Overview

Description

CALENDAR DESCRIPTION:

Study of selected works of Canadian literature, including Indigenous, diasporic, and settler texts. May draw from a variety of methods, critical debates, regions, and historical periods. This course may be repeated for credit if a different topic is taught.

COURSE DETAILS:

“Home, for me, was not a birthright, but an invention.... I want to talk about the problem of belonging, of home, both as a place and as an idea. ... when we speak ofhome we are speaking of several things... We say home and mean origins, we say home and mean belonging. These are two different things: where we come from, and where we are.” Award-winning Black Canadian novelist Esi Edugyan, who lives in Victoria, BC, writes about home and belonging in her lecture, Dreaming of Elsewhere, and puts her finger on some of the main themes of this course: how does one craft a sense of belonging? What relationship does a sense of belonging have to our sense of our origins? How does race, nation, gender, and class impact our sense of belonging to community? In this course, students will consider the dynamic interaction between place and displacement in a diverse array of literatures from British Columbia, including fiction, memoir, poetry, essay, visual art,performance, and film. Through our readings by writers such as Esi Edugyan, Jeannette Armstrong, Joy Kogawa, Fred Wah, Eden Robinson, and Wayde Compton, we will examine the reciprocal relationship between land and story, and consider itsconnection to memory, time, and history.

There are five units in this course:
1. Writing the Land
2. Writing for Justice,
3. Writing the Self,
4. Writing Vancouver, and
5. Writing the Future

We will ask how literature acts to claim territory, how stories can fight for ecologicaljustice, how authors can unearth buried histories of the land, and what kind of future speculative fiction writers have in store for us. Through our readings and discussions, we will consider questions relating to multiculturalism, diaspora, immigration, and Indigeneity in relation to gender and race. In addition, we will consider issues such as racialization of space, working-class spaces, spaces of consumption and production, the spaces of protest and resistance, and urban gentrification. Ultimately, the students in this course will learn that the literature of BC is a battleground in which many actors have struggled and continue to struggle to claim place, belonging, territory, and justice.

COURSE-LEVEL EDUCATIONAL GOALS:

Thematic outcomes

Recognize the role that narrative plays in determining how we understand the contests over land in British Columbia.

Identify the various claims made on land through narrative.

Recognize how belief systems are embedded in different narrative forms - poetry, graphic novel, short story.

Distinguish literary forms and analyse their effects on interpretation of texts and issues.

Understand significant developments and movements in contemporary literatures of British Columbia.

Skills-based outcomes

Use close reading strategies to analyze the relationship between land and story.

Summarize an article and identify the thesis.Construct an argument and support it with evidence in a convincing manner.

Make links between current events and narratives about land in BC.

Analyze and interpret literary texts across a range of genres and media.

Synthesize and evaluate a range of critical approaches to literature.

Recognize complex relationships between texts and contexts (historical, social, cultural, literary).

Cite from multiple literary and academic texts and generate a critical conversation between them.

Grading

Materials

MATERIALS + SUPPLIES:

Important Note: The SFU Bookstore is trying to get the required books as soon as they can but they may not be there on time. Please consider ordering the books from your local bookstore.

Eden Robinson, Monkey Beach (2000). Vintage ISBN 978-0676973228

Joy Kogawa, Obasan (1983). Penguin ISBN 978-0735233706

Fred Wah, Diamond Grill: 10^th Anniversary Edition (2006). NeWest ISBN 978-1897126110

Edugyan, Esi. Dreaming of Elsewhere: Observations on Home (2014). U Alberta P. ISBN 978-88864-821-1 (also available SFU Library online)

REQUIRED READING NOTES: