Rewriting the Break Event

Rewriting the Break Event PDF Author: Robert Zacharias
Publisher: Univ. of Manitoba Press
ISBN: 0887554504
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
Despite the fact that Russian Mennonites began arriving in Canada en masse in the 1870s, Mennonite Canadian literature has been marked by a compulsive retelling of the mass migration of some 20,000 Russian Mennonites to Canada following the collapse of the “Mennonite Commonwealth” in the 1920s. This privileging of a seminal dispersal within the community’s broader history reveals the ways in which the 1920s narrative has come to function as an origin story, or “break event,” for the Russian Mennonites in Canada, serving to affirm a communal identity across national and generational boundaries. Drawing on recent work in diaspora studies, Rewriting the Break Event offers a historicization of Mennonite literary studies in Canada, followed by close readings of five novels that rewrite the Mennonite break event through specific strains of emphasis, including a religious narrative, ethnic narrative, trauma narrative, and meta-narrative. The result is thoughtful and engaging exploration of the shifting contours of Mennonite collective identity, and an exciting new methodology that promises to resituate the discourse of migrant writing in Canada.

Rewriting the Break Event

Rewriting the Break Event PDF Author: Robert Zacharias
Publisher: Univ. of Manitoba Press
ISBN: 0887554504
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 305

Get Book Here

Book Description
Despite the fact that Russian Mennonites began arriving in Canada en masse in the 1870s, Mennonite Canadian literature has been marked by a compulsive retelling of the mass migration of some 20,000 Russian Mennonites to Canada following the collapse of the “Mennonite Commonwealth” in the 1920s. This privileging of a seminal dispersal within the community’s broader history reveals the ways in which the 1920s narrative has come to function as an origin story, or “break event,” for the Russian Mennonites in Canada, serving to affirm a communal identity across national and generational boundaries. Drawing on recent work in diaspora studies, Rewriting the Break Event offers a historicization of Mennonite literary studies in Canada, followed by close readings of five novels that rewrite the Mennonite break event through specific strains of emphasis, including a religious narrative, ethnic narrative, trauma narrative, and meta-narrative. The result is thoughtful and engaging exploration of the shifting contours of Mennonite collective identity, and an exciting new methodology that promises to resituate the discourse of migrant writing in Canada.

Rewriting the Break Event

Rewriting the Break Event PDF Author: Robert Zacharias
Publisher: Studies in Immigration and Cul
ISBN: 9780887557477
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
"Despite the fact that Russian Mennonites began arriving in Canada en masse in the 1870s, much Canadian Mennonite literature has been characterized by a compulsive telling and retelling of the fall of the Mennonite Commonwealth of the 1920s and its subsequent migration of 20,000 Russian Mennonites to Canada. This privileging of a seminal dispersal, or "break event," within the broader historic narrative has come to function as a mythological beginning or origin story for the Russian Mennonite community in Canada, and serves as a means of affirming a communal identity across national and generational boundaries.

Rewriting the Rules

Rewriting the Rules PDF Author: Meg Barker
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0415517621
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 210

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Book Description
We live in a time of great uncertainty about relationships. We search for "The One," but find ourselves staying single because nobody measures up. The reality of our relationships is not what we expected, and it becomes hard to balance it with all the other things that we want out of life. At the same time that marriage shows itself to be the one 'recession proof' industry; the rates of separation and break-up soar ever higher. Rewriting the Rules is a friendly guide through the complicated - and often contradictory - rules of love: the advice that is given about attraction and sex, monogamy and conflict, gender and commitment. It asks questions such as: which to choose from all the rules on offer? Do we stick to the old rules we learnt growing up, or do we try something new and risk being out on our own? This book considers how the rules are being 'rewritten' in various ways, for example the 'new monogamy', alternative commitment ceremonies, different ways of understanding gender, and new ideas for managing conflict and break-up where economics and child-care make complete separation a problem. In this way Rewriting the Rules gives the power to the reader to find the approach which fits their situation.

