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In this proseminar, we will look at two of the most prominent and influential Canadian women writers of the last decades, who both have won numerous awards and literary prizes. With her study Survival (1972), Margaret Atwood (*1939) initiated a renewed interest in the formation of Canadian identity, which she locates in Canada's "garrison mentality" (Northrop Frye), thus in the intimate connection between people and landscape. She combines this idea in her poetry, prose, and literary criticism with an interest in the construction of (female) identity, "historiographic metafiction" (Linda Hutcheon), and (dystopian) science fiction.
Margaret Laurence (1926-87) is best-known for her "Manawaka novels" and "the truth of her portraits, the realism of their background, and the humanity and wisdom of her vision" (David Staines). In analyzing some of the two Margarets' novels, a few short stories, and poems as well as critical writing, we will also discuss prominent theoretical issues such as genre, gender, and identity.
Bibliography:Atwood, Margaret. Bodily Harm. New York: Anchor, 1999.---. Alias Grace. London: Little, Brown, 1997.---. Oryx and Crake. London: Little, Brown, 2004.Laurence, Margaret. The Diviners. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1993.---. The Stone Angel. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1993.Additional material will be available through the e-learning platform ILIAS at the beginning of the semester.
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