My dissertation project maps three characters, Lucy, Evie, and the Fur Queen in three contemporary Canadian novels Not Wanted on the Voyage (1984), Salt Fish Girl (2002), and Kiss of the Fur Queen (1998), respectively, whose embodiments and genders do not conform to norms and who are also the only characters able to imagine a different kind of world. These novels, which I read as magical realist dystopias each maps out a process by which normatively gendered characters can begin to imagine a different social order than the one they have inherited. What is significant about these novels, though, is that this imagining would not be possible without the work of the gender non-conforming characters. My dissertation argues that when a major identity category, like gender, is unsettled, possibilities arise for other major social structures, such as the nation, to be questioned. These novels, each arising out of different racialized and cultural backgrounds, all settle on gender and embodied non-normativity as a site of possibility for imagining a different kind of world. Using education and collaboration, these characters are revolutionary figures who, instead of tearing down dominant geo-political structures in ways that risk replicating dominant geo-political structures or reforming existing ones, argue for a slow revolution in which spaces are built without reference to dominant structures. These spaces are decentralized insofar as the novels suggest that they will need to leave room for revision and change, rather than advocating for a static idea of what utopia is, and they will be built collaboratively, so that there is no one authority. These novels do not suggest that building a different world will be easy, but they show that fast solutions will not work and instead map out the difficult process of learning that is necessary in order for it to happen. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / My dissertation project maps three characters, Lucy, Evie, and the Fur Queen in three contemporary Canadian novels Not Wanted on the Voyage (1984), Salt Fish Girl (2002), and Kiss of the Fur Queen (1998), respectively, whose embodiments and genders do not conform to norms and who are also the only characters able to imagine a different kind of world. These novels, which I read as magical realist dystopias each maps out a process by which normatively gendered characters can begin to imagine a different social order than the one they have inherited. What is significant about these novels, though, is that this imagining would not be possible without the work of the gender non-conforming characters. My dissertation argues that when a major identity category, like gender, is unsettled, possibilities arise for other major social structures, such as the nation, to be questioned. These novels, each arising out of different racialized and cultural backgrounds, all settle on gender and embodied non-normativity as a site of possibility for imagining a different kind of world. Using education and collaboration, these characters are revolutionary figures who, instead of tearing down dominant geo-political structures in ways that risk replicating dominant geo-political structures or reforming existing ones, argue for a slow revolution in which spaces are built without reference to dominant structures. These spaces are decentralized insofar as the novels suggest that they will need to leave room for revision and change, rather than advocating for a static idea of what utopia is, and they will be built collaboratively, so that there is no one authority. These novels do not suggest that building a different world will be easy, but they show that fast solutions will not work and instead map out the difficult process of learning that is necessary in order for it to happen.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:mcmaster.ca/oai:macsphere.mcmaster.ca:11375/16483 |
| Date | 11 1900 |
| Creators | Cranston-Reimer, Sharlee |
| Contributors | York, Lorraine, English and Cultural Studies |
| Source Sets | McMaster University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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