Ethics for Apocalyptic Times

Ethics for Apocalyptic Times PDF Author: Daniel Shank Cruz
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 0271096063
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 179

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Book Description
Ethics for Apocalyptic Times is about the role literature can play in helping readers cope with our present-day crises, including the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change, and the shift toward fascism in global politics. Using the lens of Mennonite literature and their own personal experience as a culturally Mennonite, queer, Latinx person, Daniel Shank Cruz investigates the age-old question of what literature’s role in society should be, and argues that when we read literature theapoetically, we can glean a relational ethic that teaches us how to act in our difficult times. In this book, Cruz theorizes theapoetics—a feminist reading strategy that reveals the Divine via literature based on lived experiences—and extends the concept to show how it is queer, decolonial, and equally applicable to secular and religious discourse. Cruz’s analysis focuses on Mennonite literature—including Sofia Samatar’s short story collection Tender and Miriam Toew’s novel Women Talking—but also examines a non-Mennonite text, Samuel R. Delany’s novel The Mad Man, alongside practices of haiku and tarot, to show how reading theapoetically is transferable to other literary traditions. Weaving together close reading and personal narrative, this pathbreaking book makes a significant and original contribution to the field of Mennonite literary studies. Cruz’s arguments will also be appreciated by literary scholars interested in queer theory and the role of literature in society.

After Identity

After Identity PDF Author: Robert Zacharias
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 0271076569
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 246

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Book Description
For decades, the field of Mennonite literature has been dominated by the question of Mennonite identity. After Identity interrogates this prolonged preoccupation and explores the potential to move beyond it to a truly post-identity Mennonite literature. The twelve essays collected here view Mennonite writing as transitioning beyond a tradition concerned primarily with defining itself and its cultural milieu. What this means for the future of Mennonite literature and its attendant criticism is the question at the heart of this volume. Contributors explore the histories and contexts—as well as the gaps—that have informed and diverted the perennial focus on identity in Mennonite literature, even as that identity is reread, reframed, and expanded. After Identity is a timely reappraisal of the Mennonite literature of Canada and the United States at the very moment when that literature seems ready to progress into a new era. In addition to the editor, the contributors are Ervin Beck, Di Brandt, Daniel Shank Cruz, Jeff Gundy, Ann Hostetler, Julia Spicher Kasdorf, Royden Loewen, Jesse Nathan, Magdalene Redekop, Hildi Froese Tiessen, and Paul Tiessen.

Queering Mennonite Literature

Queering Mennonite Literature PDF Author: Daniel Shank Cruz
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 0271084405
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 265

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Book Description
Though the terms “queer” and “Mennonite” rarely come into theoretical or cultural contact, over the last several decades writers and scholars in the United States and Canada have built a body of queer Mennonite literature that shifts these identities into conversation. In this volume, Daniel Shank Cruz brings this growing genre into a critical focus, bridging the gaps between queer theory, literary criticism, and Mennonite literature. Cruz focuses his analysis on recent Mennonite-authored literary texts that espouse queer theoretical principles, including Christina Penner’s Widows of Hamilton House, Wes Funk’s Wes Side Story, and Sofia Samatar’s Tender. These works argue for the existence of a “queer Mennonite” identity on the basis of shared values: a commitment to social justice, a rejection of binaries, the importance of creative approaches to conflict resolution, and the practice of mutual aid, especially in resisting oppression. Through his analysis, Cruz encourages those engaging with both Mennonite and queer literary criticism to explore the opportunity for conversation and overlap between the two fields. By arguing for engagement between these two identities and highlighting the aspects of Mennonitism that are inherently “queer,” Cruz gives much-needed attention to an emerging subfield of Mennonite literature. This volume makes a new and important intervention into the fields of queer theory, literary studies, Mennonite studies, and religious studies.

