The Association for Canadian and Quebec Literatures (ACQL) is pleased to announce the winner for the 2020 Gabrielle Roy Prize (English section), which each year honours the best work of Canadian literary criticism published in English. This year’s winner is Linda Morra’s edited collection Moving Archives (Wilfrid Laurier University Press). The winner was chosen by a jury composed of Neta Gordon (Brock University), Rob Zacharias (York University), and Veronica Austen (St. Jerome’s University).
Linda Morra’s edited collection Moving Archives brings together a wonderful array of chapters that establish the vital role of affect in archival studies. Playing with the multiple meanings of “moving” – to shift, to travel, and to be moved by – this collection both showcases changes in the field of archival studies and demonstrates that research is a subjective process that requires negotiation between subjects and awareness of the affective economies that shape scholarship. The individual contributions to this collection are noteworthy for their depth and ability to expand our knowledge of Canadian literary and textual studies, and the collection as a whole achieves excellence for the breadth of its focus and ability to unify this focus. In centering itself on the labour of scholarship, Moving Archives reaches across and will impact a wide range of Canadian literary and textual studies.