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Queer Outburst: a Literary and Social Analysis of the Vancouver Node (1995-96) in English Canadian Queer Women‘S Literature

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Queer Outburst: a Literary and Social Analysis of the Vancouver Node (1995-96) in English Canadian Queer Women‘S Literature Queer Outburst: A Literary and Social Analysis of the Vancouver Node (1995-96) in English Canadian Queer Women‘s Literature by Linda Christine Fox B.A., Simon Fraser University, 1994 M.A., Simon Fraser University, 1999 A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in the Department of English Linda Christine Fox, 2009 University of Victoria All rights reserved. This thesis may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by photocopy or other means, without the permission of the author. ii Supervisory Committee Queer Outburst: A Literary and Social Analysis of the Vancouver Node (1995-96) within English Canadian Queer Women‘s Literature by Linda Christine Fox B.A., Simon Fraser University, 1994 M.A., Simon Fraser University, 1999 Supervisory Committee Dr. Misao Anne Dean, (Department of English) Supervisor Dr. Nicole Shukin, (Department of English) Departmental Member Dr. Evelyn M. Cobley, (Department of English) Departmental Member Dr. Christine St. Peter, (Department of Women‘s Studies) Outside Member iii Abstract Supervisory Committee Dr. Misao Anne Dean, (Department of English) Supervisor Dr. Nicole Shukin, (Department of English) Departmental Member Dr. Evelyn M. Cobley, (Department of English) Departmental Member Dr. Christine St. Peter, (Department of Women‘s Studies) Outside Member Queer Outbursts‘ investigation of the Vancouver publication concentration (node) contributes to the fields of Canadian literature, queer and lesbian literature, Asian Canadian literature, and women‘s literature through three interwoven tasks. The first two tasks develop and combine node theory and node methodology to produce an original approach to materializing micro-histories minoritarian literatures. The third task demonstrates the nodal approach by materializing a node in Canadian queer women‘s writing centred in the relational geography of Vancouver in the mid-1990s. The queer aesthetics of the novels under consideration are inseparable from the queer bodies and the material contexts that produce them; literary works are not discrete, static creations springing spontaneously from the mind of an inspired isolated writer. Node work reflects this understanding as it oscillates between material, social, and literary analyses and archival fieldwork. The literary and political context of the Vancouver publication node is historicized through a close reading of the 1988 conference, Telling It, which convened authors from First Nations, Asian, and Lesbian communities in the first public and explicit linking of the issues of racialization and sexuality. Social analysis of the node relies on both actor-network theory and Pierre iv Bourdieu‘s analysis of cultural production. Literary analysis is focussed on Larissa Lai‘s When Fox Is a Thousand as the primary representative text, and the social analysis is primarily based on the material circumstances of Fox‘s production and distribution. Close reading of Lai‘s novel demonstrates how the political concerns of the enabling communities are taken up literarily. It also demonstrates an inter-nodal connection, through Lai‘s literary strategies that engage the work of Nicole Brossard, which represents another node of Canadian queer women‘s writing circa 1980 and centred in Montréal. Secondary close readings of three other node novels reveal a common ethical interest in community and difference that is expressed through a literary strategy that I have named ―literary thirdspace.‖ Shani Mootoo‘s Cereus Blooms At Night, Persimmon Blackbridge‘s Sunnybrook, and Daphne Marlatt‘s Taken each opens to a site of possible literary thirdspace that explores the qualities necessary to live difference productively within community: hybridity, instability, kindness, witnessing, safety, and radical acceptance. v Table of Contents Supervisory Committee .................................................................................................. ii Abstract ......................................................................................................................... iii Table of Contents .......................................................................................................... iii List of Tables................................................................................................................. vi List of Figures .............................................................................................................. vii Abbreviations .............................................................................................................. viii Acknowledgments ......................................................................................................... ix Dedication .......................................................................................................................x Introduction: Author-ity, Positionality, and Queer Women‘s Literature ...........................1 Chapter One: Node Theory, Methodology, and Theoretical Allies ................................. 