Issue archives

#196 (Spring 2008)
Diasporic Women's Writing

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Editorial

Sneja Gunew

• Serial Accommodations: Diasporic Women's Writing (p. 6 - 15)

Articles

Faye Hammill

• Martha Ostenso, Literary History, and the Scandinavian Diaspora (p. 17 - 31)
• Abstract: Show/hide

  Through a case study of Martha Ostenso, this essay explores the exclusionary practices of literary history, and the ability of migrant writers to destabilise constructs of nation and region. Ostenso’s career has been presented in strikingly different ways by Canadian and American literary historians, and she is inscribed into a variety of incompatible narratives of immigrant assimilation or regional literary development. Neither American nor Canadian critics, however, pay attention to Ostenso’s use of Scandinavian material, perhaps because the Scandinavian diaspora disrupts nationalist literary histories by crossing political and cultural boundaries between America and Canada. This essay revises accepted views of Ostenso’s reputation by concentrating on her multiple ethnic, national and regional identification, and it also initiates critical recuperation of some of Ostenso’s neglected novels, The Young May Moon (1929), The White Reef (1934) and Prologue To Love (1932).

• Subjects: Anthologies

Maria Noëlle Ng

• Mapping the Diasporic Self (p. 34 - 45)
• Abstract: Show/hide

  In “Mapping the Diasporic Self” I examine the tension between the ‘what’ and the ‘how’ of writing one’s memoir; that is, between the emphasis on one’s life, one’s relationships with parents and friends, the many influences, conscious and subconscious, and the articulation of these elements. I work through the process with which I must engage in order to put words on paper. If the postmodern subject is multiple and decentred, then the diasporic subject is even more so. To form its existence and reality into text, the diasporic writer needs to contend with not only the disconnect between meaning and words, but also with the many historical and social trajectories that constitute a diasporic subjectivity. This essay forms an academic companion piece to my memoir.

Emily Johansen

• "Streets are the dwelling place of the collective": Public Space and Cosmopolitan Citizenship in Dionne Brand's What We All Long For (p. 48 - 62)
• Abstract: Show/hide

  In Dionne Brand’s novel What We All Long For, the identity of diasporic characters in the hostland (Canada) continually oscillates between belonging and non-belonging; this psychological oscillation is spatially enacted in Toronto. These material places are sites of complex social relationships which offer varying and unstable levels of permeability based on class, gender, ethnicity and a host of other axes of identification. This article considers some of the myriad ways that the process of self-definition is imagined and complicated in Dionne Brand’s What We All Long For. In this article, I argue that the characters in Brand’s novel negotiate their subjectivities in public places, creating what I will call territorialized cosmopolitan subjectivities—subjectivities with multiple affiliations across axes of gender, ethnicity, class and sexuality which are not unrooted or free-floating but are principally and firmly located in the physicality of Toronto.

• PDF available

Jennifer Bowering Delisle

• A Newfoundland Diaspora?: Moving through Ethnicity and Whiteness (p. 64 - 81)
• Abstract: Show/hide

  In this paper, I consider the claim that Newfoundland out-migration constitutes a “diaspora,” examining both the theories and connotations of diaspora and the place of Newfoundland identities within the Canadian nation-state. Using Helen Buss/ Margaret Clarke’s Memoirs from Away: A New Found Land Girlhood as a case study, I interrogate the assumptions about the concept of diaspora that make this move so controversial. Working through the complex relationship between diaspora and the slippery concepts of ethnicity and race, I ask whether Newfoundlanders’ predominant “whiteness” ultimately disqualifies them from diasporic identification.

Shani Mootoo

• On Becoming an Indian Starboy (p. 83 - 94)

Marie Lo

• Model Minorities, Models of Resistance: Native Figures in Asian Canadian Literature (p. 96 - 112)
• Abstract: Show/hide

  This article examines the representation of Native characters in Joy Kogawa’s Itsuka and SKY Lee’s Disappearing Moon Café to trace the ideological work of fictionalized Native peoples in the elaboration of an Asian Canadian racial formation. In positing the figure of the Native as a “model minority” for Asian Canadians, the article reworks the U.S. racial paradigm of Asian American assimilation in the context of Canadian racial politics. Unlike U.S. model minority’s association with accommodation, Native figures are presented as models of resistance for other racial minorities to emulate. Asian Canadian modeling of First Nations politicization highlights both the complexity of Asian Canadian cultural and national claims within a colonial history and the need to connect anti-racism with de-colonization.

Poems

Sonnet L'Abbé

• Objective (p. 16)

Yasmin Ladha

• Kiss Mommy openly (p. 32 - 33)

Hiromi Goto

• Cryptic Species (p. 46 - 47)

Rita Wong

• for bing ai (p. 63)

Proma Tagore

• underground (p. 82)

Adebe D.A.

• anon (p. 95)

Book Reviews

Birth of Quebec Lit (p. 113 - 114)

by Constance Cartmill

Book(s) reviewed:

1. La Conquête des lettres au Québec (1759-1799) by Bernard J. Andrès

Subjects: Quebec

Disasters Canadian and Indian (p. 114 - 115)

by Paulomi Chakraborty

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Can You Hear the Nightbird Call? by Anita Rau Badami

Subjects: Indian/South Asian

Unpopular Culture (p. 115 - 116)

by J. Kieran Kealy

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Unpopular Culture: Transorming the European Comic Book in the 1990s by Bart Beaty

Subjects: Cultural Studies, Graphic Novel

Writing Quebec (p. 117 - 118)

by Gordon Bölling

Book(s) reviewed:

1. The Hunting Ground by Linda Gaboriau and Lise Tremblay
2. The Years of Fire: Charles the Bold, Volume 2 by Wayne Grady and Yves Beauchemin

Subjects: Quebec

Opening the Gate (p. 118 - 120)

by Allan Weiss

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Reading Stargate SG-1 by Stan Beeler and Lisa Dickson

Subjects: Science Fiction

Bissettiad (p. 120 - 121)

by Karl Jirgens

Book(s) reviewed:

1. narrativ enigma / rumours uv hurricane by bill bissett
2. northern wild roses / deth interrupts th dansing by bill bissett
3. radiant danse uv being: a poetic portrait of bill bissett by Jeff Pew and Stephen Roxborough

Subjects: Poetry

Poésie de l'intime (p. 121 - 122)

by Jonathan Lamy

Book(s) reviewed:

1. L'espace de la musique by Alain Gagnon
2. Tout a une fin by Hélène Boissé

Subjects: Poetry

A String of Western Canadian Firsts (p. 122 - 124)

by Thomas Hodd

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Dancing Nightly in the Tavern by Mark Anthony Jarman
2. The Mole Chronicles by Andy Brown

Subjects: Twenty-First Century

Humanity's Soiled Underbelly (p. 124 - 125)

by Carolyne Van Der Meer

Book(s) reviewed:

1. The Fearsome Particles by Trevor Cole
2. What it Takes to Be Human by Marilyn Bowering

Subjects: Twenty-First Century

Bushed. Whacked, and on the Road (p. 126 - 127)

by Kit Dobson

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Orphan Love by Nadia Bozak

Subjects: Twenty-First Century

The Natural History of Language and Literature (p. 127 - 128)

by Rebecca Raglon

Book(s) reviewed:

1. The Tree of Meaning: Thirteen Talks by Robert Bringhurst
2. Wild Language by Robert Bringhurst

Subjects: Nature Writing, Poetry

First Engagements (p. 128 - 129)

by Andrew Bartlett

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Adam's Peak by Heather Burt
2. The End of the Alphabet by C.S. Richardson

Subjects: Travel Writing, Twenty-First Century

Three Books of Stories (p. 130 - 131)

by J. Russell Perkin

Book(s) reviewed:

1. A Grave in the Air by Stephen Henighan
2. A Heart in Port by Emily Givner
3. Between Trains by Barry Callaghan

Subjects: Short Fiction, Twenty-First Century

Telling Her Stories (p. 131 - 132)

by Susan Butlin

Book(s) reviewed:

1. This and That by Ann-Lee Switzer and Emily Carr

Subjects: Autobiography

Versifications du sublime (p. 132 - 134)

by Katia Grubisic

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Entre les murs de la Baltique by Dominique Zalitis
2. L'Oeil de la lumière by Pierre Raphaël Pelletier
3. La Lenteur au bout de l'aile by France Cayouette
4. Savanes, suivi de Poèmes de septembre by Joël Des Rosiers

Subjects: Francophone, Poetry

Amour et bestiaire (p. 134 - 135)

by David Dorais

Book(s) reviewed:

1. La mort de Mignonne et autres histoires by Marie Hélène Poitras
2. Petittes nouvelles by Madeleine Lemire

Subjects: Francophone

Vents et marée (p. 135 - 136)

by Kinga Zawada

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Depuis toujours, j'entendais la mer by Andrée Christensen
2. La Cité des vents by Pierre Yergeau

Subjects: Francophone, Quebec

Les Chemins du poème (p. 136 - 137)

by Thomas Mainguy

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Affûts, précédé Rue de nuit by Guy Cloutier
2. Les îles by Louise Cotnoir
3. Origine des méridiens by Paul Bélanger

Subjects: Francophone, Poetry

Civility at the Gates (p. 137 - 140)

by Cynthia Sugars

Book(s) reviewed:

1. White Civility: The Literary Project of English Canada by Daniel Coleman

Subjects: Cultural Studies

The Poetics of Response and Response-ability in Phyllis Webb (p. 140 - 141)

by Amanda Lim

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Phyllis Webb and the Common Good: Poetry/Anarchy/Abstraction by Stephen Collis

Subjects: Poetry

Inside the Darkness (p. 141 - 142)

by Joan Crate

Book(s) reviewed:

1. The Blue Hour of the Day by Lorna Crozier

Subjects: Poetry

Chimères et lucidité (p. 142 - 143)

by Nathalie Warren

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Cinéma gris by Jean-Paul Daoust
2. Cobra et colibri by Jean-Paul Daoust

Subjects: Francophone, Poetry

Une éthique de la poésie (p. 143 - 144)

by Nelson Charest

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Alma by Claude Beausoleil
2. Âme, foi et poésie by Jean Désy
3. L'atelier de L'Âge de la parole by Catherine Morency

Subjects: Poetry

Children Alone (p. 144 - 145)

by Lynn (J.R.) Wytenbroek

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Pure Spring by Brian Doyle
2. The Royal Woods by Matt Duggan

Subjects: Children's Literature

Seeing and Being (p. 145 - 146)

by Christa Zeller Thomas

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Through Lover's Lane: L.M. Montgomery'€™s Photography and Visual Imagination by Elizabeth Rollins Epperly

Subjects: Photography

Remembering WWI (p. 147 - 148)

by Sherrill Grace

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Mothers of Heroes, Mothers of Martyrs: World War I and the Politics of Grief by Suzanne Evans
2. Vimy Ridge: A Canadian Reassessment by Geoffrey Hayes, Andrew Iarocci, and Mike Bechthold

Subjects: World War I

Three Canadian Poets (p. 148 - 150)

by Kristen Guest

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Let Me Go! by Nora Alleyn and Anne Claire Poirier
2. Take Us Quietly by Tammy Armstrong
3. Visible Living: Poems Selected and New by Seymour Mayne, Russell Thornton, Janice Fiamengo, and Marya Fiamengo

Subjects: Poetry

La langue française (au Canada) (p. 150 - 152)

by Cécile B. Vigouroux

Book(s) reviewed:

1. 1902-2002 La Société du parler français au Canada cent ans après sa fondation: mise en valeur d'un patrimoine culturel by Claude Verreault, Louis Mercier, and Thomas Lavoie
2. French as the Common Language in Québec: History, Debates and Positions by Ian Lockerbie, Ines Molinaro, Karim Larose, and Leigh Oakes
3. La langue française au Manitoba (Canada): Histoire et évolution lexicométrique by Liliane Rodriguez
4. Les anglicismes de la vie quotidienne des Québecois by Jean Forest

Subjects: Francophone, Quebec

Passion/Signification (p. 152)

by Jane Everett

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Gabrielle Roy, autobiographe: subjectivité, passions et discours by Cécilia W. Francis

Subjects: Autobiography, Francophone

Troubling the Academy (p. 153 - 154)

by Jeanette Lynes

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Writing the Everyday: Women's Textual Communities in Atlantic Canada by Danielle Fuller

Subjects: Regionalism, Women's Literature

Bidding Goodbye to an Ideal (p. 154 - 155)

by Adele Holoch

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Adieu, Betty Crocker by Sheila Fischman and Francois Gravel

Subjects: Twenty-First Century

Those Burned Out Stars (p. 155 - 156)

by Nicholas Bradley

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Not Needing All the Words: Michael Ondaatje's Literature of Silence by Annick Hillger

Subjects: Literary Criticism

Place-ing Class and Gender (p. 157 - 158)

by Anne Kaufman

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Gatekeepers: Reshaping Immigrant Lives in Cold War Canada by Franca Iacovetta
2. Home/Bodies: Geographies of Self, Place and Space by Wendy Schissel

Subjects: Cultural Geography, Gender, Landscape/Space

La Polysémie de l'altérité (p. 158 - 160)

by Jorge Calderón

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Altérité et insularité: relations croisées dans les cultures francophones by Alessandra Ferraro
2. L'Autre en mémoire by Dominique Laporte
3. Practiques d l'ici, altérité et identité dans six romans québécois des années 1989-2002 by Svante Lindberg

Subjects: Francophone, Memory & Identity, Novel, Quebec

Lire sous les angles (p. 160 - 161)

by Luc Bonenfant

Book(s) reviewed:

1. La descente du singe by David Leblanc

Subjects: Francophone

Cadence, Country, Voice (p. 161 - 162)

by Nicholas Bradley

Book(s) reviewed:

1. The Cadence of Civil Elegies by Robert Lecker

Subjects: Culture, Poetry

In Pursuit of Potential (p. 162 - 163)

by Tricia Hopton

Book(s) reviewed:

1. At the Zenith of the Empire by Stewart Lemoine
2. Lifedream by Jo-Anne Elder and Herménégild Chiasson
3. Omniscience by Tim Carlson

Subjects: Drama, Theatre History

Histories of Violence (p. 164 - 166)

by Wendy Roy

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Drina Bridge by Jim Bartley
2. Empress of Asia by Adam Lewis Schroeder

Subjects: Historical Fiction, World War II

Recours contre le désenchantement (p. 167)

by Isabelle Miron

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Le Moindre vent by Luc Perrier
2. Rue Daubenton by Paul Chanel Malenfant
3. Vivre ainsi, suivi de Le Vent sombre by Paul Chanel Malenfant

Subjects: Francophone

Resisting Globalization (p. 168 - 169)

by Niigonwedom J. Sinclair

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Manawa: Pacific Heartbeat: A Celebration of Contemporary Maori & Northwest Coast Art by Gary Wyatt and Nigel Reading

Subjects: Art, First Nations

Empowering the Heroine (p. 170 - 171)

by Kristen Guest

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Orphan Ahwak by Raquel Rivera
2. Prisoners Under Glass by R. Patrick
3. The Burning Time by Carol Matas

Subjects: Children's Literature

A Complicated Welcome (p. 171 - 172)

by Markus Poetzsch

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Romantic Hospitality and the Resistance to Accommodation by Peter Melville

