Unarrested Archives: Case Studies in Twentieth-Century Canadian Women's Authorship

by Linda M. Morra

Overview

Calling upon the archives of Canadian writers E. Pauline Johnson (1861–1913), Emily Carr (1871–1945), Sheila Watson (1909–1998), Jane Rule (1931–2007), and M. NourbeSe Philip (1947– ), Linda M. Morra explores the ways in which women’s archives have been uniquely conceptualized in scholarly discourses and shaped by socio-political forces. She also provides a framework for understanding the creative interventions these women staged to protect their records. Through these case studies, Morra traces the influence of institutions such as national archives and libraries, and regulatory bodies such as border service agencies on the creation, presentation, and preservation of women's archival collections.

The deliberate selection of the five literary case studies allows Morra to examine changing archival practices over time, shifting definitions of nationhood and national literary history, varying treatments of race, gender, and sexual orientation, and the ways in which these forces affected the writers’ reputations and their archives. Morra also productively reflects on Jacques Derrida’s Archive Fever and postmodern feminist scholarship related to the relationship between writing, authority, and identity to showcase the ways in which female writers in Canada have represented themselves and their careers in the public record. 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781442617742
Publisher:	University of Toronto Press, Scholarly Publishing Division
Publication date:	01/15/2015
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	NOOK Book
Pages:	256
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Linda M. Morra is an associate professor in the Department of English at Bishop’s University and the current president of the Quebec Writers’ Federation. She edited the collected letters of Emily Carr and Ira Dilworth published with the University of Toronto Press (2006), and edited and annotated Jane Rule’s Taking my Life (2011).

Table of Contents

Introduction

1. The Archive of Embodiment: Pauline Johnson’s “ A Cry from an Indian Wife”

2. Her “Eye” Was Her “I”: Emily Carr, Autobiography, and the Archive of Kinship

3. “It’s What You [Don’t] Say”: Sheila Watson, the Imminent Narrative, and the Archive of Displacement

4. Jane Rule and the Archive of Activism: Negotiating Imaginative – and Literal – Space for a Nation

5. The Minor Archive: M. NourbeSe Philip and Mediations of Race and Gender in Canada

Conclusion

What People are Saying About This

Kate Eichhorn

“Linda Morra’s Unarrested Archives reminds us that the arrival of a writer’s fonds in an archive marks the inauguration of another public life – one structured by the legal and political complex of the archive itself. Theoretically sophisticated and meticulously researched, the case studies that compose Morra’s study trace how five Canadian women writers and their works have been reinvented, appropriated, and at times eclipsed by the national, institutional, and private archives where their collections are housed. A notable contribution to theorizing on Canadian literature, women’s writing, and archives, this book will be of interest to scholars, archivists, and anyone with an interest in the legal and political terrain of contemporary archives.”

Dean Irvine

“This isn’t just a book of exhaustively researched case studies about women, archives, and CanLit; it represents a vital and compelling response to the transformation of archival studies that is presently taking place across multiple disciplines.”

Carole Gerson

“The Unarrested Archive contains five excellent studies of Canadian women writers and their personal and literary archives. This book will make an important contribution to Canadian literary and cultural studies.”

Editorial Reviews

'This minutely researched and thoroughly engaging study expands scholarly understanding of how literary archives are shaped by national institutions.'

British Journal of Canadian Studies vol 29:02:2016 - Cristina Ivanovici

'An excellent introduction to textual feminism as a materialist practice.... This book will remind readers of why we need feminism in the second decade of the twenty-first century.'

Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature vol 35:01:2016 - Tanis MacDonald

'Through its range of genres and cultural periods, meticulous scholarship, and respect for the public life of women writers' documents, Unarrested Archives recalibrates perspectives on what might be uncovered and what must be preserved.'

BC Studies February 2016 - Patricia Demers

'Morra hopes that her book will encourage researchers to think more broadly about archives' formations, their locations, and the relationships they organize and epitomize. Her case studies provide a sustained engagement with these issues, although each could be read as a fascinating stand-alone piece.'

English Studies in Canada vol 41:04:2015 - Andrea Beverley

"Unarrested Archives addresses significant challenges to researchers in studying women authors and to the public in remedying the marginalization of women in creative pursuits and the academy....She has written an accessible and useful work that adds tour understanding of authors, archives, and agency. Unarrested Archives also challenges us to reconsider the boundaries we draw around knowledge and how we create it."

History of Intellectual Culture, vol 11 1 - Anthony Di Mascio