief in the Summit Series." Coming Down the Mountain: Rethinking the 1972 Summit Series. Edited by Brian Kennedy. Hamilton: Wolsak and Wynn, 2014. 217-38.
"From Tank to Deep Water: Myth and History in Samantha Warwick's Sage Island." In Writing the Body in Motion. Athabasca: Athabasca UP, 2018. 139-152.
"Hockey, Zen and the Art of Bill Gaston's The Good Body." In Writing the Body in Motion. Athabasca: Athabasca UP, 2018. 93-106.
"Six Ways of Looking at 'Elegy for a Grandfather.'" In An Echo in the Mountains: Al Purdy after a Century. Edited by Nicholas Bradley. Kingston and Montreal: McGill-Queen's Press, 2020. 286-316.
“Hugh MacLennan and the Two Solitudes of Hockey.” Studies in Canadian Literature. 47.1 (2022): 270-84.
“Out of the Ordinary: Curling in The Black Bonspiel of Willie MacCrimmon and Men with Brooms.” In Not Hockey: Critical Essays on Canada’s Other Sport Literature. Edited by Angie Abdou and Jamie Dopp. Athabasca: Athabasca UP, 2023. 61-79.
Reviews and Shorter Articles
“Materialist Criticism.” Encyclopedia of Contemporary Literary Theory. Ed. Irena R. Makaryk. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 1993. 100-2.
“Ideologeme.” Encyclopedia of Contemporary Literary Theory. Ed. Irena R. Makaryk. Toronto: U of Toronto P. 100-2, 1993. 556-7, 587-8.
“Metalanguage.” Encyclopedia of Contemporary Literary Theory. Ed. Irena R. Makaryk. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 1993. 587-8.
Review of The Unsaid by Phil Hall. The Malahat Review 103 (Summer 1993): 119-20.
Review of Fortress of Chairs by Elizabeth Harvor. The Malahat Review 103 (Summer 1993): 120-22.
Review of More Watery Still by Patricia Young. The Malahat Review 104 (September 1993): 104-6.
“Conversations that Matter.” A review of Sounding Differences: Interviews with Seventeen Canadian Women Writers by Janice Williamson. Canadian Forum 72, no. 823 (October 1993): 40-42.
Review Article on Forests of the Medieval World by Don Coles. The Malahat Review 105 (Winter 1995): 103-8.
Review of Farley Mowat: Writing the Squib by John Orange. University of Toronto Quarterly 65.1 (Winter 1995/6): 245-7.
Review of Voices Entwined by Virgo Rising. Lower Island News 14 (December 1997): 4.
Review of Broken Ground by Jack Hodgins. Canadian Forum 873 (November 1998): 47-8.
Review Article on Discoveries of the Other by Winfried Siemerling. Textual Studies in Canada 10/11 (1998): 237-42.
“Thick and Thin.” Review of Bill Bissett, Doug Fetherling, Seymour Mayne and Paul Wilson. Journal of Canadian Poetry. 16 (Dec 2001)
“Lyrical Arguments.” Review of Thinking and Singing. Edited by Tim Lilburn. Canadian Literature. 182 (Autumn 2004): 147-8.
Review of Rue the Day by Tanis MacDonald. The Malahat Review 167 (Summer 2009): 102-4.
“The Face Before the Mask.” Review of Night Work: The Sawchuck Poems by Randall Maggs. The Fiddlehead 238 (Winter 2009): 112-14.
Review of Red Dog, Red Dog by Patrick Lane. The Malahat Review 170 (Spring 2010): 133-35.
Review of Population Me: Essays on David McGimpsey. Edited by Alessandro Porco. Arete: The Online Journal of the Sport Literature Association. ARETE@LISTSERV.UTA.EDU (December 2010): unpaginated.
“Alias Stephen Scobie.” Review of Robert Louis Stevenson: At the World’s End by Stephen Scobie. The Pacific Rim Review of Books 14 (Fall 2010): 10.
Review of Whirl Away by Russel Wangersky. The Malahat Review 180 (Fall 2012). 145-6.
Review of The Outside World by Barry Dempster. The Malahat Review 187 (Summer 2014): 99-100.
Review of Debris by Kevin Hardcastle. The Malahat Review 194 (Spring 2016): 97-98.
