Bina Freiwald, PhD

Research and teaching interests

Critical theory; women’s writing; gender and sexuality; textual and visual auto/biographical practices & theorizations of subjectivity; nation and diaspora; Canadian literature; Israel/Palestine.

 
Recent Research Projects:
1. “The Diaspora’s Homeland(s): Identity and Belonging in Contemporary Jewish Canadian Writing.”

2. “Gender, Nation, and Self-Narration: The Construction of National and Diasporic Identities in Jewish Women’s Life Narratives in Palestine/ Israel and Canada 1880-1948.”

Education

1.     “Rethinking Nation, Homeland, Diaspora: One Self-Narrative at a Time.” The Jewish Diaspora as a Paradigm: Politics, Religion and Belonging. Ed. Nergis Canefe. Istanbul: Libra Press, 2014. 269-297.

2.     "'We're in this together': Brian Brett's Trauma Farm as Autoecography." New Directions in Canadian Studies. Ed.Stewart Gill and R.K. Dhawan. New Delhi: Vedanta Books, 2011.

3.    “’Qui est nous?’: Some Answers from the Bouchard-Taylor Commission’s Archive."Religion, Culture and the State –Reflections on the Bouchard-Taylor Report.  Ed. Howard Adelman and Pierre Anctil. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 2011: 69-85, 129-132.

4.    “Tradition, Individual Talent, and ‘a young woman/From backwoods New Brunswick’: Modernism and Elizabeth Brewster’s(Auto)Poetics of the Subject.” Wider Boundaries of Daring: The Modernist Impulse in Canadian Women’s Poetry. Ed. B. Godard and D.Brandt. Wilfrid Laurier UP, 2009. 97-123.

5.     “Social Trauma and Serial Autobiography: Healing and Beyond.” Unfitting Stories: Narrative Approaches toDisease, Disability, and Trauma. Ed. V. Raoul, C. Canam, A. Henderson, C.Paterson. Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier UP, 2007. 227-235.

6.    "'The tongue of woman': The Language of the Self in Susanna Moodie's Roughing It in the Bush." Susanna Moodie. Roughing It in the Bush. Norton Critical Edition. Ed. Michael Peterman. New York: Norton, 2007. 473-489.

7.    "Gender, Nation, and Self-Narration: Three Generations of Dayan Women in Palestine/Israel." Tracing the Autobiographical. Ed. M.Kadar, J. Perreault, S. Egan, L. Warley. Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier UP, 2005.165-188.

8.    "'Covering their familiar ways with another culture': Minnie Aodla Freeman's Life Among the Qallunaat and the Ethics of Subjectivity." Postmodernism and the Ethical Subject.Ed. B. Gabriel and S. Ilcan. Montreal: McGill-Queen's UP, 2004. 273-301.

9.    "Identity, Community, and Nation in Black Canadian Women's Autobiography." Identity, Community, Nation: Essays on Canadian Writing. Eds. C. Verduyn and D. Schaub. Jerusalem: The Hebrew University Magnes Press, 2002. 34-54.

10.   "Translational and Trans/national Crossings: French-American Feminist Mis/Dis/Re-Connections."Works and Days 20 (Winter 2002):142-161.

11.  "Nation and Self-Narration: A View from Québec/Quebec." Canadian Literature 172 (Spring 2002): 17-38.

12.  "Becoming and Be/longing: Kate Bornstein's Gender Outlaw and My Gender Workbook." Biography 24.1 (Winter 2001): 35-56.

13.  "Cartographies of Be/longing: Dionne Brand's In Another Place, Not Here." Mapping Canadian Cultural Space. Ed. D.Schaub. Jerusalem: The Hebrew University Magnes Press, 2000. 37-53.

14.   "Class, Subjectivity, Desire: Two Autobiographies." Resources for Feminist Research /Documentation sur la recherche feministe 25.3&4 (1997): 26-33.

15.  "The Subject and the Nation: Canadian and Israeli Women's Autobiographical Writing." Precarious Present/Promising Future? Ethnicity and Identities in Canadian Literature. Ed. D. Schaub, J. Kulyk Keefer, R. Sherwin. Jerusalem: The Hebrew University Magnes Press, 1996. 10-31.

16.  "The Interpellated Subject Lies Back: Angeline Hango's Truthfully Yours." Essays on Canadian Writing 58 (Spring 1996): 36-59.

17.  "'Towards the uncanny edge of language': Gail Scott's Liminal Trajectories." Essays on Canadian Writing 54 (Winter 1994): 60-79.[The Gender Issue]

18.  "'This isn't one to be told/ in the third person': Wallace's Life-Stories." Open Letter 7:9 (1991): 112-133.

19.  "Tennyson's Princess: Is There a Text in This Woman?" English Studies in Canada 14.4  (1989): 459-477.

20.  "'Why do feminists do it?': Psychoanalysis, Feminism, and the Subject." Social Discourse/Discours Social  2.1&2(1989): 237-246.

21.  "Of Selfsame Desire: Patmore's Angel in the House." Texas Studies in Language and Literature 30.4 (1988): 538-561.

22.  "'The praise which men give women': Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Aurora Leigh and the Critics." The Dalhousie Review 66.3 (1987): 311-336.

23.  "Femininely Speaking: Anna Jameson's Winter Studies and Summer Rambles in Canada." A Mazing Space: Writing Canadian Women Writing. Ed. Shirley Neuman and Smaro Kamboureli. Edmonton: Longspoon & NeWest Presses, 1987: 61-73.

24.  "A Pliable Reality:Towards the Construction of a Nabokovian Narrative Model." The Canadian Journal of Research in Semiotics8.1&2 (1980-81): 111-121.

Recent conference papers

"Dreamscapes: The Representation of the Unconscious in Alison Bechdel’s Graphic Memoir Are You My Mother?” Images of Identity: International Symposium. University of Zurich: January 30-31, 2015.

"Seeking a Sustainable Diaspora-Israel Relation: Jonathan Garfinkel’s Ambivalence: Crossing the Israel/Palestine Divide and Erna Paris’s The Garden and the Gun.” The 31^st Annual Meeting of the Association for Israel Studies. Azrieli Institute of Israel Studies, Concordia University: June 1-3, 2015

“In and Out of the Promised Land: Jewish Women’s Autobiographical Writing Across the Homeland-Diaspora Divide.” International Association for Biography and Autobiography (IABA) Conference. Banff Centre, BC: May 29-June 1, 2014.

"Which Way Up? Representations of Aliya in Recent Jewish Canadian Writing.” 30^thAnnual Conference of the Association for Israel Studies. Sde-Boker, Israel: June 23-25, 2014.

"The Diaspora Interrogates the Nation-State: Representations of Israel in Recent Jewish-Canadian Writing.” The 14^thJerusalem Conference in Canadian Studies ‘Canada and Israel in a Changing World: New Trend and Directions. ‘ The Hebrew University, Jerusalem: May 20-23, 2013.

"Gender and the Making of a Jewish Homeland.” 29^thAnnual Conference of the Association for Israel Studies. UCLA, Los Angeles: June24-26, 2013. 

"Israel viewed through Israeli/Canadian Eyes: Edeet Ravel’s Tel Aviv Trilogy." 28^thAnnual Conference of the Association for Israel Studies, ‘Multifaceted Israel in a Global Perspective.’ University of Haifa, Israel: June 25-27, 2012.

"'We're in this together’: Brian Brett's Trauma Farm as Autoecography.” 
13th Biennial Jerusalem Conference in Canadian Studies. Jerusalem: Israel Association for Canadian Studies and the Halbert Centre for Canadian Studies, the Hebrew University: June 28-July 1, 2010.