Subjects: Landscape/Space, Literary Theory

The Lady and The Vamp (p. 172 - 174)

by Marilyn Iwama

Book(s) reviewed:

1. A Woman with Demons: The Life of Kamiya Mieko by Yuzo Ota
2. One Chrysanthemum by Joan Itoh Burk

Subjects: Biography

Bullshit Nations (p. 174 - 175)

by Sarah Banting

Book(s) reviewed:

1. In the Eyes of God by Raul Sanchez Inglis
2. What Lies Before Us by Morris Panych

Subjects: Drama, Nationalism

Literatures, Nations, Regions (p. 175 - 177)

by Rita De Grandis

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Définitions mayas by Mercedes Roffé and Nelly Roffé
2. Utopies américaines au Québec et au Brésil by Lisa Soares de Souza
3. Vol de cendres by Jaume Pont and François Michel-Durazzo

Subjects: Latin-American, Poetry, Quebec, Speculative Fiction

Serious and Frivolous (p. 177 - 179)

by Bert Almon

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Anatomy of Keys by Steven Price
2. Dominican Moon by Ken Norris
3. Writing the Tides: New and Selected Poems by Kevin Roberts

Subjects: Biography, Poetry

Egodocuments (p. 179 - 181)

by Gillian Whitlock

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Auto/biography in Canada: Critical Directions by Julie Rak
2. Tracing the Autobiographical by Jeanne Perreault, Linda Warley, and Marlene Kadar

Subjects: Autobiography, Biography, Life Writing

Un Autre Montréal (p. 181 - 182)

by Jean-Sébastien Ménard

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Nostalgie et tristesse: mémoires littéraires du Montréal Yiddish by Sholem Shtern
2. Parcours migrants au Québec: l'italianité de Marco Micone à Philippe Poloni by Alessandra Ferraro and Anne Pia De Luca

Subjects: Autobiography, Italo-Canadian , Jewish-Canadian , Quebec

De l'art et de la vie (p. 182 - 183)

by Sandra Hobbs

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Le Cavalier bleu by Carmen Strano
2. Le Fou de Bosch by Sergio Kokis

Subjects: Francophone, War

More Than Passing Thoughts (p. 183 - 185)

by Penny Van Toorn

Book(s) reviewed:

Subjects: Cultural Studies, Native Studies

Urban Structures (p. 185 - 187)

by Brandon McFarlane

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Story House by Timothy Taylor

Subjects: Urban Novel

Emily Carr: A Reappraisal (p. 187 - 189)

by Linda M. Morra

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Emily Carr: New Perspectives on a Canadian Icon by Ian M. Thom, Charles C. Hill, and Johanne Lamoureux

Subjects: Art, Biography

Egoyan As Auteur (p. 189 - 190)

by Mark Harris

Book(s) reviewed:

1. Image and Territory: Essays on Atom Egoyan by Monique Tschofen and Jennifer Burwell

Subjects: Essays, Film

Quête spirituelle ou guide touristique? (p. 190 - 191)

by Lucie Lequin

Book(s) reviewed:

1. India, India by Yolande Villemaire

Subjects: Quebec

Opinions & Notes

David Biespiel

• Long Journey: Contemporary Northwest Poets (p. 191 - 192)
• Subjects: Poetry

Adam Dickinson

• Kingdom, Phylum (p. 192)
• Subjects: Poetry

Derek Hayes

• Historical Atlas of Vancouver and the Lower Fraser Valley (p. 192 - 193)
• Subjects: Ecocriticism, Nature Writing

Barry Lopez

• Home Ground: Language for an American Landscape (p. 193)
• Subjects: Culture, Landscape/Space, Language/Linguistics

Terri Tomsky

• Theorizing the Disparities of Diaspora (p. 194 - 198)
• Subjects: Diaspora

Kim Snowden

• Gendered Multiplicities: Women Write Diaspora (p. 198 - 201)
• Subjects: Diaspora, Women's Studies