The Carpathians - University of British Columbia

into (hegemonic) nation (alism) is undone.
Analyzing novels by Arna Bontemps, Sam
Greenlee and Ismael Reed, Joyce Hope
Scott tracks the movement of the Black
female from her earlier vocality and centrality
to a position of silence as the vision
of the Black Muslims and the advocates of
Black Power "relocate the black woman in
the margins of the struggle for freedom and
equality in the United States." Similarly,
Valentine Moghadam shows how revolutionary
change in Afghanistan and Iran
highlighted the problematic nature of
Islamic gender relations.
Many post-colonial theorists, fully aware
of the need of colonized peoples to achieve
identity without the influence of
Eurocentric or universalist concepts (if that
is still possible) regularly lapse into simple
dichotomous thinking—imperialism versus
nationalism, internationalist versus
nativist perspectives, and even male versus
female. This is not the case with the contributors
to Nationalisms and Sexualities
who, true to the title, recognize that ideas
and constructions of nation and gender are
multiple and contradictory. Consequently,
this collection is an important addition to
the field of post-colonial studies, and it is
entertaining to boot. The collection would
have been greatly enhanced though by a
contribution or two by aboriginal writers.
Certainly many of them would suggest that
we are being overly optimistic in our use of
the term post-colonial, given their colonized
condition. Others, like Thomas King,
would argue that aboriginal people were
never really colonized because they had
fully developed cultures before the appearance
of Europeans.
Two Perspectives
Gary Evans
In the National Interest: A C hronicle of the
National Film Board of Canada from 1949 to
ij>89.University of Toronto Press $85.00 cloth/
$35.00 paper
Suzanne Clark
Sentimental Modernism: Women Writers and the
Revolution of the Word. Indiana University Press
$39.95 cloth/ $14.95 paper
Reviewed by Judith Plessis
Although I have enjoyed National Film
Board productions most of my life, the title
of Gary Evans' book intimidated me.
Would this be a boring chronicle of endless
names and NFB trivia? Definitely not. I discovered
a detailed account of the history of
Canadian cinema in the context of the NFB
and the international film scene. In the
National Interest is an important reference
book for Canadian film specialists, providing
factual and interesting reading.
However, the author has a traditional
approach to the organization and presentation
of the institution's history, and ther is
a dated look to the black and white photographs
throughout the work. This 400
page volume plays on the words "national
interest" in terms of the Film Board's mandate
during the last 50 years and the changing
Canadian "nation" during that time.
Evans meticulously documents the meaning
(for the French and English) of the
term "national" and the many challenges
and problems the Film Board has encountered
in post-war Canada. Evans' writing
style is clear, simple and authoritative: he
brings each period to life with stories and
comments from observers of the Film
Board who are important Canadian personalities.
The historical analysis of the
social, economic and political happenings
in Canada illustrate that the successes of
the Film Board arose from the types of
films created and the refusal by individual