Study of three North American women novelists combining the standpoints of gender studies and narratology. By analyzing the works of Thomas, Marlatt, and Erdrich through the lenses of subjectivity, gender studies, and narratology, Caroline Rosenthal brings to light new perspectives on their writings. Although all three authors write metafictions that challenge literary realism and dominant views of gender, the forms of their counter-narratives vary. In her novel Intertidal Life, Thomas traces the disintegration of an identity through narrative devices that unearth ruptures and contradictions in stories of gender. In contrast, Marlatt, in Ana Historic, challenges the regulatory fiction of heterosexuality. She offers her protagonist a way out into a new order that breaks with the law of the father, creating a "monstrous" text that explores the possibilities of a lesbian identity. In her tetralogy of novels made up of Love Medicine, Tracks, The Beet Queen, and The Bingo Palace, Erdrichresists definite readings of femininity altogether. By drawing on trickster narratives, she creates an open system of gendered identities that is dynamic and unfinalizable, positing the most fragmented worldview as the most enduring. By applying gender and narrative theory to nuanced analysis of the texts, Rosenthal's study elucidates the correlation between gender identity formation and narrative. Caroline Rosenthal is Professor and Chair of American Literature at the Friedrich-Schiller University in Jena, Germany. Her book Narrative Deconstructions of Gender was published by Camden House in 2003.

The development of literature in Canada with an eye to its multicultural, multiethnic, multilingual nature. From modest colonial beginnings, literature in Canada has arrived at the center stage of world literature. Works by English-Canadian writers -- both established writers such as Margaret Atwood and new talents such as Yann Martel -- make regular appearances on international bestseller lists. French-Canadian literature has also found its own voice in the North American and francophone worlds. "CanLit" has likewise developed into a staple of academic interest, pursued in Canadian Studies programs in Canada and around the world. This volume draws on the expertise of scholars from Canada, Germany, Austria, and France, tracing Canadian literature from the indigenous oral tradition to thedevelopment of English-Canadian and French-Canadian literature since colonial times. Conceiving of Canada as a single but multifaceted culture, it accounts for specific characteristics of English- and French-Canadian literatures,such as the vital role of the short story in English Canada or that of the chanson in French Canada. Yet special attention is also paid to Aboriginal literature and to the pronounced transcultural, ethnically diverse character ofmuch contemporary Canadian literature, thus moving clearly beyond the traditions of the two founding nations. Contributors: Reingard M. Nischik, Eva Gruber, Iain M. Higgins, Guy Lafleche, Dorothee Scholl, Gwendolyn Davies, Tracy Ware, Fritz Peter Kirsch, Julia Breitbach, Lorraine York, Marta Dvorak, Jerry Wasserman, Ursula Mathis-Moser, Doris G. Eibl, Rolf Lohse, Sherrill Grace, Caroline Rosenthal, Martin Kuester, Nicholas Bradley, Anne Nothof, Georgiana Banita, Gilles Dupuis, and Andrea Oberhuber. Reingard M. Nischik is Professor of American Literature at the University of Constance, Germany.

A collection of new essays on the multi-talented Canadian writerMargaret Atwood. Novelist, poet, cultural critic, Margaret Atwood is one of the most fascinating, versatile, and productive authors of our time, a superb writer in any genre she chooses to tackle. This book was prepared on the occasion of Atwood's sixtieth birthday in November 1999. Its first aim is therefore to take stock of Atwood's multifarious works and international impact at the height of her creative powers. Secondly, the book serves as a wide-ranging introduction to the writer and her works. Fifteen informative articles written specifically for this volume by Atwood specialists from Canada, the USA, the UK, Germany, and France treat her life and status, her works (up-to-date surveyarticles on Atwood's novels, short fiction, poetry, and literary and cultural criticism), and important approaches to her works (from the standpoints of gender politics, mythology, ecology, popular culture, constructivism, and Canadian nationalism). A final section on creativity, transmission, and reception includes an interview with Atwood on creativity, statements by some of Atwood's important transmitters, including publishers, editors, literaryagents, and translators, and some 15 statements by Atwood's fellow writers, in which they explore her importance for them. A number of photographs of Atwood, several cartoonsdrawn by and about her, an up-to-date bibliography ofworks by and about her, and an index round out the volume. Reingard M. Nischik is Professor of American literature at the University of Konstanz, Germany.

The first anthology of critical interpretations of major Canadian short stories. Beginning in the 1890s, reaching its first full realization by modernist writers in the 1920s, and brought to its heyday during the Canadian Renaissance starting in the 1960s, the short story has become Canada's flagship genre. Itcontinues to attract the country's most accomplished and innovative writers today, among them Margaret Atwood, Mavis Gallant, Alice Munro, Clark Blaise, and many others. Yet in contrast to the stature and popularity of the genreand the writers who partake in it, surprisingly little literary criticism has been devoted to the Canadian short story. This book redresses that imbalance by providing the first collection of critical interpretations of thirty well-known and often-anthologized Canadian short stories from the genre's beginnings through the twentieth century. A historical survey of the genre introduces the volume and a timeline comparing the genre's development in Canada, the US, and Great Britain completes it. Geared both to specialists in and students of Canadian literature, the volume is of particular benefit to the latter because it provides not only a collection of interpretations, but a comprehensive introduction to the history of the Canadian short story. Contributors: Reingard M. Nischik, Martina Seifert, Heinz Antor, Julia Breitbach, Konrad Gross, Paul Goetsch, Dieter Meindl, Nina Kuck, Stefan Ferguson, Rudolf Bader, Fabienne C. Quennet, Martin Kuester, Jutta Zimmermann, Sylvia Mergenthal, Caroline Rosenthal, Wolfgang Klooss, Lothar Hoennighausen, Heinz Ickstadt, Heinz Ickstadt, Gordon Boelling, Christina Strobel, Waldemar Zacharasiewicz, Nadja Gernalzick, Eva Gruber, Brigitte Glaser, Georgiana Banita. Reingard M. Nischik is Professor of American Literature at the University of Konstanz, Germany.