Review of The Gold by David Carpenter. The Malahat Review 201 (Winter 2017): 106-08.
"Rethinking Hockey." Review of Hockey: Challenging Canada's Game. Edited by Jenny Ellison and Jennifer Anderson. Canadian Literature 238 (2019): 141-2.
Review of Moon on Crusted Snow by Waubgeshig Rice. The Malahat Review. 206 (Spring 2019): 112-13.
Review of West / Border / Road: Nation and Genre in Contemporary Canadian Narrative by Katherine Ann Roberts. American Review of Canadian Studies. 49.4 (December 2019): 574-76.
Review of Collected Poems of Bronwen Wallace. Edited by Carolyn Smart. The Malahat Review 214 (Spring 2021): 105-08.
Shorter Creative Works
“Surplus Value.” Bittersweet Canada: Songs of the New Depression. Word of Mouth Music, 1992. 4:47.
Dallas Road. Nine Original Songs. A Squeegee Music Production. 2015. (Independent). 38 min.
b) Poems in Journals
“On Learning of a Professor’s Death, Aged 42,” “At the Hospital.” The Fiddlehead 146 (Winter 1985): 77.
“A Love Poem is Like a Bicycle,” “A Dream of Nakedness.” Existere (Spring 1987): 22.
“Nola,” “Wendy’s Grandfather,” “General McArthur on Trombone,” “Life Force,” “Where the Impulse Comes From,” “Sibling Rivalry.” The Fiddlehead 161 (Autumn 1987): 46-52.
“Why I am No Longer Religious,” “Lee Anne at 32.” Don’t Quit Yr Day Job 2 (April 1990): unnumbered.
“Going Stupid.” Poetry WLU 14 (Spring 1992): unnumbered.
“Howard,” “Depression Glass.” Antigonish Review 93-94 (Spring-Summer 1992): 178-80.
“To Benjamin at Five Months,” “Going Stupid,” “A Family Rumour.” Canadian Forum 72, no. 824 (November 1992): 36-7.
“Sequel,” “Hoping for a Girl.” This Magazine 27.6 (January-February 1994): 32-33.
“Surplus Value,” “Thinking About Labour History.” The New Quarterly 14.4 (Winter 1995): 45- 9.
“Mating Ritual.” Prairie Fire 16.2 (Summer 1995): 46-7.
“The Garden.” Event 28.1 (Spring 1999): 24-6.
“The Birdhouse,” “Like The Birdhouse Itself, the Poem is Only Seamless from a Distance,” “The Coming of the Birds.” The New Quarterly 19.1 (Spring 1999): 115-21.
"Thumbing It." Canadian Literature 164 (Spring 2000): 112-3.
"Why Goalies Play For Free." Aethlon: The Journal of the Sports Literature Association XXXI. (Fall 2012-Winter 2013): 44
"My Father with Jesus Hair." The Malahat Review 200 (Autumn 2017): 97-98
"Open Wing." Aethlon: The Journal of the Sports Literature Association 33.2 (2019): 99-101.
"March 22nd" and "Burying the Jacket." Event. 49.3 (Winter 2020/2021): 58-61.
"The Fifth Dimension." Voicing Suicide. Edited by Daniel G. Scott. Victoria: Ekstasis, 2020. 84-85.
"March 22nd" and "Burying the Jacket." Event. 2020
"The Fifth Dimension." Voicing Suicide. Victoria: Ekstasis, 2020.
c) Stories in Journals
“Opening Night.” Prairie Fire 23.3 (Autumn 2002): 102-7.
“Little Fish.” In One Word at a Time: Poetry and Short Stories from the 2011 gritLIT Competition. Hamilton:gritLIT, 2011. 19-28.
“The Jelly Bean Man.” Aethlon. 28.2 (Spring - Summer 2011). 19-33.
In recent years, there has been a boom in writing about hockey in Canada. Hockey on the Moon explores thirteen key texts from before and during this boom. The analysis connects to such broader topics as the role of imagination in human culture, the significance of play, the evolution of sport in Canada and elsewhere, the history of Canada, and, of course, the history and social significance of hockey. The interdisciplinary approach allows the readings to cast light beyond the usual boundaries of the literary.