1. Nation, Ethnicity, and Canada in Laura Goodman Salverson's The Viking Heart.
- Author
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Watts, Carl
- Subjects
- *
CANADIAN literature , *LITERARY theory , *MULTICULTURALISM in literature , *NATIONALISM in literature , *LITERARY criticism , *TWENTIETH century - Abstract
This article argues that expressions of national identity in twentiethcentury Euro-Canadian literature often conceive of the nation as existing in both ethnic and ostensibly pluralist, immigration-based models, and that the former is frequently valorized over the latter, resulting in the implicit legitimation of settler colonialism. It does so by examining a few major theorizations of nationalism--constructivism, ethno-symbolism, and ethnonationalism--and suggesting that literary critics' frequent adherence to the constructivism of Benedict Anderson can sometimes obscure the aforementioned dynamic. Finally, this article reads Laura Goodman Salverson's The Viking Heart (1923) as a text that renders in all its contradiction the problem of ethnicity and nation in Canada, arguing that Salverson combines (but does not synthesize) the twin forces of ethnicity and liberal pluralism that make up the Euro-Canadian imagination's split conception of the nation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2016
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