Representations Of Women And Nature In Canadian Women S Writing

Thesis (M.A.) from the year 2008 in the subject American Studies - Literature, grade: 1,3, Ernst Moritz Arndt University of Greifswald (Institut f r Anglistik/Amerikanistik), 64 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: Canada has always been associated with its landscape, with a vast and inviolate nature, including prairies, forests with innumerable lakes, idyllic mountain ranges and the Arctic barrens in the far north. With an area of almost 10 million square kilometers, Canada is the second largest country in the world, but with only 31 million people living there and a population density of 3,2 inhabitants per square kilometer, it is also the less populated.1 The theme of nature and wilderness has also been reflected throughout Canadian literary tradition. As Canadian author Aritha van Herk notes, " t]he impact of landscape on artist and artist on landscape is unavoidable" (1992, 139). Adopting the northern concepts of early explorers and settlers, most literature about the Canadian wilderness has been written by male authors. For a long time, the Canadian North served as background for historical romances and adventure stories. The response to the landscape was often very negative, the wilderness was described as being hostile and dangerous. Parallel to that image, the landscape was portrayed in female terms, as being innocent, inviolate and beautiful - the Canadian North appeared as a femme fatale. Especially in its beginnings, Canadian literature was strongly influenced by its American and British predecessors and the early writers reinforced the myth of the Canadian North. In the early twentieth century, the North was mainly a place of retreat for the fictive heroes of the South who went from the city to the wilderness to find themselves. One of the most famous texts of this time is Frederick Philip Grove's autobiography In Search of Myself (1946). His journey to the North became a synonym for the search of the own self.

This volume takes up the challenge of Canadian women's writing in its diversity, in order to examine the terms on which subjectivity, in its social, political and literary dimensions, emerges as discourse. Work from writers as diverse as Dionne Brand, Hiromi Goto and Margaret Atwood, among others, are studied both in their specific dimensions and through the collective focus of cultural and textual revision which characterizes Canadian writing in the feminine. Current theorizing on the postcolonial imaginary is brought to bear in the interests of forging or unpacking those links which tie the Self to culture. As such, Redefining the Subject sets out to discover the limits of the aesthetic in its encounter with the political: the figures and designs which envisage textual reimaginings as statements of a contemporary Canadian reality.

"Marlene Goldman posits intriguing connections between the act of map-making, postmodern theory, and female identity in this study of the experimental works of five Canadian women writers: Intertidal Life by Audrey Thomas, The Biggest Modern Woman of the World by Susan Swan, Ana Historic by Daphne Marlatt, The Whirlpool by Jane Urquhart and the fictions of Aritha van Herk."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Since Silent Spring was published in 1962, the number of texts about the natural world written by women has grown exponentially. The essays in Women Writing Nature: A Feminist View argue that women writing in the 20th century are utilizing the historical connection of women and the natural world in diverse ways. For centuries women have been associated with nature but many feminists have sought to distance themselves from the natural world because of dominant cultural representations which reflect women as controlled by powerful natural forces and confined to domestic spaces. However, in the spirit of Rachel Carson, some writers have begun to invoke nature for feminist purposes or have used nature as an agent of resistance. This collection considers women's writings about the natural world in light of recent and current feminist and ecofeminist theory and finds a variety of approaches and perspectives, both by the scholars and by the authors discussed, culminating with the voices of two women, activist and scientist Joan Maloof and Irish poet Rosemarie Rowley, who both write about the natural world from a feminist perspective.

Black Canadian women must constantly incorporate changes to their identities to faces the challenges of living in a multicultural society. Naturally Woman: The Search for Self in Black Canadian Women's Literature examines the ways in which Black immigrant women must adapt to survive in a multicultural country such as Canada without losing their sense of self. The author examines the texts of five major modern/contemporary Canadian writers: Dionne Brand, Marlene NourbeSe Philip, Tessa McWatt, Claire Harris, and Makeda Silvera, through prismatic criticism and by applying and extending a number of feminist discourses concerning Black women writing identity, literary representations of female sojourn in Canada (as simultaneously aboveground and underground), feminist archetypal/myth criticism, and the discourse of mother/daughter/grandmother/substitute mother relationships. The book argues that there is a universal central myth on which the writings of these marginalized women are based and shows how some of the challenges of multiculturalism can be overcome, and how multiculturalism can become a site for creativity and innovation. Further, this groundbreaking book demonstrates how Black women writers in Canada retell the Demeter myth as ways of explaining the issues associated with change, migration, and individuation. The book claims these stories as neo-mythic narratives of African Diasporic epic journeys, and as part of the narrative of the wider Great Migration of Blacks in the Americas. This book is a significant addition to knowing what remains "naturally woman" after the social construction of citizenship.

Collection of essays focusing on issues of ethnicity, race, and gender.

In this collection of interviews, Canadian women writers discuss with Janice Williamson (English, U. of Alberta) their thoughts on writing in general and their own work in particular, on the nature of writing as a woman in Canada today, and on the links between women's writing and social change. Each interview is accompanied by a short biocritical piece, a photograph of the writer, and an example of her work. Paper edition (unseen), $17.95. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

The modern literary searchlight has flushed out Canada's long neglected nineteenth century female writers. New critical approaches are advocated and others are encouraged to take on the difficulties - and rewards - of research into the lives of our foremothers. Published in English.