BOOK REVIEWS The Case of Lena S. By David Bergen. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart. 2002. Pp. 286. $32.99. David Bergen’s third novel takes it title from a poem penned by its main character, a teenager, Mason Crowe, whose poetic sensibility and emotional intimacy with his mother make him seem mature…
Harry Loewen: A Tribute Paul Tiessen When I arrived as an undergraduate at the Mennonite Brethren College of Arts in Winnipeg in 1964-65, only a year or two after Rudy Wiebe had been delicately shown the road out of town, I did have a vague inkling that ?the sixties? had…
The Construction of Mennonite/Amish Character in Novels by John Updike and Denis Johnson DANIEL W. LEHMAN* Abstract: Mennonite and Amish characters play small but crucial roles in the best-known novels of John Updike and Denis Johnson, two celebrated contemporary writers in the United States. At their best, both Updike and…
Resolving Dualisms in David Bergen’s Sitting Opposite My Brother ERVIN BECK* Abstract: The short stories in David Bergen’s first book of fiction Sitting Opposite My Brother tend to offer similar sets of characters, narratives and resolutions. The stories often juxtapose male characters of opposite spiritual conditions: one being a…
?Sloughing off Ribs’: Revealing The Second Sex in Julia Kasdorf’s Poetry BETH MARTIN BIRKY* Abstract: This essay examines the way Julia Kasdorf’s latest collection of poetry Eve’s Striptease maps a female artist’s integration of body and desire and suggests the personal and creative power to be found in formulating…
Yorifumi Yaguchi: International Mennonite Poet and Prophet of Peace WILBUR BIRKY* Abstract: Yorifumi Yaguchi is a leading Mennonite poet, both in English and Japanese. He is best known in the West for his thirty poems in Three Mennonite Poets (Good Books, 1986), but his published work in English includes nearly…
Three Women Poets and the Beginnings of Mennonite Poetry in the U.S: Anna Ruth Ediger Baehr, Jane Rohrer, Jean Janzen ANN HOSTETLER* Abstract: This paper explores from a cultural studies perspective the pioneering contributions of three women poets’Anna Ruth Ediger Baehr, Jane Rohrer, and Jean Janzen’to a growing twentieth-century…
Reading Marpeck for the First Time STEVEN SIEBERT* Abstract: Marpeck’s theology, when read for the first time, is seen to be thoroughly incarnational: ?essences? can only be known through mediation, meaning is constituted only in performative, bodily action, and Christ’s specific embodiment is integral to his identity. What emerges at…
Contents of Volume LXXVIII January 2004 Number One In Memoriam: J. Howard Kauffman, 1919-2003 In This Issue The Legacy of the Marpeck Community in Anabaptist Scholarship William Klassen The Church as Sign or Sacrament? Trinitarian Ecclesiology, Pilgram Marpeck,…
NEWS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS Call for Papers: “Mennonites and Refugees: A 25 Year Retrospective.” A history conference examining the interaction between North American Mennonites and refugees will take place on September 30 – October 1, 2005, at the University of Winnipeg. The conference is held on the 25th anniversary of the…
