Login
Create Account
Canadian Store (CAD)
You are currently shopping in our Canadian store. For orders outside of Canada, please switch to our international store. International and US orders are billed in US dollars.
 |
DisPossessionHaunting in Canadian Fiction |
eBook Available
An exploration into the darker aspects of contemporary Canadian fiction.
Much of Canada's contemporary fiction displays an eerie fascination with the supernatural. In DisPossession, Marlene Goldman investigates the links between spectral motifs and the social and historical influences that have shaped Canada.
Incorporating both psychoanalytic and non-traditional methods of literary analysis, Goldman explores the ways in which spectral fictions are an expression of definitive Canadian experiences such as the clashes between invading settler and indigenous populations, the losses incurred by immigration and diaspora, and the alienation of the female body. In so doing, Goldman unearths some of the "ghosts" of Canadian society itself - old tensions and injustices that continue to haunt ethnic and gender relations.
An important contribution to the discussion of the challenges posed by the Gothic to dominant literary, political, and social narratives, DisPossession asserts that Canadian spectral fictions have the power to alter accepted versions of Canadian history by invoking and troubling the process of generating collective memories.
Incorporating both psychoanalytic and non-traditional methods of literary analysis, Goldman explores the ways in which spectral fictions are an expression of definitive Canadian experiences such as the clashes between invading settler and indigenous populations, the losses incurred by immigration and diaspora, and the alienation of the female body. In so doing, Goldman unearths some of the "ghosts" of Canadian society itself - old tensions and injustices that continue to haunt ethnic and gender relations.
An important contribution to the discussion of the challenges posed by the Gothic to dominant literary, political, and social narratives, DisPossession asserts that Canadian spectral fictions have the power to alter accepted versions of Canadian history by invoking and troubling the process of generating collective memories.
Details
384 Pages, 6 x 9
ISBN 9780773539501
February 2012
Formats: Cloth, eBook
"[Marlene Goldman] thoughtfully positions her argument in terms of recent scholarship and clearly sets out key elements of Gothic literature (as she does for magic realism elsewhere). For these reasons, this is a text that will be useful to both the diligent undergraduate new to the field of postcolonialism and to the seasoned scholar who has sought out Goldman's articles over the years." Jennifer Williams, Chimo
Marlene Goldman is a professor of English, University of Toronto, and the author of Rewriting Apocalypse in Canadian Fiction.
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction: DisPossession and Haunting in Canadian Fiction 3
Part one The Haunted Nation: Explorer and Settler-Invader Amnesia and the Spectral Native
1 Coyote’s Children and the Canadian Gothic: Sheila Watson’s
The Double Hook and Gail Anderson-Dargatz’s The Cure for Death by Lightning 39
2 Dispossession and the Rule of Primogeniture in John Steffler’s
The Afterlife of George Cartwright 63
Part two Transnational Haunting: The Ghosts of the Diaspora
3 Jane Urquhart’s Away: Magic Realism and the Ghosts of Celticism 103
4 ‘Cloth Flowers That Bleed’: Haunting, Hysteria, and Diaspora
in Margaret Atwood’s Alias Grace 149
5 ‘The spirits call she and make their display in she’:
The Trope of Possession in the Work of Dionne Brand 186
Part three Ghosts and the Cycle of Reparation and Repair
6 Ghost Play: The Use of Transitional Phenomena in Thomas King’s Truth and Bright Water 243
Conclusion: Toward an Ethics of Haunting 298
Notes 321
Bibliography 345
Index 365
Introduction: DisPossession and Haunting in Canadian Fiction 3
Part one The Haunted Nation: Explorer and Settler-Invader Amnesia and the Spectral Native
1 Coyote’s Children and the Canadian Gothic: Sheila Watson’s
The Double Hook and Gail Anderson-Dargatz’s The Cure for Death by Lightning 39
2 Dispossession and the Rule of Primogeniture in John Steffler’s
The Afterlife of George Cartwright 63
Part two Transnational Haunting: The Ghosts of the Diaspora
3 Jane Urquhart’s Away: Magic Realism and the Ghosts of Celticism 103
4 ‘Cloth Flowers That Bleed’: Haunting, Hysteria, and Diaspora
in Margaret Atwood’s Alias Grace 149
5 ‘The spirits call she and make their display in she’:
The Trope of Possession in the Work of Dionne Brand 186
Part three Ghosts and the Cycle of Reparation and Repair
6 Ghost Play: The Use of Transitional Phenomena in Thomas King’s Truth and Bright Water 243
Conclusion: Toward an Ethics of Haunting 298
Notes 321
Bibliography 345
Index 365
Selected entry
AAUP Book, Jacket, and Journal Show
(2013)
AAUP Book, Jacket, and Journal Show
(2013)
