I-mag(in)ing the margins as frontiers: race and gender in the writing of Marlene Nourbese Philip

Abstract

Mainstream feminist discourse in Canada has privileged a critique of gender oppression. In doing so it has ignored the mutually reinforcing practices of sexism, racism, and classism, and has failed to interrogate issues of white privilege and power in Canadian society. Some women, both women of colour and white women, have begun to revise the definitions of feminism by exploring the intersections of race, class, and gender in women's lives and writing. It is in this discourse that I wish to take part, through an examination of the writings of African- Canadian writer Marlene Nourbese Philip. My first chapter will introduce the issues involved in constructing a liberatory black female subjectivity and revising feminist thinking in Canada. In She Tries Her Tongue. Her Silence Softly Breaks and Looking for Livingstone: An Odyssey of Silence, Marlene Nourbese Philip both deconstructs hegemonic discourses and constructs a radical black subjectivity. My first chapter will explore her deconstructive work and my second chapter her reconstructive work. The author does both materially in her writing at the levels of story, text, word, and syllable. My final chapter will explore how reading Nourbese Philip's work can point to new directions for feminism.