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Reading Mennonite Writing

Reading Mennonite Writing PDF Author: Robert Zacharias
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 027109303X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 266

Book Description
Mennonite literature has long been viewed as an expression of community identity. However, scholars in Mennonite literary studies have urged a reconsideration of the field’s past and a reconceptualization of its future. This is exactly what Reading Mennonite Writing does. Drawing on the transnational turn in literary studies, Robert Zacharias positions Mennonite literature in North America as “a mode of circulation and reading” rather than an expression of a distinct community. He tests this reframing with a series of methodological experiments that open new avenues of critical engagement with the field’s unique configuration of faith-based intercultural difference. These include cross-sectional readings in nonnarrative literary history; archival readings of transatlantic life writing; Canadian rewritings of Mexican film’s deployment of Mennonite theology as fantasy; an examination of the fetishistic structure of ethnicity as a “thing” that has enabled Mennonite identity to function in a post-identity age; and, finally, a tentative reinvestment in ideals of Mennonite community via the surprising routes of queerness and speculative fiction. In so doing, Zacharias reads Mennonite writing in North America as a useful case study in the shifting position of minor literatures in the wake of the transnational turn. Theoretically sophisticated, this study of minor transnationalism will appeal to specialists in Mennonite literature and to scholars working in the broader field of transnational literary studies.

Reading Mennonite Writing

Reading Mennonite Writing PDF Author: Robert Zacharias
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 027109303X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 266

Book Description
Mennonite literature has long been viewed as an expression of community identity. However, scholars in Mennonite literary studies have urged a reconsideration of the field’s past and a reconceptualization of its future. This is exactly what Reading Mennonite Writing does. Drawing on the transnational turn in literary studies, Robert Zacharias positions Mennonite literature in North America as “a mode of circulation and reading” rather than an expression of a distinct community. He tests this reframing with a series of methodological experiments that open new avenues of critical engagement with the field’s unique configuration of faith-based intercultural difference. These include cross-sectional readings in nonnarrative literary history; archival readings of transatlantic life writing; Canadian rewritings of Mexican film’s deployment of Mennonite theology as fantasy; an examination of the fetishistic structure of ethnicity as a “thing” that has enabled Mennonite identity to function in a post-identity age; and, finally, a tentative reinvestment in ideals of Mennonite community via the surprising routes of queerness and speculative fiction. In so doing, Zacharias reads Mennonite writing in North America as a useful case study in the shifting position of minor literatures in the wake of the transnational turn. Theoretically sophisticated, this study of minor transnationalism will appeal to specialists in Mennonite literature and to scholars working in the broader field of transnational literary studies.

After Identity

After Identity PDF Author: Robert Zacharias
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 0271076569
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 246

Book Description
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.

Reading Mennonite Writing

Reading Mennonite Writing PDF Author: Robert Zacharias
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 0271093021
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 259

Book Description
Mennonite literature has long been viewed as an expression of community identity. However, scholars in Mennonite literary studies have urged a reconsideration of the field’s past and a reconceptualization of its future. This is exactly what Reading Mennonite Writing does. Drawing on the transnational turn in literary studies, Robert Zacharias positions Mennonite literature in North America as “a mode of circulation and reading” rather than an expression of a distinct community. He tests this reframing with a series of methodological experiments that open new avenues of critical engagement with the field’s unique configuration of faith-based intercultural difference. These include cross-sectional readings in nonnarrative literary history; archival readings of transatlantic life writing; Canadian rewritings of Mexican film’s deployment of Mennonite theology as fantasy; an examination of the fetishistic structure of ethnicity as a “thing” that has enabled Mennonite identity to function in a post-identity age; and, finally, a tentative reinvestment in ideals of Mennonite community via the surprising routes of queerness and speculative fiction. In so doing, Zacharias reads Mennonite writing in North America as a useful case study in the shifting position of minor literatures in the wake of the transnational turn. Theoretically sophisticated, this study of minor transnationalism will appeal to specialists in Mennonite literature and to scholars working in the broader field of transnational literary studies.

The Body and the Book

The Body and the Book PDF Author: Julia Spicher Kasdorf
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 0271035447
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 230

Book Description
"A collection of essays by poet Julia Spicher Kasdorf focusing on aspects of Mennonite life. Essays examine issues of gender, cultural, and religious identity as they relate to the emergence and exercise of literary authority"--Provided by publisher.

