Alina Cleju

Negotiating the Artist: a Study of American and Canadian Artist Stories Alina Cleju

The author undertakes a comparative study of American and Canadian artist stories, which present the artist figure in the 1960s cultural and artistic context and onwards, drawing upon socio-cultural theories, feminist and cultural studies theories. She analyses metafictional works of the American writers John Updike, Donald Barthelme, Richard Rodriguez, Joyce Carol Oates, Alice Walker or Grace Paley and of Canadian authors Margaret Atwood, Alice Munro, John Metcalf, Hugh Hood, Guy Vanderhaeghe, Rohinton Mistry, Jane Rule, and Lee Maracle. The artist stories bring into focus conspicuous and eloquent connections between American and Canadian concepts of art and the artist, as well as similarities and differences between American and Canadian mythologies.