Heart And/or Head? Study, Emotion, and Authority in a Complicated Kindness and We Measure the Earth With Our Bodies

This paper critically analyses the definition and delineation of knowledge in the novels We Measure the Earth With our Bodies (Tsering Yangzom Lama) and A Complicated Kindness (Miriam Toews). Focusing specifically on the legitimisation of knowledge by Western authorities and the difficulties (marginalized) women face in defending the legitimacy of their own positions, the argument is made that the emotional can coexist with knowledge, without by definition tainting it. To study with feeling is not necessarily to corrupt the truth: acquiring information and the act of studying it can be an essential part of forming identity. It is the forming of this individual identity (by young women in particular) which authorities such as academic institutions and the church seek control over. They claim that objectivity can only be legitimated by institutions such as themselves, and that objectivity is the only correct way to view and acquire information, and so they bolster their own power. Dolma and Nomi, the main characters of the novels considered here, both resist this power through their own subjective approaches to knowledge.