Women, Reading, Kroetsch: Telling the Difference

153 Pages·1991·6.78 MB·English

by  Susan Rudy Dorscht

Women,Reading,Kroestsch
Telling the Difference
SUSANRUDY DORSCHT
Women, Reading, Kroetsch: Telling the Difference is a book of
both practical and theoretical criticism. Some chapters are feminist
deconstructive readings of a broad range of the writings of contem-
porary Canadian poet-critic-novelist Robert Kroetsch, from But We
Are Exiles to Completed Field Notes. Other chapters self-con-
sciously examine the history and possibility of feminist deconstruc-
tion and feminist readings of Kroetsch's writing by analyzing
Kroetsch, Derrida, and Freud on subjectivity and sexuality; Neuman,
Hutcheon, and van Herk on Kroetsch. As such, the book speaks out
of and about a number of contemporary theoretical discourses,
including particular positions within Canadian literary criticism, femi-
nism, postmodernism, and poststructuralism. Written by a woman
readerwhosetheoreticalandmethodologicalorientationsare
feminist and poststructuralist, Women, Reading, Kroetsch: Telling
theDifferenceproblematizes notions of writing, reading, gender,
sexuality, and subjectivity in and through Robert Kroetsch's writings.
In this critical study of one writer's work the author also challenges
the traditionally subservient relationship of reader to text and so
empowers the feminist reader as well as, if not rather than, the male
writer.
Susan Rudy Dorscht teaches literary and feminist theory, writ-
ing by women, and Canadian writings in the English Depart-
ment at the University of Calgary.
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Women, Reading, Kroetsch
Telling the Difference
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Women,
Reading,
Kroetscn
TELLING THE DIFFERENCE
SUSAN RUDY DORSCHT
Wilfrid Laurier University Press
Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data
Rudy Dorscht, Susan Arlene, 1961-
Women, Reading, Kroetsch
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-88920-205-2
1. Kroetsch, Robert, 1927- - Criticism and
interpretation. 2. Feminist literary criticism.
3. Feminism and literature. I. Title.
PS8521.R64Z85 1991 C813'.54 C91-095476-3
PR9199.3.K76Z85 1991
Copyright © 1991
Wilfrid Laurier University Press
Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
N2L 3C5
Cover design by Connolly Art & Design
Printed in Canada
All rights reserved. No part of this work covered by the copyrights hereon may be
reproduced or used in any form or by any means — graphic, electronic or mechani-
cal — without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any request for photo-
copying, recording, taping, or reproducing in information storage and retrieval sys-
tems of any part of this book shall be directed in writing to the Canadian Reprogra-
phy Collective, 379 Adelaide Street West, Suite Ml, Toronto, Ontario M5V 1S5.
for
Brian,
and for
Erin and Julian
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Contents
Acknowledgements xi
Introduction: Women, Reading, Kroetsch 1
PART ONE
Reading Woman
CHAPTER ONE
Telling as Difference: Feminism,
Subjectivity, Kroetsch 15
CHAPTER TWO
Reading A(-)Woman: Psychoanalysis,
Subjectivity, Sexuality 27
PART TWO
Reading Kroetsch
CHAPTER THREE
RereadingFieldotes:Badlands
the Continuing Poem 37
CHAPTER FOUR
Exposing the Subject: The Line in (the)
Peter's Hand(s): Or, But We Are Exiles 53
CHAPTER FIVE
How The Studhorse Man Makes Love:
Writing in a New Country 61
CHAPTER SIX
"This Version of Man": Telling the Story
with What the Crow Said 71
CHAPTER SEVEN
Alibis for Being(,) Lost 81
ix