Writing-Between: Australian and Canadian Ficto-Criticism

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Writing-Between: Australian and Canadian Ficto-Criticism Writing-Between: Australian and Canadian Ficto-criticism Helen Flavell BA (Hons) This thesis is presented for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Murdoch University, Perth, 2004 I declare that this thesis is my own account of my research and contains as its main content work that has not previously been submitted for a degree at any tertiary education institution. Helen Louise Flavell Abstract The current cultural climate, theoretical developments, the changing state of the tertiary institution, and the increasing presence of voices from the margin have contributed to the critical re-evaluation of academic writing as a way of knowing and representing the world. At the same time, hybrid forms of writing, those that exist in the interstices of established generic codes, are experiencing increased critical attention. Yet, despite the fact that genre has become an inadequate notion to describe boundary-crossing writing, little appears to have shifted in the way these forms are understood. Dominant methodologies tend to render what is between less visible or valid, and they define this space only in terms of its relation to set borders. Located at the boundaries of what is familiar and unfamiliar, “writing-between” is a contentious space where elements are combined without clear rules to aid identification. In this thesis the term “ficto-criticism” is used broadly to describe generically transgressive writing that blurs the defining lines between creative and critical texts. The thesis explores the political and theoretical implications of writing-between through a discussion of Australian and Canadian work in English (or English translation), which display the characteristics of the ficto-critical form. This thesis argues for a critical understanding of ficto-criticism that conceptualises it as a highly political strategy of literary intervention, rather than as a mere trend toward cross-genre writing. Indeed, rather than understanding it as surface play, the thesis argues that ficto-critical practice is deeply troubled by the oppressive role of academic writing and that, significantly, its emergence was highly influenced by postcolonial and feminist theory. Thus, ficto-critical practice interrogates the violence of representation and explores what is left out and or misrepresented through that process. The thesis applies Deleuze and Guattari’s concept-tools to articulate a methodology by virtue of which desire and ficto-criticism are understood as productive forms that are liberated from an equation of lack. The tension between ficto-criticism as an open practice and the tradition of scholarly writing, which requires a clear fixed proposition and outcomes, mirrors the project of ficto-criticism, which seeks to unlearn one’s authority and privilege as the beginning of a process towards developing an ethical relationship with the other. Acknowledgments1 Many thanks to those people that assisted with my research trip to Canada: Professor Louise Forsyth, Professor Roy Miki, Professor Smaro Kamboureli, Dr Jeanne Randolph, Professor Aritha van Herk, Anne Brydon and Sigrid Dahle. In particular, I would like to extend a very special thanks to Michelle Gay, Stan Dennison, Dr Ashok Mathur, Dr Aruna Srivastava and Tamai Kobayashi for their generosity, support and kindness during my time in Toronto and Calgary respectively. Thank you also to the Association for Canadian Studies in Australia and New Zealand for financial support in the form of a Postgraduate Travel Award. Without this funding the Canadian research would have been impossible. To those friends that supported me through the journey Ross Turner, Janine Staines, Andrea George, Marcelo Solecio, and my sister Susan Flavell, thank you. Dr Christina Gordan for her intellectual insight and collegial approach—many thanks and I hope we have the opportunity to work on other projects together. Also, much appreciation goes to Sandra Manesis for her generosity and insight over the last four years. To Dr Antonio Traverso so many thanks for your especially fantastic editing skills and your calming effect in the final stages of submission. Finally, thank you to my supervisors Professor Kateryna Longley for her continual support and encouragement through all the ups and downs that are part and parcel of a PhD, and Professor Vijay Mishra for taking me on in the latter stages of my project. Thank you for your generosity and professional approach to my project. 1 For a critique of the conventions of the “Acknowledgements” in academic texts, see Terry Caesar’s book Conspiring with Forms: Life in Academic Texts. In his hands the acknowledgements become a text to deconstruct. Caesar dedicates a whole chapter to exploring the conventions of the form noting that the acknowledgements have been increasing in length over the years. Caesar also notes that it was relatively recently that the acknowledgements were split off from the preface and introduction (1991: 28-49). This thesis is dedicated to the memory of Joy George and Tom. Joy for knowing, understanding, believing, and especially for being interested, and Tom for being the best study buddy one could hope for. Contents General Introduction—Fix-criticism 1 Chapter One 15 Casting The First Stone: Ficto-criticism as Writing-Between Introduction Conclusion Chapter Two 35 How can we enter? Ficto-criticism as a Minor Literature Introduction Modelling Deleuze and Guattari? Ficto-criticism as (a) Minor Literature Three Expressions of Ficto-criticism Conclusion Chapter Three 88 Danger! Postmodernism Introduction The Lives of Animals International “Ficto-criticism” Autobiographical Criticism Fiction as Criticism Conclusion Chapter Four 140 Becoming-woman: Australian Ficto-criticism Introduction Stephen Muecke, Noel King and Postmodernism Other Uses of “Ficto-criticism” in Australia On Becoming-woman, Becoming-imperceptible Grosz on Deleuze Australian Feminist Ficto-critical Moves Finding Theodore and Brina Benang: From the Heart Conclusion Chapter Five 191 Becoming-minoritarian: Canadian Ficto-criticism Introduction Who Killed Jeanne Randolph? (Canadian) Ficto-criticism and How it Arrived in Australia Crypto-friction and Geografictione: Aritha van Herk’s Ficto-criticism Quebec Women’s Writing: A Space-in-between Theory and Fiction Canadian Women Writing-between in English Ficto-criticism: Writing Through Race Conclusion Chapter Six 251 Risking the Self, Risking the Other Introduction Scandalous Bodies The politics of Self-location Problematising the Self The Ethics of Ficto-criticism Moments for Reflection: Robert Kroetch’s Critical Essays Dany Laferriére’s Non-fiction Fiction Conclusion General Conclusion 288 Works Cited 298 General introduction Fix-criticism When I run the spell check over my thesis I am repeatedly asked whether I want to change the “ficto” of ficto-criticism to “fix.” Initially it was merely an annoyance, like many of the other pre-programmed rule-bound commands of the computer that are arbitrarily applied, and which are not appropriate in every situation. However, the notion of “fix-criticism” and the computer’s insistence on it became useful since it highlighted a common theme throughout this research project: the tensions between the transgressive character of ficto- criticism and the conventional nature of established knowledge. Ficto-criticism was a word that had been made up to represent a generically hybrid writing practice, which was unrecognised by the computer’s dictionary due to its recent and localised history. In the light of this, “fix-criticism” became a reminder of my project, and a way to think through the questions raised by ficto-criticism as an identified and identifiable practice. As my thesis attests, hybrid forms of writing—those that exist in the interstices of established generic codes of taxonomy—are experiencing increased critical attention, and this is not limited to literary studies. If we believe what is being said and written about hybridity, it indeed seems that there has been a dramatic growth in such forms, and more generally a popular engagement with the concept of heterogeneity. For example, much has been written on boundary and border crossing, hybridity and the emergence of new (trans)disciplines, and over the past few years transgression or rule breaking has been a common conference theme. Even as early as 1983 Clifford Geertz was declaring that a trend toward genre blurring was already well established. In “Blurred Genres: The Refiguration of Social Thought,” he announced: “there has been an enormous amount of genre mixing in intellectual life in recent years, and it is, such blurring of kinds, continuing apace” (19). According to Geertz, the scope of this transdisciplinary and generic blurring is substantial: 1 This genre blurring is more than just a matter of Harry Houdini or Richard Nixon turning up as characters in novels or of midwestern murder sprees described as though a gothic romancer had imagined them. It is philosophical inquiries looking like literary criticism (think of Stanley Cavell or Thoreau, Sartre on Flaubert), scientific discussions looking like belles lettres morceaux (Lewis Thomas, Loren Eiseley), baroque fantasies presented as deadpan empirical observations (Borges, Barthelme), histories that consist of equations and tables or law court testimony (Fogel and Engerman, Le Roi Ladurie), documentaries that read like true confessions (Mailer), parables posing as ethnographies (Castenada [sic]), theoretical treatises set out as travelogues (Lévi Strauss), ideological arguments
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