In-Between – Liminal Spaces in Canadian Literature and Cultures
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Edited By Stefan L. Brandt
In the past few years, the concept of «liminality» has become a kind of pet theme within the discipline of Cultural Studies, lending itself to phenomena of transgression and systemic demarcation. This anthology employs theories of liminality to discuss Canada’s geographic and symbolic boundaries, taking its point of departure from the observation that «Canada» itself, as a cultural, political, and geographic entity, encapsulates elements of the «liminal.» The essays comprised in this volume deal with fragmented and contradictory practices in Canada, real and imagined borders, as well as contact zones, thresholds, and transitions in Anglo-Canadian and French-Canadian texts, discussing topics such as the U.S./Canadian border, migration, French-English relations, and encounters between First Nations and settlers.
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- 978-3-631-73575-6
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- Frankfurt am Main, Bern, Bruxelles, New York, Oxford, Warszawa, Wien, 2017. 260 pp., 3 ill.
- Cover
- Title
- Copyright
- About the author
- About the book
- This eBook can be cited
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction: The Canadian Cultural Imaginary and Its Liminal Aesthetics (Stefan L. Brandt)
- I. Liminal Landscapes
- Tripping on the Threshold; Groping in the Dark (Aritha van Herk)
- II. Canadian ‘Thirdspace’ – Nation, Language, and Immigration
- Inhabiting Trishanku in Canada: Threshold Experience in the Oeuvre of M.G. Vassanji (Shilpa Daithota Bhat)
- ‘Exclaveness’ and Liminality: Materialities and Rhetorics of Place at the Canadian Border (Peter Goggin)
- Subversion and Self-Definition in Montréal Novels by Dany Laferrière and Rawi Hage (Derek C. Maus)
- III. Ambiguous Fictions – Liminality in the Canadian Novel
- “… beyond the invisible barrier at Portage and Main”: Liminality in John Marlyn’s Under the Ribs of Death (Bernhard Wenzl)
- “not quite human, not quite wolf, but something in between”: Liminal Spaces in Eden Robinson’s Monkey Beach (Patrizia Zanella)
- IV. Hyphenated Canada? Indigenous Voices and Hybrid Identities
- Painting (the) In-Between: Twentieth-Century Indigenous Border Art at Glacier/Waterton National Parks (Alexandra Ganser)
- Narrative Dynamics of Liminality in Naomi Fontaine’s Kuessipan (2011) (Jeanette den Toonder)
- Documenting Oral History and Lessons in Truth Telling in Nadia McLaren’s Muffins for Granny and Tim Wolochatiuk’s We Were Children (Sabrina Völz)
- V. Blurry Visions – Canadian Arts and Liminality
- Abstraction and Mysticism in Bertram Brooker’s Paintings and Novels (Katalin Kürtösi)
- Diane Schoemperlen’s By the Book: Stories and Pictures – Fragments in Contrapuntal Unity (Nikola Tutek)
- VI. Final Thresholds – Loss, Memory, and Dying
- The Melancholy of Urban Childhood: Liminality in Madeleine Thien’s Simple Recipes (Martina Horakova)
- The Politics of Memory and Longing in Kim Thúy’s Ru (Andreea Catrinela Lazăr)
- The Intriguing Liminality of Dying in Keefer’s “Going Over the Bars” (Vesna Lopičić)
- VII. Poetical Observations – Canada as Art
- The Trading Post: Betwixt Wilderness and Civilization (Claire E. Smerdon)
- Poems (George Elliott Clarke)
- Contributors
- Series Index
- Cover
- Title
- Copyright
- About the author
- About the book
- This eBook can be cited
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction: The Canadian Cultural Imaginary and Its Liminal Aesthetics (Stefan L. Brandt)
