By
Dominique Hétu, Libe García Zarranz, Amanda Fayant, and Marie Carrière
January 2025
Print Version
What you need to know
This transdisciplinary book investigates relations of “living and learning with” as compelling forms of encounter, engagement, and care between self and other, human, nonhuman, and more-than human. Four co-editors and thirteen contributors dig deeper, through academic and creative written forms, into the ongoing need to forge sustainable forms of relationality between various feminist positions, attending particularly to Indigenous and Black knowledges, queer and trans artistic interventions, and antiracist methodologies.
Why this research is important
Rooted in feminist literary and artistic practices, the volume explores ongoing transnational issues of immediate and urgent concern, highlighting the strengths and challenges that can come with seeking alliances. Benefiting scholars in Canadian literature, Indigenous literary studies, Indigenous education studies, Anglophone and Francophone literary and intercultural studies, and gender studies, Living and Learning with Feminist Ethics, Literature, and Art pursues crucial conversations on intersecting oppressions, intersubjectivities, voices, and positionalities.
How this research was conducted
The collection is the result of a collaborative effort through all the stages of the process, from inception, design, and outcome. The transdisciplinary nature of the book has allowed for experimentation and the generation of a dialogue across fields of enquiry. The introduction, the envoi and one of the chapters in the collection are multi-authored. At the same time, each single-authored chapter is grounded on a plurality of voices from different theoretical apparatuses, pedagogical approaches, and systems of knowledge, and some were shared between contributors so that their work could echo one another. The result is a cohesive transdisciplinary collection that sheds light on the weavings of entangled feminist interventions while maintaining the distinctive uniqueness of each chapter and the challenges that can come with seeking alliances.
What the researchers found
This transdisciplinary collection of essays focuses on and fuels feminist thought across genres, cultures, languages, and media, bringing together multiple fresh perspectives at the intersection of feminist ethics and literature. We found that relations of “living and learning with” offer compelling forms of encounter, engagement, and care between self and other, between human and nonhuman, and between various feminist practices today. The chapters also showcase, through literary and artistic analysis, important and timely feminist work that tackles crucial ethical, political, and cultural realities. The chapters expand and deepen the examination of contemporary Indigenous, Black, Asian diasporic, migrant, and settler literary texts and artistic productions. If feminist ethics and positionality are at the centre of the critical inquiry, the chapters also rely on a myriad of methodological, pedagogical, and artistic approaches that interrogate and illuminate the complex interactions of feminist ethics, politics, and poetics. The chapters mobilize anti-colonial, intersectional, and feminist practices, each addressing, through a wide range of critical, pedagogical, and artistic strategies, the epistemological and historical violences that literary texts and cultural objects contain and contest.
How this research can be used
This edited collection aims at consolidating new ground in comparative and cross-border feminist studies, sharing interdisciplinary research, and providing a useful transcultural and pedagogical resource for scholars of numerous disciplines across the humanities. More precisely, this edited collection will benefit and target scholars in Canadian literature, Indigenous literary studies, Indigenous education studies, Anglophone and Francophone literary and intercultural studies, and Gender studies. The centrality of gender, race, and embodiment in this book will also appeal to scholars and policymakers working on 2SLGBTQQIA studies, feminist theory, critical race studies, queer theory, and trans studies. Some of the chapters engage with visual art and visual methodologies as well, so the volume will also attract the interest of artists and scholars working across media studies.
Acknowledgements
This research work was made possible through the financial support of the University of Alberta, the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Brandon University, and Acadia University.
Research Connection has been made possible by the Research Support Fund through the Office of Research Services.
About the Researchers
Keywords
- art
- feminist ethics
- literature
- relational approaches
- transdisciplinary research
Publications Based on the Research
Hétu, D., Zarranz, L. G., Fayant, A., & Carrière, M. (2025). Living and learning with feminist ethics, literature, and art. Edmonton: University of Alberta Press.
Editor: Christiane Ramsey
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