Writing a politics of perception : memory, holography and women writers in Canada / Dawn Thompson.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Looking at five novels by women writing in Canada, Thompson develops a theory of 'holographic memory,' in which texts are performances that invite constant revision, remodelling, and interaction between narrative, memory, and, potentially, reality.

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CHOICE Review

Arguing that memory is like a hologram, creating three-dimensional illusions that bypass the mimetic conception of literature, Thompson attempts to bring memory into the modern age of physics and electronic representational technology by applying deconstructionist and semiotic approaches to the novel. Her chief inspirations are Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida, whose critical theories of epistemology confront Wordsworth's "cult of memory" and respectively produce their own "counter memory" and "radical memory." The author chooses Canadians because of the country's history of divided cultures, colonialism, postcolonialism, and neocolonialism and because of her interest in aboriginal issues. She examines five women writers--of whom the most well-known in the US is Margaret Atwood--allying feminist, postcolonial, and Marxist theory. This study draws on diverse sources, including Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time (CH, Jul'88) and Future Indicative: Literary Theory and Canadian Literature, ed. by John Moss (1987). A challenging study for theoretical specialists interested in Canadian women writers, this volume is recommended for graduate students, researchers, and faculty. S. A. Parker; Hiram College