Overview

Description

CALENDAR DESCRIPTION:

Examines selected Aboriginal writings in a variety of forms and contexts, organized by cultural movements, critical issues, or theoretical approaches. May include works in various media, and explore relations between Aboriginal and relevant national literatures. The historical and regional focus of the course will vary.

COURSE DETAILS:

While Cherokee scholar Robert Warrior is typically credited as the founding member of Indigenous Literary Nationalisms when he released Tribal Secrets: Recovering American Indian Literary Traditions in 1994, two years earlier, in 1992, Okanagan scholar Jeannette Armstrong emphasized the need for "First Nations Literary Analysis" (8) in the anthology she released in Canada entitled Looking at the Words of our People. Two decades later, as nationalist approaches that consider the influence of specific Indigenous epistemologies on literatures are well established on both sides of the border, there is increasing production of Indigenous literatures that might be categorized as “genre fiction.” This course will examine Indigenous literatures produced this century and the critical reception surrounding these works, to consider the potential and the problems of culturally specific analysis.

Grading

Materials

MATERIALS + SUPPLIES:

REQUIRED TEXTS
2001 Robinson, Eden. Monkey Beach
2014 Belleau, Lesley. Sweat
2014  Paquette, Aaron. Lightfinder
2016 Taylor, Drew Hayden. Take Us to Your Chief and Other Stories
2016 Vermette, Katherena. The Break
2017 Robinson, Eden. Son of a Trickster
2017 Dimaline, Cherie.  The Marrow Thieves
and 
2010 Regan, Paulette. Unsettling the Settler Within: Indian Residential Schools, Truth Telling, and Reconciliation in Canada
2014 Reder, Deanna & Linda M. Morra. Learn, Teach, Challenge: Approaching Indigenous Literatures.