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Margaret Sweatmans novel, <i>When Alice Lay Down With Peter</i>, plays with the British Empires adventure story and its creation of manhood. Mimicking this creative process in the Canadian Northwest, Sweatman conceives and births a womans previously erased passion back into the adventure story in a playful, erotic, and politically-charged presentation of the performing female body. Although appreciating the magic realism element to the novel (157), Nicole Markotic suggests that Sweatmans characters, like the readers, become History Tourists and are mere backdrop for the last century or so of Current Events that take precedence over their stories (156). The McCormack women, Markotic argues, have few stories other than going to war, having one momentous sex scene, giving birth (156). Indeed, Sweatmans whirlwind tour through 109 years of well-documented, and already too many times rehashed, rebellions, labour strikes, and world wars, seems to reflect this sentiment, but to limit Sweatman and her characters to only the Empires gender performative is to miss the female body performing as its own Big Bang.<p>Since a womans contingency and agency within the Empires gender performative has been vigorously debated by post modern and cultural theorists, Sweatman chooses to birth her characters into a world of/as performance. Richard Schechner, a pioneer in the field of performance theory, argues in his earlier work, Essays on Performance Theory (1977), that performance is a very inclusive notion of action, in which the performance workshop and the performance strategy of play are much more important than previously imagined (1,61). Sweatman draws on this discovery in order to free her characters to explore passion beyond Imperial and textual constraints. Four generations of McCormack women mimic, mock, and sidewind their way into, around, and beyond the Empires warring narrative and its heterosexual imperative. They are savvy, sexy, and provocative, playing simultaneously as shameless voyeurs, plagiarists, and war artists.

Margaret Sweatmans novel, <i>When Alice Lay Down With Peter</i>, plays with the British Empires adventure story and its creation of manhood. Mimicking this creative process in the Canadian Northwest, Sweatman conceives and births a womans previously erased passion back into the adventure story in a playful, erotic, and politically-charged presentation of the performing female body. Although appreciating the magic realism element to the novel (157), Nicole Markotic suggests that Sweatmans characters, like the readers, become History Tourists and are mere backdrop for the last century or so of Current Events that take precedence over their stories (156). The McCormack women, Markotic argues, have few stories other than going to war, having one momentous sex scene, giving birth (156). Indeed, Sweatmans whirlwind tour through 109 years of well-documented, and already too many times rehashed, rebellions, labour strikes, and world wars, seems to reflect this sentiment, but to limit Sweatman and her characters to only the Empires gender performative is to miss the female body performing as its own Big Bang.<p>Since a womans contingency and agency within the Empires gender performative has been vigorously debated by post modern and cultural theorists, Sweatman chooses to birth her characters into a world of/as performance. Richard Schechner, a pioneer in the field of performance theory, argues in his earlier work, Essays on Performance Theory (1977), that performance is a very inclusive notion of action, in which the performance workshop and the performance strategy of play are much more important than previously imagined (1,61). Sweatman draws on this discovery in order to free her characters to explore passion beyond Imperial and textual constraints. Four generations of McCormack women mimic, mock, and sidewind their way into, around, and beyond the Empires warring narrative and its heterosexual imperative. They are savvy, sexy, and provocative, playing simultaneously as shameless voyeurs, plagiarists, and war artists.

Thèse en cotutelle / Le genre du manifeste prend son essor dans la première moitié du XXe siècle, notamment dans le contexte des avant-gardes historiques en réaction aux nombreux bouleversements sociopolitiques et esthétiques à l’aube des deux guerres mondiales. Alors que les signataires des manifestes dits « fondateurs » des mouvements futuriste, dadaïste et surréaliste se sont vu arroger le titre de « chef de file » dans la foulée de leur publication, la faible participation des femmes dans leur élaboration est remarquable, se limitant tout au plus à une co-signature (comme dans le cas de Sophie Taeuber et du manifeste Dada-Zurich). Or, nombreuses sont les autrices et les artistes à avoir investi ce genre mêlant création et théorie dans une volonté de négocier avec la pensée dominante d’un mouvement avant-gardiste donné et – cela va sans dire – avec les conventions littéraires et esthétiques institutionnalisées. Observer leurs productions dans une approche à la fois féministe et rhétorique montre que les femmes signataires investissent singulièrement cette écriture marquée par la provocation et la violence verbale. Elles forcent ainsi la redéfinition des trois principes fondateurs du geste manifestaire : l’opposition, l’imposition et le regroupement. En résultent des programmes polémiques en réaction explicite aux manifestes officiels ainsi qu’à d’autres consacrés à la défense et à l’illustration d’une pensée artistique qui se veut plus indépendante des textes signés par des hommes. En se mettant elles-mêmes en scène, les créatrices incarnent des positions de dissociation par rapport à certaines idées, valeurs ou pratiques scripturaires et artistiques défendues plus largement dans l’un ou l’autre des mouvements. Dès lors, le manifeste devient le lieu d’une réelle performance de soi rendant possible l’appropriation par les femmes de ce genre historiquement investi par les hommes pour l’adapter à un discours qui s’inscrit dans une marginalité complète. / The genre of the manifesto is linked to the cultural history of the first half of the 20th century with the historical avant-gardes, in reaction to the numerous socio-political and aesthetic upheavals at the dawn of the two world wars. While the signatories of the so-called « founding » manifestos of the Futurist, Dada and Surrealist movements were given the title of « chef de file » in the wake of their publication, the low level of participation by women in their elaboration is remarkable, limited at most to a co-signature (such as Sophie Taeuber with the Dada-Zurich manifesto). Yet many female authors and artists have taken up this genre, which combines creation and theory, in a desire to negotiate with the dominant thought of a given avant-garde movement and – it goes without saying – with institutionalized literary and aesthetic conventions. Observing their productions from both a feminist and a rhetorical perspective shows that the women signatories are singularly invested in this form of writing marked by provocation and verbal violence. In doing so, they force a redefinition of the three founding principles of the manifesto gesture: opposition, coercion and grouping. The result is polemical programs in explicit reaction to official manifestos, as well as others devoted to the defense and illustration of an artistic thought more independent of texts signed by men. By putting themselves on stage, women creators embody positions of dissociation from certain ideas, values or scriptural and artistic practices defended more broadly in one or other of the movements. From then on, the manifesto becomes the site of a real self-performance, making it possible for women to appropriate a genre historically invested by men and adapt it to a discourse that is completely marginal.

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