Le Canada français d’Émile Miller : Terres et peuples du Canada et l’inscription intellectuelle d’un géographe au début du xxe siècle
Pelletier, R. (2021). Le Canada français d’Émile Miller : Terres et peuples du Canada et l’inscription intellectuelle d’un géographe au début du xx siècle. Mens: Revue d'histoire intellectuelle et culturelle, 22(1-2), 97-134.
This paper aims to revisit the intellectual inscription of Émile Miller, this Canadian geographer “from before geography”. A pioneer in the dissemination and establishment of the discipline in French Canada, Miller was, first and foremost, a man of his time. In his first writings – in this case Terres et peuples du Canada (Beauchemin, 1912) –, Miller offers an account of the geographical, historical, and social “essence” of French Canada. Our purpose is then to illustrate the main features that structure Miller’s representation of French Canada, of the diversity of historical and geographical trajectories that relate to it and, finally, of the constitutional problems, more specifically those specific to the “present state” of the Canadian Confederation. In so doing, we see how Miller’s thought is embedded in the French-Canadian nationalist movement of the beginning of the century, which saw in the thesis of the two founding peoples the ferment of a Canadian unity that would stand in the midst of American continentalism and British imperialism.
This content has been updated on 1 May 2023 at 15 h 48 min.