Writing a Politics of Perception

by Thompson, Dawn

• ISBN13: 9780802043658
• ISBN10: 0802043658
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2000-06-01
• Publisher: Univ of Toronto Pr

Summary

Writing a Politics of Perceptionoffers new approaches to five novels by women writing in Canada. Dawn Thompson analyses these works through an epistemological theory that shifts critical perspective in surprising ways. Under consideration are two classics of Canadian literature, Nicole Brossard's "Picture Theory" and Margaret Atwood's "Surfacing", as well as three lesser-known works: Marlene Nourbese Phillip's "Looking for Livingstone", Beatrice Culleton's "In Search of April Raintree", and Régine Robin's "La Québécoite". Thompson develops a theory of 'holographic memory,' in which texts are performances that invite constant revision, remodelling, and interaction between narrative, memory, and, potentially, reality. This theory is informed by de Lauretis's semiotics of subjectivity, Derrida's memoire radicale, and physicist David Bohm's theory of holographic quantum reality. Reading these works of Canadian literature through a theory of holographic memory, Thompson successfully combines literary and cultural studies without sacrificing one to the other. She adds to and creates an alliance between feminist, post-colonial, and marxist theory, furthering political work in each of these areas. The interdisciplinary nature of Writing a Politics of Perceptionwill attract scholars and students in a variety of fields, including Canadian and Québec literature, comparative literature, women's studies, cultural studies, philosophy, and the social sciences.

Author Biography

DAWN THOMPSON is an instructor in the Department of English at Malaspina University-College.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	ix
Pre-holographic fragments: Configuring the memory theatre	3	(113)
Theatres within theatres: Situating a holographic memory	6	(2)
From identity politics to a politics of counter-memory	8	(4)
Previewing the memory walk	12	(4)
Re-inventing the world: Calculating the con/volutional integrals of holography in Nicole Brossard's Picture Theory	16	(27)
Screen skin my mind: A holographic memory	30	(2)
Screen skin my world?	32	(11)
ReSurfacing: Quantum visions of shamanic transformations	43	(20)
Signs from underground	44	(3)
'Maps and dreams': Cognitive maps and inventive dreams	47	(7)
'Dwelling' in a holographic memory theatre	54	(5)
'At the last judgement we will all be trees'	59	(4)
Looking for livingstone in Marlene Nourbese Philip's Looking for Livingstone	63	(16)
In search of Silence	66	(3)
From Silence to livingstone	69	(4)
From Livingstone to livingstone	73	(6)
Typewriter as Trickster: Revisions of Beatrice Culleton's In Search of April Raintree	79	(17)
Revising 'Beatrice Culleton'	86	(5)
Orality, literacy, holography	91	(5)
The wandering memory of Regine Robin's La Quebecoite	96	(20)
From the materiality of language to a Marxist materiality	108	(8)
In/conclusion: A writing that is never whole	116	(7)
Holosemiosis: An open-ended spiral	119	(4)
Notes	123	(10)
Works Cited	133	(8)
Index	141