Articles

Interrogating Multiculturalism: Double Diaspora, Nation, and Re-Narration in Rohinton Mistry’s Canadian Tales
Abstract: Rohinton Mistry was born in Bombay in 1952 and migrated to Canada in 1975. As a “writer from elsewhere” (Salman ...
Intersections of Disaspora and Indigeneity: The Standoff at the Kahnesatake in Lee Maracle’s Sundogs and Tessa McWatt’s Out of My Skin

Abstract:

Salish-Métis writer Lee Maracle’s Sundogs (1992) and Guyanese Canadian writer Tessa McWatt’s Out of My Skin (1998) are among a small number of narratives that take place during the standoff at Kahnesatake. In this article I read these two texts through a diasporic lens to demonstrate how they explore intersecting histories of Indigenous and Black diasporic marginalization, trauma, and (de)colonization, emphasizing the importance of cross-cultural alliances in nation building. Both novels are set in urban contexts, highlight the importance of language and voice in the process of (de)colonization, de-centre the white reader, and focus on the emotional and spiritual growth of their young female protagonists. They also ask to be read allegorically in that the dynamics of personal relationships signify the larger forces of nation building as in both texts the armed standoff initiates the protagonists’ political awakening and changes their notion of Canada. I bring the two texts in conversation with each other to demonstrate how indigeneity and diaspora intersect, and how the tensions between the two concepts have the potential to transform notions of national identity, sovereignty, citizenship and belonging. My discussion of Sundogs as a diasporic text is indebted to Jean-Paul Restoule’s observation that many Aboriginal people in urban areas have resisted assimilation “in the process creating diasporic identities” (21). In Out of My Skin, the white settler-native dichotomy, on which the discussion of decolonization in Canada and in other settler societies is usually based, is portrayed as being unhinged by the racialized diasporic subject. Both texts subvert the status quo. In Sundogs white society loses its centrality while Aboriginal identity affirms itself by reclaiming Vancouver. Out of My Skin disrupts the notion of the “two solitudes” by acknowledging the role of Aboriginal peoples as well as that of racialized diasporic communities in nation building.

Interview with Timothy Findley

Abstract: AS: Readers will be interested in the fact that you began your career as an actor. When was that? TF: ...

Introduction

Abstract: I knew I wanted to teach Green Grass, Running Water but didn’t think first-year students could really handle it, so ...

Introduction: Indigenizing the Author Meets Critics Forum

Abstract: Introduction to "Thinking Together: A Forum on Jo-Ann Episkenew’s Taking Back Our Spirits: Indigenous Literature, Public Policy, and Healing."

The original live forum on Jo-Ann Episkenew’s Taking Back Our Spirits: Indigenous Literature, Public Policy, and Healing brought together the author of only the second monograph by an Indigenous literary critic in Canada with three critics, who discussed her recently published work in front of members of the Canadian Association of Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies (CACLALS) and the Association of Bibliotherapy and Applied Literatures (IABAL). Following the live event, the panelists submitted written versions of their contributions to the convenors of the forum, allowing all centrally involved to reflect further on the thoughts of the other panelists and of those in the audience who offered further ideas.

Introduction: Reading the Discourse of Early Canada

Abstract: IN THE ESSAY WHICH stands first in this issue of Canadian Literature, Christine Welsh writes of a legacy received on ...

Inuvialuit Critical Autobiography and the Carceral Writing of Anthony Thrasher

Abstract: Prevented by geographical distance and carceral containment from enacting a traditional role as provider for his community, Inuvialuit author Anthony Apakark Thrasher invokes tales of “the legendary… Eskimo past” (323) in his prison writings as a way of making meaning out of imposed immobility. Cultural precedence for such translation of restricted movement into communal purpose can be found in Inuk elder Ivaluardjuk’s “Cold and Mosquitoes,” which depicts the speaker’s metamorphosis through age from hunter of game to hunter of words who contributes to the cultural rather than material survival of his people. While celebrating Thrasher’s creative resistance to state-imposed restrictions, this article worries about the possible danger of overemphasizing prison writing’s emancipatory potential. We consider how Thrasher’s imaginative identification with a mythic Inuvialuk hunter who bears witness to the colonial containment of his people offers a means of accounting for authorial agency without allowing that agency to become unmoored from unjust power relations that restrict both prison inmates and the Inuvialuit community.

Invisibility, Transnationalism, and Filipino Canadian Comics

Abstract: This article discusses the rich but neglected body of Filipino Canadian comics. After discussing some of the historical conditions that have given rise to this neglect, the article explores four Filipino Canadian graphic novels: Emmanuelle Chateauneuf’s Queen Street (2017); Lorina Mapa’s Imelda Marcos, Duran, and Me (2017); Allan Matudio’s Kasama (2021); and J. Torres and Elbert Or’s Lola: A Ghost Story (2020). These very different texts engage, to varying degrees, shared themes and tropes. Many of them discuss diasporic experience through a transnational turn to the Philippines through the trope of return travel. Some use Filipino folklore to structure discussions of diaspora and authenticity. The article concludes by discussing forms of Filipino Canadian comics other than the graphic novel and suggesting future research possibilities.

Irish & Biblical Myth in Jack Hodgins’ “The Invention of the World”

Abstract: O? FIRST READING Jack Hodgins’ The Invention of the World one is not sure whether Hodgins is saying that myth ...

Ironized Man: A Jest of God and Life Before Man

Abstract: I: Essay I have always had more sympathy for Nick Kazlik, in Margaret Laurence’s A Jest of God, and Nate ...

1 2 3 4 5