In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

--------------I See the Glass as Half Full Uma Parameswaran So what is it like to be a woman, a South Asian, and a feminist in North America?1 What is it like to be a nonwhite, non-Judaeo-Christian, nonmale in academia? What is it like to be a Canadian writer who was born and educated in India? Tropes and Trolls ofLitcrit Responding to this self-imposed framework, I sent an essay to the editors. In due time, after an exchange of cordial notes, came the formal acceptance in which I was asked (1) to shorten the essay somewhat and (2) to reinforce it with theories and other theorists on self-representational writing. I started with the easier task and made deletions and revisions. The new version pleased me. But a self-conscious scrutiny was revealing. I had edited out sections that consisted of personal anecdotes, and I had been pleased because the new version more closely approximated the depersonalized voice of authority institutionally favored by academia during my graduate years. So strong are the powers of early indoctrination. The old version and.style had to be restored. Turning to the task of identifying theoretical underpinnings, I realized I had embraced the feminist move toward I-centeredness and anecdotalizing without charting the coordinates of my own positioning. This called for some analytic introspection. I see my current critical writing as a kind of metacriticism, a process that shares with the reader the steps whereby the critic explores, feels her way, bumps into walls, retracts, comes upon a scene that momentarily takes her into another space or upon a metaphor that impels her to pause, sit down, and enjoy where she is. The words have led me into a labyrinth. So what made me think of criticism as a labyrinth? I could try psychoanalysis and surface with 352 Uma Parameswaran pseudo-scientific data on my id and libido, or I could use common sense to look at what is encoded in these free associations: Labyrinth = MinotaurAbhimanyu -gardens-Versailles.2 Euro-classical-Hindu classical-Indian historical-personal symbol. The analysis of each of these terms could be endless , but what stand highlighted for me are the duality ofmy sensibility and my perception that the labyrinth is a garden. There is the duality of my Eurocentric academic training and my Hindu cultural roots; then there is the duality of patriarchal war game, or quest and sacrifice, motifs of Minotaur and Abhimanyu paired with the feminist affirmation of personal space and my personal symbol of Versailles. The associations are simultaneous, not sequential. Indian classics and folklore tell us about labyrinths that were part of the architecturallayout of pleasure gardens. I am in no panic to find the way out of the labyrinth. To adapt what Jane Tompkins says in "Me and My Shadow" about her stockinged feet, 3 I feel quite at ease here, wiggling the bare toes of my left foot, which is in a cast after a badminton court injury.4 There are others walking around, with and without tour gUides; maybe one or two will join me on this garden bench; in any case, the gatekeeper takes count at sunset, and airlift facilities are available. That is how far we have come on the shoulders of earlier feminists, some ofwhom entered the labyrinth, like Abhimanyu, before airlift facilities. Language as Parole, not Langue Nancy Miller uses a term that resonates for me, "personal criticism ," which she defines as "an explicitly autobiographical performance within the act of criticism." "Narrative criticism" is a "mixed mode of autobiography and cultural analysis."s Paul de Man says in "Autobiography as Defacement ," that an autobiographer can project a self-image only through language ,6 and Sidonie Smith follows up on this with, "Given the very nature of language, embedded in the text lie alternative or deferred identities that constantly subvert any pretensions of truthfulness."7 I would add that both language and psychological processes have a part in all self-representation. I am interested in language as parole (communication) more than as langue (abstract system.) Feminist writing, be it critical, autobiographical, or fictional, tends toward the self-conscious mode, which is subjective by nature. But subjectivity does not exclude rational or analytiC processes. A certain amount of editing takes place before the act of writing even in free-fall writing, and even more, it stands to reason, in any critical writing. Thus, the images and metaphors related to my Achilles tendon come naturally, but even so...

Share