Here is Queer: Nationalisms and Sexualities and the Literatures of Canada by Peter Dickinson

Abstract

REVIEWS Peter Dickinson. Here is Queer: Nationalisms and Sexualities and the Literatures of Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999. 262. $19.95 paper. “In the interests of full disclosure,” as the journalists say, I am listed on the acknowledgments page of this book, and I was in fact the external examiner when it was presented as a dissertation at the University of British Columbia. I am sure that there are many among you who will now stop reading, on the grounds that what follows is so tainted as to be useless as a review. All I can offer in justification is that what might be called “Canlit gaycrit” is a small field, and the list of usual suspects is not long. After I agreed to review this book for English Studies in Canada, I was asked to do the same by three other journals. Part of the problem is, of course, the limited view that the hegemony of the majority always has of the minority (“We wanted a black woman on the panel but we asked her and she wouldn’t come.”) But this is also just one more example of the usual Canadian trajectory. First a minority is noticed sociolog­ ically in the United States. Then it is noticed in Canada. Then it is noticed as a factor in American literary studies. Then it is noticed as a factor in Canadian literary studies. Then critics who identify as part of that minority start making noise in the American literary academy (read MLA). Then critics who iden­ tify as part of that minority start making noise in the Canadian literary academy (read ACCUTE). Then it reaches the study of Canadian literature. This might seem an overly cynical view. Still, the conser­ vatism of the study of Canadian literature remains striking, especially when Canadian literature itself is often so adventur­ ous. There are obvious exceptions to this conservatism, often feminist, but they are just that, exceptions. The time when the study of Canadian literature seemed avant garde was a time when Canadian nationalism was itselfavant garde. Today, when Canadian nationalism seems a tired residue maintained by that aging WASPish group, The Council of Canadians, the staidness of the study of Canadian literature just seems a natural fit. Lest anyone get the wrong idea, I am not a kettle casting aspersions at pots. I was part of the rise of nationalism in the 521 ESC 27, 2001 late sixties, I have been teaching and writing about Canadian literature since the early seventies, and I continue to give money to The Council of Canadians. But this does not delude me into thinking that Canlitcrit is part of the cutting edge. This increases the importance ofcritics such as Arun Mukherjee and Rinaldo Walcott, prominent among the growing num­ ber who are putting race in the foreground of the study of Cana­ dian literature. And to this I would add the present volume. The blurbs on the back of the book present the usual hyperbole (“revolutionize Canadian literary studies” is a bit much), but phrases such as “first of its kind” and “fresh and challenging” are certainly appropriate. Dickinson’s book takes various recent studies of nationalism (most notably Homi Bhabha), blends them with similar works on sexuality (most notably Judith Butler), and applies them to contemporary Canadian literature. Dickinson does not “queer Canlit,” in the sense of looking at a variety of texts and show­ ing gay and lesbian aporia, but rather examines the canonically gay and lesbian stars of contemporary literature, such as Timo­ thy Findley, Scott Symons, and Michel Tremblay, and Daphne Marlatt and Nicole Brossard. The title might be a bit misleading to some. It represents a new take on Northrop Frye’s statement of Canadian existential angst: “Where is here?” Dickinson is not making an opposi­ tional statement such as that of Queer Nation but rather is performing explorations. It is not “We’re here. We’re queer,” but “Is there something to this ‘queer’ literature that explains something?” Dickinson is suggesting that these sexual fringes perhaps reveal the meaning of Canada better than culture that appears to be closer to the centre. It is an interesting thesis, one...