Making Believe

Making Believe PDF Author: Magdalene Redekop
Publisher: Univ. of Manitoba Press
ISBN: 0887558585
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 524

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Book Description
Making Believe responds to a remarkable flowering of art by Mennonites in Canada. After the publication of his first novel in 1962, Rudy Wiebe was the only identifiable Mennonite literary writer in the country. Beginning in the 1970s, the numbers grew rapidly and now include writers Patrick Friesen, Sandra Birdsell, Di Brandt, Sarah Klassen, Armin Wiebe, David Bergen, Miriam Toews, Carrie Snyder, Casey Plett, and many more. A similar renaissance is evident in the visual arts (including artists Gathie Falk, Wanda Koop, and Aganetha Dyck) and in music (including composers Randolph Peters, Carol Ann Weaver, and Stephanie Martin). Confronted with an embarrassment of riches that resist survey, Magdalene Redekop opts for the use of case studies to raise questions about Mennonites and art. Part criticism, part memoir, Making Believe argues that there is no such thing as Mennonite art. At the same time, her close engagement with individual works of art paradoxically leads Redekop to identify a Mennonite sensibility at play in the space where artists from many cultures interact. Constant questioning and commitment to community are part of the Mennonite dissenting tradition. Although these values come up against the legacy of radical Anabaptist hostility to art, Redekop argues that the Early Modern roots of a contemporary crisis of representation are shared by all artists. Making Believe posits a Spielraum or play space in which all artists are dissembling tricksters, but differences in how we play are inflected by where we come from. The close readings in this book insist on respect for difference at the same time as they invite readers to find common ground while making believe across cultures.

Silence and Rage in Miriam Toews’s Mennonite Novels

Silence and Rage in Miriam Toews’s Mennonite Novels PDF Author: Rita Dirks
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 1793647488
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 157

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Book Description
This book focuses on six of Miriam Toews’s Mennonite novels—Swing Low: A Life (2000), A Complicated Kindness (2004), Irma Voth (2011), All My Puny Sorrows (2014), Women Talking (2018), and Fight Night (2021)—, so called because they portray fictional and autobiographical events, set in Mennonite communities in Canada, Mexico, and Bolivia. Rita Dirks argues that through the exploration of difficult subjects such as the physical and emotional abuse of teenaged girls, women, and children , Toews gives a voice to victims and survivors who are otherwise silenced in that sequestered culture. In addition, Dirks shows that in the Mennonite novels, Toews’s rage at the injustices experienced by her protagonists becomes a transformative art that gives a voice to all stories, especially those of women within authoritative patriarchal communities that openly proclaim pacifism.

Land Deep in Time

Land Deep in Time PDF Author: Weronika Suchacka
Publisher: V&R Unipress
ISBN: 3847016334
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 325

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Book Description
This volume brings together a group of most highly acclaimed Canadian writers and distinguished international experts on Canadian literature to discuss what potential Janice Kulyk Keefer's concept of "historiographic ethnofiction" has for ethnic writing in Canada. The collection builds upon Kulyk Keefer's idea but also moves beyond it by discussing such realms of the concept as its ethics and aesthetics, multiple and multilayered sites, generic intersections, and diasporic (con-)texts. Thus, focusing on Canadian historiographic ethnofiction, "Land Deep in Time" is the first study to define and explore a type of writing which maintains a marked presence in Canadian literature but has not yet been recognized as a separately identifiable genre.

Mennocostals

Mennocostals PDF Author: Martin William Mittelstadt
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 153261974X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 196

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Book Description
Pentecostal and Mennonite contributors to this volume have been enriched by mutual hospitality. Through friendships across their respective traditions, they have shared and received the benefits of theological, experiential, and ministry convergence. In celebration of their common journeys, they offer their collective lives as Mennocostals. You will enjoy inspiring, honest, and vulnerable accounts of formation and ministry from academics, pastors, and missionaries. If you find these Mennocostal stories compelling, you will invariably want to discover your own story alongside and beyond the stories in this volume.