The South African War (1899-1902) and the Transperipheral Production of Canadian Literatures
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The South African War (1899-1902) and the Transperipheral Production of Canadian Literatures by Bridgette Brown A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Affairs in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English Language and Literature Carleton University Ottawa, Ontario © 2019, Bridgette Brown Abstract This dissertation explores the South African War (1899-1902) and Canadian literary production. I examine newspapers, periodicals, and books published during and shortly after the War to argue that early articulations of Canadian identity, settler colonial discourses of whiteness and gender, and ideas about national literature were informed by Canada’s participation in a conflict in a distant settler colony. In chapter one, I study how The Canadian Magazine produced a nationally- identifiable image of the volunteer soldier and the mounted policeman. This construction of a soldierly figure occurred when the emergence of a “modern realism” in literature was debated. In this period often characterized by romantic nationalist discourse, I identify a contiguous materialization of a form of realism in the pages of the Canadian Magazine, as editors and writers portrayed the War. In chapter two, I turn to the understudied participation of forty Canadian school teachers in War internment camps and reveal how the women were constructed as models of Canadian femininity through national media coverage. I study E. Maud Graham’s writing and recuperate uncollected letters by Florence Randal Livesay to argue that their narratives, rather than benevolent feminized observations, enacted a settler femininity that was not simply British, but British Canadian. In the final two chapters, I trace how the War occupies a complicated place in an ambivalent literary memory. I examine fiction by Gilbert Parker, Stephen Leacock, and Sara Jeannette Duncan. Parker’s imperial romance centring Britain is a model that Leacock and Duncan resist; they use the romance as a foundational genre to represent ii Canadian experience in a triangulated relationship with South Africa and Britain. I trouble Leacock’s representation of South Africa as a romantic space that exposes, by contradictorily silencing, criticism of war and settler violence. I reveal how Duncan depicts Canadian experience as resisting the lingering effects of martial imperialism in order to centre women in future imperial projects. I argue that the settler race-making enacted in the texts I examine depends on an emergent realism that, produced by the discursive and material transperipheral connections of the War period, registers the insufficiency of the romance and its binary structures. iii Acknowledgements While this dissertation cites “Bridgette Brown” as its author, it is by no means a product of my singular effort, alone. This work has evolved over six years and is the product of great communal labour. It would not exist without the support—emotional, intellectual, and material—I have received from my colleagues, friends, and family. I have been inspired throughout my studies by many great thinkers. My dissertation committee, especially, is comprised of some of the strongest and most inspiring scholars, and for their intellectual generosity, I am grateful. To Dr. Jennifer Henderson: I am indebted to your encyclopedic knowledge of the nineteenth century, your critical close reading of my work, and for introducing me to settler colonial theory in your seminar class. Your thinking and teaching have forever reoriented my relationship to Canada and South Africa, and this dissertation owes much to your ground-breaking work on Settler Feminism. Thank you. To Dr. Susanne M. Klausen: Thank you for sharing your abundant historical knowledge with me; from the earliest days of this project, you sent me research material and let me share my ideas with your students. Your critical engagement and collaboration have made this dissertation stronger by your insistence to note obvious contradictions, omissions, and biases in both my own writing and those in the texts I study. Thank you. To Dr. Jody Mason, my supervisor: Words will insufficiently convey my gratitude for your generous academic supervision. This work is richer, stronger, and more nuanced thanks to your insightful suggestions. If this project at all lives up to what it promises to do—to illuminate the transperipheral production of Canadian literatures—it is because you have nurtured my curiosity and developed my critical insights into the iv historical and material creation of these phenomena. This dissertation exists because of your unfailing support and your academic brilliance. Thank you for patiently and enthusiastically mentoring me in all aspects of academic life. It is a great privilege to have this dissertation examined by Dr. Cecily Devereux whose critical work on Growing a Race infuses my thinking on first-wave feminism and women’s writing. Thank you for generously offering to contribute your vast knowledge and expertise to this project. I am especially grateful to Dr. Peter Hodgins, an expert in Canadian culture, settler nationalism, and public history, for his willingness to act as an internal examiner on this project. I am honoured to have you both read my work and contribute to its defence. Thank you. To my Carleton and Ottawa U friends: Thank you for the many conversations over the years that have supported and sustained my academic work. You are too numerous to mention—but if you’re reading this humble submission, know that it is your academic work that has inspired me, and your support and encouragement that have helped me to persevere. To Alicha Keddy: not only did you birth a human, you also conceived and produced a dissertation in the time we were in grad school together. You are inspiring. Thank you for your hours of unselfish feminist friendship, for your writing support, and for helping me to see the end—and make it there. To Shaun Stevenson: You have made this PhD process livable and laughable. Thank you for the many conversations that challenged me to think harder and see things in a more critical way, and for always reminding me to not take myself too seriously. v To Carleton’s Graduate Supervisors: Barbara Leckie, Brian Johnson, and Julie Murray, as well as Joanne Bree, Lana Keon, priya kumar, and Judy Katz. Your advice, administrative hurdle jumping, and academic support have helped me to complete this degree without totally losing my mind. Thank you for the hours you selflessly devote to Carleton’s English Graduate Students. There have been many professors who have guided me and nurtured my academic curiosity. I am especially indebted to Professors Mary Arseneau, Sarah Brouillette, Dana Dragunoiu, Lauren Gillingham, Sara Jamieson, Brian Johnson, Gerald Lynch, Jodie Medd, Julie Murray, Mark Salber Phillips, Janice Schroeder, Robert Stacey, Brenda Vellino, and Keith Wilson. To my family: Mom, Dad, Hayley, Rod and Anne-Marie. Thank you for the many hours of care and love you have given me throughout grad school. Mom, this PhD would not have been possible without the help you have given me with the kids while I studied, researched, conferenced, and wrote. Thank you. To dad, a.k.a. “the help desk,” thank you for all the tech support, for keeping my home IT infrastructure running, and for physically making the desk upon which much of this dissertation was written. Hayley, thank you for your hours of sisterly friendship and kindness, and for hosting us for visits and much-needed vacations. I always appreciate your candour and humour! To Rod and Anne-Marie: thanks for the support you have given to me, Sean, and the kids throughout this project. Rod—I believe you still owe me a few paragraphs for my introduction! To my children: Abby, Ben, and Jimmy. While I was busy thinking about distant “elsewheres” and a time far away, you have been my here and now. Thank you for all your cuddles and laughs; the joy you each bring to our family has provided me with the vi energy to complete this large project. I am privileged to have watched you grow as I wrote this dissertation, and I dedicate all the words in it to you three, recognizing the many hours it took me away from you. Each day you make me so proud to be your mom, and I couldn’t have finished “my book” without your necessary interruptions that made me maintain a healthy perspective on what is really important in this life: family. In the path of life that each of you will take, may you be able to imagine doing impossible things—and then do them. I love you in many more ways than words could ever tell. And thank you to Buster, whose companionship I underestimated, but who never left my side through long hours of reading and writing. This dissertation is dedicated to the memory of my granny Cynthia Fisher who died while I was in the last stages of writing it. Granny loved a good story—especially one that involved travel and adventure—and her phone calls and letters over the years have inspired me to write, think, question, and make connections between disparate places and diverse events. I thought of her frequently as I wrote my final chapters, and I dearly miss the mailed envelopes that would routinely arrive, filled with newspaper clippings, Afrikaans sheet music, old family photos, and book reviews, with notes attached and scribbled marginalia telling me “just how interesting” this all was. You encouraged me to be curious and to love the printed word. I miss you. Finally, this dissertation is for Sean. I would not have accomplished this work without your unfailing love and unwavering belief that I could get this PhD done. You knew just when I needed support—and when I needed space—and you encouraged me to persevere by never giving up.