- I. Liminal Landscapes
- Tripping on the Threshold; Groping in the Dark (Aritha van Herk)
- II. Canadian ‘Thirdspace’ – Nation, Language, and Immigration
- Inhabiting Trishanku in Canada: Threshold Experience in the Oeuvre of M.G. Vassanji (Shilpa Daithota Bhat)
- ‘Exclaveness’ and Liminality: Materialities and Rhetorics of Place at the Canadian Border (Peter Goggin)
- Subversion and Self-Definition in Montréal Novels by Dany Laferrière and Rawi Hage (Derek C. Maus)
- III. Ambiguous Fictions – Liminality in the Canadian Novel
- “… beyond the invisible barrier at Portage and Main”: Liminality in John Marlyn’s Under the Ribs of Death (Bernhard Wenzl)
- “not quite human, not quite wolf, but something in between”: Liminal Spaces in Eden Robinson’s Monkey Beach (Patrizia Zanella)
- IV. Hyphenated Canada? Indigenous Voices and Hybrid Identities
- Painting (the) In-Between: Twentieth-Century Indigenous Border Art at Glacier/Waterton National Parks (Alexandra Ganser)
- Narrative Dynamics of Liminality in Naomi Fontaine’s Kuessipan (2011) (Jeanette den Toonder)
- Documenting Oral History and Lessons in Truth Telling in Nadia McLaren’s Muffins for Granny and Tim Wolochatiuk’s We Were Children (Sabrina Völz)
- V. Blurry Visions – Canadian Arts and Liminality
- Abstraction and Mysticism in Bertram Brooker’s Paintings and Novels (Katalin Kürtösi)
- Diane Schoemperlen’s By the Book: Stories and Pictures – Fragments in Contrapuntal Unity (Nikola Tutek)
- VI. Final Thresholds – Loss, Memory, and Dying
- The Melancholy of Urban Childhood: Liminality in Madeleine Thien’s Simple Recipes (Martina Horakova)
- The Politics of Memory and Longing in Kim Thúy’s Ru (Andreea Catrinela Lazăr)
- The Intriguing Liminality of Dying in Keefer’s “Going Over the Bars” (Vesna Lopičić)
- VII. Poetical Observations – Canada as Art
- The Trading Post: Betwixt Wilderness and Civilization (Claire E. Smerdon)
- Poems (George Elliott Clarke)
- Contributors
- Series Index
The Politics of Memory and Longing in Kim Thúy’s Ru (Andreea Catrinela Lazăr)
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Extract
← 198 | 199 →
Andreea Catrinela Lazăr
The Politics of Memory and Longing in Kim Thúy’s Ru
Abstract: My paper aims at highlighting how important literary production is when it comes to the cultural politics of memory and belonging in the context of Canada’s transnational imagination. Considering the fact that, in light of their works, not all writers are concerned with claims to citizenship and identity, more attention must be paid to re-evaluating Kim Thúy’s novel Ru from the perspective of its ‘transnational politics of longing/belonging.’ Using various spatial metaphors linked to the concept of liminality, such as ‘border’, ‘frontier’ or ‘threshold,’ Ru revolves around the existential issue, “What made me what I am?” In its aesthetics of memory and longing, Thúy’s book reveals the state of mind for which humans yearn in their desperate attempt to reconcile with their bounded selves (cf. Braidotti 57). Accordingly, my intention is to examine critically the acts that the characters of Thúy’s novel undertake in order to make sense of who they are. I will focus particularly on their conversations and personal reflections that exemplify how they transform themselves to survive in a world that, in spite of the daily speed and intensity, still needs order and stability.
Loving Words
“I’d like to think that Ru is not about me,” Kim Thúy states in one of the interviews she gave in 2012. She believes the book is about...
