Knots and Knowledges: The Canadian West, Settler Colonial Intimacies, and Aritha Van Herk’s Calgary Stampede

Autor(en)

Stefanie Schäfer

Abstrakt

This paper explores the intimacies of settler colonial cultures in discourses
about the Canadian West. In a critical regionalist reading, it positions the region
between centrist and continental frameworks, Canadian variations of the West-
ern myth, and Albe rta’s revived struggle for cultural and political independence
from the nation state. A case in point is the annual celebration of the Calgary
Stampede , a Western Show and carnival. After addressing Stampede’s
lar production of Western culture, I r evisit the event through the oeuvre of Aritha
van Herk, whose 2017 prose poetry collection Stampede and the Westness of
West views Western intimacies from a white feminist perspective. By reading two
of her texts, I show how van Herk attempts to ensnare th e rodeo cowboy and his
audience in a synaesthetic of looking and feeling that unsettles white male
Western cultural hegemonies.

Organisation(en)

Externe Organisation(en)

Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena

Journal

Zeitschrift für Kanada-Studien

Band

70

Seiten

163-178

Anzahl der Seiten

16

ISSN

0944-7008

Publikationsdatum

01-2020

Peer-reviewed

Ja

ÖFOS 2012

602005 Amerikanistik, 605002 Kulturgeschichte, 605004 Kulturwissenschaft

Link zum Portal

https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/de/publications/b03df34b-77b6-459b-8001-090971da9de2