After Identity: Mennonite Writing in North America

Published by Penn State University Press 2015

After Identity

Mennonite Writing in North America

Edited by: Robert Zacharias

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780271076584

Overview
Contents

About this book

For decades, the field of Mennonite literature has been dominated by the question of Mennonite identity. After Identity interrogates this prolonged preoccupation and explores the potential to move beyond it to a truly post-identity Mennonite literature.

The twelve essays collected here view Mennonite writing as transitioning beyond a tradition concerned primarily with defining itself and its cultural milieu. What this means for the future of Mennonite literature and its attendant criticism is the question at the heart of this volume. Contributors explore the histories and contexts—as well as the gaps—that have informed and diverted the perennial focus on identity in Mennonite literature, even as that identity is reread, reframed, and expanded.

After Identity is a timely reappraisal of the Mennonite literature of Canada and the United States at the very moment when that literature seems ready to progress into a new era.

In addition to the editor, the contributors are Ervin Beck, Di Brandt, Daniel Shank Cruz, Jeff Gundy, Ann Hostetler, Julia Spicher Kasdorf, Royden Loewen, Jesse Nathan, Magdalene Redekop, Hildi Froese Tiessen, and Paul Tiessen.

Author / Editor information

Zacharias Robert :

Robert Zacharias is Assistant Professor of English at York University.

Reviews

“Showcasing some of the best new scholarship in cultural studies, After Identity explodes the tight boundaries of Mennonite culture and points us toward the new literary representations that are redefining Mennonite identity in the twenty-first century. An important book for anyone interested in the debates around culture, identity, and writing in the United States and Canada.”
—Felipe Hinojosa, Texas A&M University

“A vital book that not only expresses the importance of finding alternative reading practices for Mennonite literature, but also presents various compelling and convincing ways to locate those reading practices.”
—Jesse Hutchison, Biography

“When a traditional culture enters into a part of the modern, secular realm (academia), how does that traditional culture maintain its sense of identity? After Identity does not attempt to offer simplistic answers to these questions, but it does a superb job of mining the multiple issues that confront the field of Mennonite literature as it attempts to define itself.”
—George Adams, Nova Religio

“The twelve essayists in Robert Zacharias’s After Identity: Mennonite Writing in North America (to which Zacharias also contributes an introduction and chapter) share in the larger cultural desires to surpass taxonomic or binary thinking, and their collective contributions inquire carefully and seriously into the meaning and the value of the categories of identity such as ‘Mennonite’ and ‘Mennonite writing.’”
—Grace Kehler, The Mennonite Quarterly Review

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	v
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Introduction After Identity: Mennonite/s Writing in North America Robert Zacharias Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
PART ONE REFRAMING IDENTITY
1 The Autoethnographic Announcement and the Story Julia Spicher Kasdorf Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	21
2 A Mennonite Fin de Siècle Exploring Identity at the Turn of the Twenty- First Century Royden Loewen Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	37
3 Mennonite Transgressive Literature Ervin Beck Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	52
4 Double Identity Covering the Peace Shall Destroy Many Project Paul Tiessen Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	70
5 After Ethnicity Gender, Voice, and an Ethic of Care in the Work of Di Brandt and Julia Spicher Kasdorf Ann Hostetler Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	86
6 The Mennonite Thing Identity for a Post- Identity Age Robert Zacharias Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	106
PART TWO EXPANDING IDENTITY
7 In Praise of Hybridity Reflections from Southwestern Manitoba Di Brandt Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	125
8 Queering Mennonite Literature Daniel Shank Cruz Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	143
9 Toward a Poetics of Identity Jeff Gundy Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	159
10 Question, Answer Jesse Nathan Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	175
11 “Is Menno in There?” The Case of “The Man Who Invented Himself ” Magdalene Redekop Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	194
12 After Identity Liberating the Mennonite Literary Text Hildi Froese Tiessen Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	210
Contributors Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	227
Credits Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	231
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	233

Language: English
Publisher: Penn State University Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 256
Illustrations
- Illustrations: 1
- Images: 1
- Other: 1 illustration

eBook

Published: June 7, 2016
ISBN: 9780271076584