Haunting Inquiry

The NFB's mandate is "e;[t]o make and distribute films designed to help Canadians in all parts of Canada to understand the ways of living and the problems of Canadians in other parts."e; NFB Founding Commissioner John Grierson"e;It's only by our lack of ghosts we're haunted. "e;Canadian poet Earle BirneyHaunting Inquiry: Classic NFB Documentary, Jacques Derrida, and the Curricular Otherwise reintroduces significant, if sometimes forgotten, National Film Board of Canada documentaries into contemporary curriculum conversation. Author Robert Christopher Nellis employs an inflection of Derridean deconstruction to mobilize historical, political, and intellectual themes emerging from the films as elliptical, curricular opportunities. The work explores hauntings in and around the documentaries to open toward Others neither fully present nor absent within the Canadian imagination. They remain troublingly illicit, as is the character of haunting...This book's contribution to the literature of curriculum is a unique and innovative conceptual framework, reintroduction of many classic NFB documentaries, and the use of a productive language and outlook to mobilize fresh perspectives and hopeful possibilities.