40 Chapter Two: Identifying and Materializing the Vancouver Node .................................. 76 Chapter Three: A Telling (It) Conference: Event Reception Effect .............................. 118 Chapter Four: Larissa Lai‘s Transformation of Écriture au Féminin in When Fox Is a Thousand: A TransCanada Internodal Migration` ........................................................ 157 Chapter Five: (Re)Viewing the Node: Materializing a Network ―Ecology‖ of Fox‘s Reception & Production............................................................................................... 191 Chapter 6: The Vancouver Node: Literary Thirdspace ................................................. 272 Conclusion .................................................................................................................. 326 Appendix One: ―Total Population by Visible Minority Population (1), for British Columbia, 1996 Census (20% Sample Data) ................................................................ 337 Appendix Two: Vancouver Publications 1964-2003 (116 texts) ................................... 339 Appendix Three: Vancouver Publications 1964-2003 by Location of Publisher ........... 344 Appendix Four: Vancouver Publications 1964-2003 by Genre .................................... 349 Appendix Five (A): Bibliography of Media Notices of Fox.......................................... 354 Appendix Five (B): Fox Media Notices by Community, Year, and City ...................... 357 Appendix Five (C): Fox Media Notices: Location Table .............................................. 359 Works Cited ................................................................................................................ 360 vi List of Tables Table 1 Sites of Production of "Vancouver" Queer Women's Publications 1964-2003 .. 91 Table 2 Impact of Most Prolific Authors on Publications 1964-2003 ............................ 94 Table 3 Impact of Prolific Publishers of Publications 1964-2003 .................................. 97 Table 4 Impact of Women-only Publishers on Publications 1964-2003 ......................... 98 Table 5 Publishers of Vancouver Queer Women's Novels in the 1990s ......................... 99 Table 6 Genres of "Vancouver" Queer Women's Publications 1964-2003 ................... 102 Table 7 Genres of "Vancouver" Queer Women's Publications pre-1990s & 1990s ..... 103 Table 8 "Vancouver" Novels Published in the 1990s .................................................... 108 Table 9 Media Notice of When Fox Is a Thousand: Community and Year .................. 198 Table 10 Media Notice of When Fox Is a Thousand: Community and Place................. 201 vii List of Figures Figure 1 English Canadian Literary Texts by City (234 texts) ....................................... 80 Figure 2 Vancouver Literary Publications from 1964 – 2003 (116 texts). ...................... 87 Figure 3 Vancouver Literary Publications from 1964 – 2006 (127 texts). ...................... 88 Figure 4 Vancouver Literary Publications 1990-2006 (82 texts) .................................... 89 Figure 5 Vancouver Bibliography including Anne Cameron (116 texts). ....................... 95 Figure 6 Vancouver Bibliography excluding Anne Cameron (90 texts). ........................ 96 Figure 7 Vancouver Literary Publications from 1964 – 2003 by Genre ....................... 101 Figure 8 Vancouver Novels Including Cameron 1990 – 2000 (22 texts) ...................... 105 Figure 9 Vancouver Novels Excluding Cameron 1990 – 2000 (13 texts) ..................... 106 Figure 10 Press Gang Publishers‘ Logos ..................................................................... 141 Figure 11 Photo of Lai and Mootoo from Angles (June 1997) ..................................... 241 viii Abbreviations ANT actor-network theory CCA Canada Council of the Arts Cereus When Cereus Blooms at Night Fox When Fox Is a Thousand DMF Daphne Marlatt Fonds, Library and Archives Canada PGP Press Gang Publishers PGPF Press Gang Fonds, Simon Fraser U Archives WSH Women's Studies Holdings, Simon Fraser U Archives ix Acknowledgments If it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a small city to foster a dissertation. This work has repeatedly shown me how much I benefit from the generosity of others. First thanks must go to my committee: Misao Dean, for her good advice and her confidence in my abilities; Nicole Shukin, for her generous intellectual companionship and guidance; Evelyn Cobley and Christine
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