Mennonite Valley Girl

Mennonite Valley Girl PDF Author: Carla Funk
Publisher: Greystone Books Ltd
ISBN: 1771645164
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 188

Book Description
“In luminous prose that effortlessly portrays the intimate and familiar pangs of growing up, Funk captivates from the get-go, and the ’80s nostalgia will hit the spot for those who came of age amid skyscraper bangs, acid-washed jeans, and the ubiquity of teen heartthrob Kirk Cameron. These small-town stories are big on charm.” —Publishers Weekly A funny and whip-smart memoir about a feisty young woman’s quest for independence in an isolated Mennonite community. Carla Funk is a teenager with her hands on the church piano keys and her feet edging ever closer to the flames. Coming of age in a remote and forested valley—a place rich in Mennonites, loggers, and dutiful wives who submit to their husbands—she knows her destiny is to marry, have babies, and join the church ladies’ sewing circle. But she feels an increasing urge to push the limits of her religion and the small town that cannot contain her desires for much longer. Teenage (Mennonite) angst at its finest: Carla questions the patriarchal norms of Mennonite society and yearns to break free. She’ll start by lighting her driveway on fire …. A family story: the perfect gift for mothers, daughters, sisters, and fathers and sons. Pitch-perfect 1980s nostalgia: remember Jordache jeans? For readers of Miriam Toews: heart wrenching and humorous descriptions of Mennonite life. At once a coming-of-age story, a contemplation on meaning, morality, and destiny, and a hilarious time capsule of 1980s adolescence, Mennonite Valley Girl offers the best kind of escapist reading for anyone who loves small towns, or who was lucky enough to grow up in one.

Rewriting the Break Event

Rewriting the Break Event PDF Author: Robert Zacharias
Publisher: Studies in Immigration and Cul
ISBN: 9780887557477
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
"Despite the fact that Russian Mennonites began arriving in Canada en masse in the 1870s, much Canadian Mennonite literature has been characterized by a compulsive telling and retelling of the fall of the Mennonite Commonwealth of the 1920s and its subsequent migration of 20,000 Russian Mennonites to Canada. This privileging of a seminal dispersal, or "break event," within the broader historic narrative has come to function as a mythological beginning or origin story for the Russian Mennonite community in Canada, and serves as a means of affirming a communal identity across national and generational boundaries.

Mennonite in a Little Black Dress

Mennonite in a Little Black Dress PDF Author: Rhoda Janzen
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 080508925X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 256

Book Description
In the spirit of Anne Lamott and Nora Ephron comes Janze's hilarious and moving memoir about a woman who returns home to her close-knit Mennonite family after a personal crisis.

Strangers at Home

Strangers at Home PDF Author: Kimberly D. Schmidt
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 9780801867866
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 428

Book Description
""A major contribution to our understanding of Anabaptist history and the ongoing construction of Anabaptist identity."" -- Mennonite Quarterly Review.

Blush

Blush PDF Author: Shirley Hershey Showalter
Publisher: MennoMedia, Inc.
ISBN: 0836198719
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 282

Book Description
“I promise: you will be transported,” says Bill Moyers of this memoir. Part Mennonite in a Little Black Dress, part Growing Up Amish, and part Little House on the Prairie, this book evokes a lost time, in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, when a sheltered little girl named after Shirley Temple entered a family and church caught up in the midst of the cultural changes of the 1950”s and ‘60’s. With gentle humor and clear-eyed affection the author, who grew up to become a college president, tells the story of her first encounters with the “glittering world” and her desire for “fancy” forbidden things she could see but not touch. The reader enters a plain Mennonite Church building, walks through the meadow, makes sweet and sour feasts in the kitchen and watches the little girl grow up. Along the way, five other children enter the family, one baby sister dies, the family moves to the “home place.” The major decisions, whether to join the church, and whether to leave home and become the first person in her family to attend college, will have the reader rooting for the girl to break a new path. In the tradition of Jill Ker Conway’s The Road to Coorain, this book details the formation of a future leader who does not yet know she’s being prepared to stand up to power and to find her own voice. The book contains many illustrations and resources, including recipes, a map, and an epilogue about why the author is still Mennonite. Topics covered include the death of a child, Pennsylvania Dutch cooking, the role of bishops in the Mennonite church, the paradoxes of plain life (including fancy cars and the practice of growing tobacco). The drama of passing on the family farm and Mennonite romance and courtship, as the author prepares to leave home for college, create the final challenges of the book.

When the English Fall

When the English Fall PDF Author: David Williams
Publisher: Algonquin Books
ISBN: 1616208090
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 273

Book Description
A riveting and unexpected novel that questions whether a peaceful and non- violent community can survive when civilization falls apart. Again, all are asleep, but I am not. I need sleep, but though I read and I pray, I feel too awake. My mind paces the floor. There are shots now and again, bursts here and there, far away, and I cannot sleep. I think of this man in his hunger, shot like a rabbit raiding a garden. For what, Lord? For stealing corn intended for pigs and cattle, like the hungry prodigal helpless in a strange land. I can hear his voice. When a catastrophic solar storm brings about the collapse of modern civilization, an Amish community is caught up in the devastating aftermath. With their stocked larders and stores of supplies, the Amish are unaffected at first. But as the English (the Amish name for all non-Amish people) in the cities become increasingly desperate, they begin to invade nearby farms, taking whatever they want and unleashing unthinkable violence on the gentle communities. Written as the diary of an Amish farmer named Jacob who tries to protect his family and his way of life, When the English Fall examines the idea of peace in the face of deadly chaos. Should members of a nonviolent society defy their beliefs and take up arms to defend themselves? And if they do, can they survive? David Williams’s debut novel is a thoroughly engrossing look into the closed world of the Amish, as well as a thought-provoking examination of how we live today and what remains if the center cannot hold.