[acc-cca-l] Carleton mourns the passing of Michael Dorland

[Joshua Greenberg]

[△EXTERNAL]


To the CCA community,

It is with great sadness that I write to inform you that our colleague, Michael Dorland, passed away at home over the weekend after a lengthy illness. He is survived by his partner, Percy Walton, and son, Chris Dorland.

Michael was Professor Emeritus in the School of Journalism and Communication at Carleton University. He grew up in Montreal and studied in London and Paris. Prior to his arrival to Carleton in 1992, he taught at McGill University, UQAM and Concordia University. Before his academic career, Michael was a journalist, editor, film critic and novelist.

Michael was a brilliant scholar. Over the course of his 27-year career, he became known for his outstanding research on Canadian film policy, law and rhetoric, the psy-sciences and expertise, and self-help culture, among other things. His interest in the concept of communication informed his work on how the medical community attempted to describe the effects of concentration camps on Holocaust survivors.

Michael’s magnum opus, Cadaverland: Inventing a Pathology for Holocaust Survival—The Limits of Medical Knowledge and Historical Memory (Brandeis University Press, 2009), offers a compelling examination of how French doctors analyzed the impact of the concentration camps on survivors. The book, which took Michael ten years to write, makes important historical, sociological, political and psychological arguments informing the study of the Holocaust. Michael’s previous book, Law, Rhetoric and Irony in the Formation of Canadian Civic Culture (University of Toronto Press, 2002), co-authored with Maurice Charland, was awarded the G.J. Robinson Prize for best book in communication studies.

Michael was the editor of the Canadian Journal of Communication (CJC) from 2011 until his retirement in 2018. His editorials at CJC often displayed the wit, intelligence, and love of ideas that permeated his research and teaching. He was also a gifted professor and mentor. Michael taught undergraduate and graduate courses in semiotics, rhetoric, communication theory, and communication history. For many years, he co-led our program’s core doctoral seminar in communication. Michael was beloved by undergraduate and graduate students alike.

Michael was erudite, had a great sense of humour, enjoyed a good debate about ideas (preferably over a few bottles of wine) and was gifted in the art of storytelling. His legacy as a scholar and teacher carries on in the work of his former graduate students, many whom have gone on to successful scholarly careers in their own right. He will be missed by those who knew and loved him.


Josh Greenberg, PhD
Director, School of Journalism & Communication
Professor, Communication and Media Studies
Carleton University
Ph: 613 520-2600, ext. 1965

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