Description
Book SynopsisLong a topic of intricate political and social debate, Canadianidentity has come to be understood as fragmented, amorphous, andunstable, a multifaceted and contested space only tenuously linked totraditional concepts of the nation. As Canadians, we are endlesslydefining ourselves, seeking to locate our sense of self in relation tosome Other. By examining how writers and performers have conceptualizedand negotiated issues of personal identity in their work, the essayscollected in Selves and Subjectivities investigate emergingrepresentations of self and other in contemporary Canadian arts andculture. Included are essays on iconic poet and musician Leonard Cohen,Governor General award–winning playwright Colleen Wagner,feminist poet and novelist Daphne Marlatt, film director DavidCronenberg, poet and writer Hédi Bouraoui, author and media scholarMarusya Bociurkiw, puppeteer Ronnie Burkett, and the Aboriginal rapgroup War Party.
As critic Diana Brydon has argued, contemporary Canadian writers are“not transcending nation but resituating it.” Drawingtogether themes of gender and sexuality, trauma and displacement,performativity, and linguistic diversity, Selves andSubjectivities offers an exciting new contribution to themultivocal dialogue surrounding the Canadian sense of identity.
Table of ContentsIntroduction 1 / Manijeh Mannani and VeronicaThompson
A Semiotic Reading of Hédi Bouraoui’s The Woman Betweenthe Lines 13 / Elizabeth Dahab
Mourning Lost “Others” in Ronnie Burkett’sHappy 39 / Janne Cleveland
Putting an End to Recycled Violence in Colleen Wagner’sThe Monument 69 / Gilbert McInnis
Representations of the Self and the Other in Canadian InterculturalTheatre 95 / Anne Nothof
Pulling Her Self Together: Daphne Marlatt’s AnaHistoric 115 / Veronica Thompson
“New, Angular Possibilities”: Redefining EthnicityThrough Transcultural Exchanges in Marusya Bociurkiw’s TheChildren of Mary 151 / Dana Patrascu-Kingsley
The Elegiac Loss of the English- Canadian Self and the End of theRomantic Identification with the Aboriginal Other in LeonardCohen’s Beautiful Losers 175 / Jesse RaeArchibald-Barber
Playing the Role of the Tribe: The Aesthetics of Appropriation inCanadian Aboriginal Hip Hop 207 / Thor Polukoshko
Toward a Theory of the Dubject: Doubling and Spacing the Self inCanadian Media Culture 235 / Mark A. McCutcheon
List of Contributors 265
