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A Transnational Feminist Study on the Woman's Historical Novel By University of Alberta Writing Back Through Our Mothers: A Transnational Feminist Study on the Woman’s Historical Novel by Tegan Zimmerman A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Comparative Literature ©Tegan Zimmerman Fall 2013 Edmonton, Alberta Permission is hereby granted to the University of Alberta Libraries to reproduce single copies of this thesis and to lend or sell such copies for private, scholarly or scientific research purposes only. Where the thesis is converted to, or otherwise made available in digital form, the University of Alberta will advise potential users of the thesis of these terms. The author reserves all other publication and other rights in association with the copyright in the thesis and, except as herein before provided, neither the thesis nor any substantial portion thereof may be printed or otherwise reproduced in any material form whatsoever without the author's prior written permission. For my grandmother and my mother … ABSTRACT This transnational feminist study on the contemporary woman’s historical novel (post 1970) argues that the genre’s central theme and focus is the maternal. Analyzing the maternal, disclosed through a myriad of genealogies, voices, and figures, reveals that the historical novel is a feminist means for challenging historical erasures, silences, normative sexuality, political exclusion, divisions of labour, and so on within a historical-literary context. The novels surveyed in this work speak from the margins and spaces of silence within history and the genre. As much as the works contest masculinist master narratives, they also create and envision new genealogies. Each narrative centers on an atypical female protagonist and the role of history is not only visible but also serves as the setting for either the heroine or the author to consciously subject patriarchal values to a gender analysis. Furthermore, there is a maternal connection between the milieu/personal history of the writer and the subject matter/history of the novel, which suggests the simultaneous rewriting of the present by recalling and reclaiming the past. In recuperating and reclaiming the past, the woman’s historical novel puts forth a counter text or a counter version of history, but assumes, contrary to the post-modern techniques many feminist novels employ, a historical reality and a gendered reality that extends beyond the text and that grounds the text. Acknowledging and studying this transnational corpus is, therefore, imperative for expanding and updating the genre’s current masculinist Eurocentric status and bridging new relations between transnational feminism and literature. Collectively, the novels form a femino-centric space–an imagined motherland or matria–wherein patriarchy, Eurocentrism, gender, motherhood, and the nation are fiercely interrogated. The act of writing back through our mothers is a means for making collective and personal arguments for feminist changes; thus, this study contends that a transnational feminist knowledge project on the contemporary woman’s historical novel is necessary, worthwhile, and timely. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This project would not be possible were it not for the lives of brave women.In bringing this dissertation to fruition, however, first of all, I would like to sincerely thank my supervisor, Dr. Gary Kelly for his encouragement, genuine enthusiasm, constructive criticism, time, and reassurances during my times of doubt. I would also like to thank my committee members, Dr. Albert Braz and Dr. Patricia Demers for their questions, which really pushed me to think critically about my work. Your insightful comments and continued support throughout this entire process were greatly appreciated. Furthermore, I am appreciative to the members of my examination committee. To everyone in the Program of Comparative Literature thank you for providing a vibrant scholarly environment; in particular, I am indebted to David Buchanan, Anita Buick, Danielle Lamb, and Alison Turner for a lively exchange of ideas, Dr. Irene Sywenky for being an amazing Graduate Coordinator, and Janey Kennedy for her answers to all of my questions. To my language tutors Isabel Roblez-López (Español) and Nadia Ouakil (Française) I am grateful for your expertise and dedication, but most of all your patience with me. Finally, I would like to express my gratitude to my husband, Declan and my pug, Vince for their love and understanding. Thank you to all of my family, especially my parents Lynn and Carl, and to my friends for putting up with my rain-check friendship throughout this process. TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction 1 I. The Woman’s Historical Novel: A Transnational Genre 1 II. Situating the Woman’s Historical Novel: Master Narratives, Postmodernism, and a Transnational Context 11 Crossing Borders and Connecting Women: Transnational/Translational Feminisms 28 Women, the Nation, and the Transnational Turn 32 Undoing History: Problems with Postmodernism 37 III. Maternal Genealogies and the Romance Debate 48 “Silly Novels by Lady Novelists”: The Romance Debate 51 1. Revisionist Writing: Mothers of the Americas 59 Transatlantic Crossings 64 Traitor to the Nation: The Serpent 70 Forced Marriages, Lovers, and Sexual Politics 74 Proselytism and Mother-Tongues 82 Racial Hybridity 88 Forging New Ties: Woman to Woman 95 2. Transnational Mater-Familial Sagas: The Matriarch 101 Forbidden Romances and Matriarchs 104 Rebellious Sisters 110 Untouchable: Romance, Race, and Religion 113 Rememoriation: Feminist Mirrors, Hybrid Narratives, Spaces, and Histories 116 Politics of Exile; Nostalgia 129 “Magical Feminist” Objects and Spiritual History 133 3. Ancient History: Maternal Time, Gender, and the Nation 143 Gender as Masquerade 147 History as Sex; Gender as Fiction 155 The End of History; the Throne of a Maternal Goddess 162 “She Who Entangles Men”: The Power of War 171 (Neo) Slave-trade 175 A Dynasty of Daughters 179 4. The Middle Ages: Divining Mothers 185 From Concubine to Empress 188 Visions and Virginity: Medieval Sibyls 198 The Woman Warrior 204 Convent Culture and Women’s Writing 209 5. Modernity: Gynocracy and Matrophobia 220 Unfit Mothers, Hysteria and Separation 226 Betrayal, Mothers as Traitors 233 Surrogate Mothers: The Contest of Custody 241 Foreign Mothers: Sexual-Political Alliances 246 Motherhood and Queenship 257 6. Matrilineal Narratives: Race, Memory, and Survival 268 Hegemonic History; Rewriting Women’s Imperialism 272 The Arrival of the Europeans: Dead Mothers and Wayward Daughters 275 Exile and Rewriting the Myth of Aeneas 283 Patriarchy Within and Without 289 Bad Women 295 Maternal/Historical Survivals and Metanarrative 301 7. A New Sexual Politics of Space: Working Mothers 312 Boundaries Dissolving 318 Forbidden Spaces 324 Weaving the Work of Women Storytellers 328 Illicit Sexuality: Lesbian Mothers in the South 337 Woman’s Spirituality 347 8. Violent Women: Revamping the Gothic Novel 358 The Servant as Criminal 364 Red Velvet 371 Matricide and Othermothering 381 The Servant as Prostitute 385 The Mistress Murderer 388 9. Feminist Mothering: The Woman’s War Novel 393 Ethic of Care Theory: Nurses on the Frontlines 398 Maternal Mortality and the Aunt as Mother 406 Searching for Maternal Reconciliation 412 Mothers on Enemy Soil 420 Mother and Daughter-in-Law: Identities in Crisis 425 The War at Home 429 10. Love For/Against Art: Rebirthing our Foremothers 436 Dance as Spiritual Transcendence 440 Orphans and Artistic Opportunities 445 Women’s Education 448 “Theatre is Political and Politics is Theatrical” 453 The Subversive Woman-Artist: Maternal Roots 460 Maestros as False Idols: Sisters as Rivals 470 Post-Script 479 Works Cited 481 1 INTRODUCTION1 I. The Woman’s Historical Novel: A Transnational Genre The woman’s historical novel, a blurring of fact with fiction or the real with the imagination, is an immensely popular literary genre. On a whole, the historical novel has not attracted much scholarship, but women’s historical novels in particular have garnered very little criticism. Typically, genre studies are devoted to the study of male historical novelists and their novels.2 Meanwhile feminists, who have much to say about history and fiction separately, are also not forthcoming in theorizing the historical novel or women’s historical novels. Therefore, research dedicated to the genre is insufficient and inadequate in understanding or defining women’s historical novels. This dissertation supplements current scholarship and is a transnational study on contemporary women’s historical novels (post 1970). I argue that focusing on contemporary women’s historical fiction constitutes a transnational feminist writing/reading project. This project has three objectives: 1) to acknowledge and analyze a body of transnational contemporary feminist women’s historical fiction that has not been adequately studied or recognized; 2) to compare the political potential of the maternal and maternal possibilities in women’s historical novels transnationally; 3) to provide a deeper understanding of the relation between transnational feminism and feminist literature. 1 A revised version of this dissertation has been accepted for publication. Zimmerman 2013. London/Berlin: LIT-Verlag. 2 For example, see Georg Lukács’ The Historical Novel (1932) or Seymour Menton’s Latin America’s New Historical Novel (1993). 2 The following chapters articulate a common goal in both transnational feminism and women’s historical
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