Overview

Description

CALENDAR DESCRIPTION:

Advanced seminar in Canadian literature. May be organized by author, genre, or critical approach. Reserved for English honors, major, joint major and minor students. Writing. Students with credit for ENGL 455 may not take this course for further credit. Writing.

COURSE DETAILS:

At the Crossroads: Indigenous and Black Writing in Canada

Recent discussions have drawn attention to the points of connection between Indigenous decolonization and Black social justice movements. Efforts have been made to reveal how the making of the Americas and the establishment of a settler colonial social order have depended upon the expropriation of land on the one hand, and the appropriation of labour, bodies, and lives on the other. Just as important have been the warnings not to assume that the problems and solutions that have been offered in these very different debates are transferrable across communities. While conversations about place, belonging, and embodiment have unfolded very differently in Black and Indigenous studies to date, the cultural production in question continue to attest to these intersecting histories. Yet the challenge to build viable critical frameworks that compare histories of occupation and resistance remains an urgently needed and relatively underthematized thread in critical discussions. In this course you will read the work of contemporary Indigenous and Black writers, artists, and scholars, including Dionne Brand, Leanne Simpson, Wayde Compton, Marie Clements, Canisia Lubrin, and Cherie Dimaline, as they strive to make connections across differences as well as assert a politics of difference, urging readers to pay close attention to cultural and social specificities.

COURSE-LEVEL EDUCATIONAL GOALS:

-to read, interpret, and creatively engage with texts by Indigenous and Black authors.
-to understand significant developments and movements in Black and Indigenous literary studies.
-to analyze texts and films across a range of genres and media.
-to synthesize and evaluate a range of critical approaches to literature, particularly Indigenous literary nationalism, Black diaspora, anti-racist coalition-building, decolonization, and resurgence.
-to recognize complex relationships between texts and contexts (historical, social, cultural, literary).
-to identify challenges posed to literary study by new media and technologies.
- to acknowledge the diversity and complexity of Indigenous and Black literary and cultural production in a variety of forms and formats.

Grading

Materials

REQUIRED READING: