Title: Sounding Differences: Conversations With Seventeen Canadian Women Writers
Abstract: Moving across these interviews with Canadian women writers...continuing to return to phrases, paragraphs that pull me in...hearing in their words echoes of other conversations, in other textual, pedagogical places. Many of these women's words re/call to me memories of their previous writings; few, I come to unfamiliar, expectant. To read these (textual) conversations is to weave and journey through a process of thinking/speaking/writing...intended to expose an exploratory series of fluid dialogues over time (p. xii).Janice Williamson speaks of 17 interviews collected in(to) this text in same breath as women's conversational gossip--recognizing in both potential for disrupting authorized lines around knowledge production. She does not, however, create this as an unproblematic and cozy space, but grapples with inherent power relation between writer and critic. In her efforts to de-stabilize authority of the interviewer, she describes process of attending to how she figures herself in conversations:t]hroughout interview process I became increasingly conscious of when, as White bisexual bourgeois woman on my best behaviour (somewhat dutiful and good), institutional privilege and public voice became available to me (p. xiii).Much more than self-reflexive glance, Williamson makes serious attempt to keep seeing and hearing herself critically throughout interviews.For readers who are largely with issues explored in collection, it is likely to be an evocative introduction to some exciting and important aspects of feminist inquiry. For those who are themselves in midst of struggles named here, there are many moments to savour.One of strengths of collection is its attentiveness to impacts of race and sexual differences on women('s) writing. These dialogues take number of shapes: Williamson reflecting on her position as White feminist critic in dialogues with Claire Harris and Lee Maracle; Lola Lemire Tostevin's attempts to re/examine heterosexual women's desire(s); racism in publishing industry, often explored here through Women's Press/Second Story Press controversy (reading in 1994, I also hear echoes to debates around Writing Thru Race conference). The impact of class on language and writing is explored far less consistently in interviews--perhaps not surprising, given limited attention this issue tends to receive in Canadian feminist literary theorizing. An exception to this is interview with Erin Moure, which, incidentally, I found to be one of most provocative, bringing sustained and challenging perspective to collection.A series of other issues are, however, continuously brought to surface: complex and differing interpretations on relationship(s) between women's writing and women's bodies (see, for example, interviews with Nicole Brossard and Jeannette Armstrong); issues raised in writing across communities (Di Brandt's discussion of her engagement with feminist and Mennonite communities is fascinating); responsibility of readers in sometimes painstaking process of making-sense of the unfamiliar (Gail Scott is, as always, eloquent on this topic); where and how writing meets--and repels from--political activism (Joy Kogawa's struggles with these issues are note-worthy). …
Publication Year: 1993
Publication Date: 1993-02-01
Language: en
Type: book
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Cited By Count: 20
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