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Or login to access all content.- Cover
- Title
- Copyright
- About the author
- About the book
- This eBook can be cited
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction: The Canadian Cultural Imaginary and Its Liminal Aesthetics (Stefan L. Brandt)
- I. Liminal Landscapes
- Tripping on the Threshold; Groping in the Dark (Aritha van Herk)
- II. Canadian ‘Thirdspace’ – Nation, Language, and Immigration
- Inhabiting Trishanku in Canada: Threshold Experience in the Oeuvre of M.G. Vassanji (Shilpa Daithota Bhat)
- ‘Exclaveness’ and Liminality: Materialities and Rhetorics of Place at the Canadian Border (Peter Goggin)
- Subversion and Self-Definition in Montréal Novels by Dany Laferrière and Rawi Hage (Derek C. Maus)
- III. Ambiguous Fictions – Liminality in the Canadian Novel
- “… beyond the invisible barrier at Portage and Main”: Liminality in John Marlyn’s Under the Ribs of Death (Bernhard Wenzl)
- “not quite human, not quite wolf, but something in between”: Liminal Spaces in Eden Robinson’s Monkey Beach (Patrizia Zanella)
- IV. Hyphenated Canada? Indigenous Voices and Hybrid Identities
- Painting (the) In-Between: Twentieth-Century Indigenous Border Art at Glacier/Waterton National Parks (Alexandra Ganser)
- Narrative Dynamics of Liminality in Naomi Fontaine’s Kuessipan (2011) (Jeanette den Toonder)
- Documenting Oral History and Lessons in Truth Telling in Nadia McLaren’s Muffins for Granny and Tim Wolochatiuk’s We Were Children (Sabrina Völz)
- V. Blurry Visions – Canadian Arts and Liminality
- Abstraction and Mysticism in Bertram Brooker’s Paintings and Novels (Katalin Kürtösi)
- Diane Schoemperlen’s By the Book: Stories and Pictures – Fragments in Contrapuntal Unity (Nikola Tutek)
- VI. Final Thresholds – Loss, Memory, and Dying
- The Melancholy of Urban Childhood: Liminality in Madeleine Thien’s Simple Recipes (Martina Horakova)
- The Politics of Memory and Longing in Kim Thúy’s Ru (Andreea Catrinela Lazăr)
- The Intriguing Liminality of Dying in Keefer’s “Going Over the Bars” (Vesna Lopičić)
- VII. Poetical Observations – Canada as Art
- The Trading Post: Betwixt Wilderness and Civilization (Claire E. Smerdon)
- Poems (George Elliott Clarke)
- Contributors
- Series Index
- Cover
- Title
- Copyright
- About the author
- About the book
- This eBook can be cited
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction: The Canadian Cultural Imaginary and Its Liminal Aesthetics (Stefan L. Brandt)
- I. Liminal Landscapes
- Tripping on the Threshold; Groping in the Dark (Aritha van Herk)
- II. Canadian ‘Thirdspace’ – Nation, Language, and Immigration
- Inhabiting Trishanku in Canada: Threshold Experience in the Oeuvre of M.G. Vassanji (Shilpa Daithota Bhat)
- ‘Exclaveness’ and Liminality: Materialities and Rhetorics of Place at the Canadian Border (Peter Goggin)
- Subversion and Self-Definition in Montréal Novels by Dany Laferrière and Rawi Hage (Derek C. Maus)
- III. Ambiguous Fictions – Liminality in the Canadian Novel
- “… beyond the invisible barrier at Portage and Main”: Liminality in John Marlyn’s Under the Ribs of Death (Bernhard Wenzl)
- “not quite human, not quite wolf, but something in between”: Liminal Spaces in Eden Robinson’s Monkey Beach (Patrizia Zanella)
- IV. Hyphenated Canada? Indigenous Voices and Hybrid Identities
- Painting (the) In-Between: Twentieth-Century Indigenous Border Art at Glacier/Waterton National Parks (Alexandra Ganser)
- Narrative Dynamics of Liminality in Naomi Fontaine’s Kuessipan (2011) (Jeanette den Toonder)
- Documenting Oral History and Lessons in Truth Telling in Nadia McLaren’s Muffins for Granny and Tim Wolochatiuk’s We Were Children (Sabrina Völz)
- V. Blurry Visions – Canadian Arts and Liminality
- Abstraction and Mysticism in Bertram Brooker’s Paintings and Novels (Katalin Kürtösi)
- Diane Schoemperlen’s By the Book: Stories and Pictures – Fragments in Contrapuntal Unity (Nikola Tutek)
- VI. Final Thresholds – Loss, Memory, and Dying
- The Melancholy of Urban Childhood: Liminality in Madeleine Thien’s Simple Recipes (Martina Horakova)
- The Politics of Memory and Longing in Kim Thúy’s Ru (Andreea Catrinela Lazăr)
- The Intriguing Liminality of Dying in Keefer’s “Going Over the Bars” (Vesna Lopičić)
- VII. Poetical Observations – Canada as Art
- The Trading Post: Betwixt Wilderness and Civilization (Claire E. Smerdon)
- Poems (George Elliott Clarke)
- Contributors
- Series Index