Transnational Canadas : Anglo-Canadian Literature and Globalization

Description

Transnational Canadas marks the first sustained inquiry into the relationship between globalization and Canadian literature written in English. Tracking developments in the literature and its study from the centennial period to the present, it shows how current work in transnational studies can provide new insights for researchers and students. Arguing first that the dichotomy of Canadian nationalism and globalization is no longer valid in today's economic climate, Transnational Canadas explores the legacy of leftist nationalism in Canadian literature. It examines the interventions of multicultural writing in the 1980s and 1990s, investigating the cultural politics of the period and how they increasingly became part of Canada's state structure. Under globalization, the book concludes, we need to understand new forms of subjectivity and mobility as sites for cultural politics and look beyond received notions of belonging and being. An original contribution to the study of Canadian literature, Transnational Canadas seeks to invigorate discussion by challenging students and researchers to understand the national and the global simultaneously, to look at the politics of identity beyond the rubric of multiculturalism, and to rethink the slippery notion of the political for the contemporary era. CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS INTRODUCTION: Globalization and Canadian Literature PART ONE: RECONSTRUCTING THE POLITICS OF CANADIAN NATIONALISM INTRODUCTION TO PART ONE CHAPTER ONE: Spectres of Derrida and Theory’s Legacy CHAPTER TWO: Ambiguous Resistance in Margaret Atwood’s Surfacing CHAPTER THREE: Nationalism and the Void in Dennis Lee’s Civil Elegies CHAPTER FOUR: Leonard Cohen’s Beautiful Losers and the Crisis of Canadian Modernity CONCLUSION TO PART ONE PART TWO: INDIGENEITY AND THE RISE OF CANADIAN MULTICULTURALISM INTRODUCTION TO PART TWO CHAPTER FIVE: Critique of Spivakian Reason and Canadian Postcolonialisms CHAPTER SIX: Multiculturalism and Reconciliation in Joy Kogawa’s Obasan CHAPTER SEVEN: Multicultural Postmodernities in Michael Ondaatje’s In the Skin of a Lion CHAPTER EIGHT: Dismissing Canada in Jeannette Armstrong’s Slash CONCLUSION TO PART TWO PART THREE: CANADA IN THE WORLD INTRODUCTION TO PART THREE CHAPTER NINE: Transnational Multitudes CHAPTER TEN: Mainstreaming Multiculturalism? The Giller Prize CHAPTER ELEVEN: Global Subjectivities in Roy Miki’s Surrender CHAPTER TWELVE: Writing Past Belonging in Dionne Brand’s What We All Long For CONCLUSION TO PART THREE CONCLUSION: Transnational Canadas BIBLIOGRAPHY INDEX A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U W Z