Overview

Description

CALENDAR DESCRIPTION:

Advanced seminar on selected works by Indigenous writers. May be organized by author, genre, or critical approach. This course may be repeated for credit if a different topic is taught. Writing.

COURSE DETAILS:

While the nation-state of Canada has been founded on the displacement and dispossession of all Indigenous peoples, Métis peoples specifically have suffered attempts at erasure, initially through the scrip process that was designed to limit claims, disperse families, and eliminate cultural identities, and subsequently through state education and childcare systems designed to obfuscate our histories and undermine kinship networks. To challenge eradication and recuperate their lost heritage, Métis writers have corrected the dominant versions of history sanctioned by the Canadian state that considered Louis Riel to be a traitor; instead, Métis writers have countered that Riel was a legitimate leader who was unjustly hanged, and that church and state worked in tandem to displace Métis from their land. But more than record the ways that those in power sow discord as a tactic to keep Métis collectives politically fragmented and weakened, their literatures offer readers the opportunity to dismantle hegemonic mechanisms that instill shame through racist logics.   

At a time when there is a great deal of public debate about who is and isn’t Métis, consulting works by Métis authors and storytellers for the teachings embedded in their stories is one way to navigate this fraught historical moment. This course will examine the substantial Métis canon that has emerged over centuries, including literatures that have been published over the past century.

COURSE-LEVEL EDUCATIONAL GOALS:

1. Survey Métis literary production.
2. Consider how historical and contemporary contexts and conditions shape literary production.
3. Assess how literature discursively shapes Red River Métis representations and nationalism
4. Identify and analyze Métis literary aesthetics and storytelling
5. Employ a critical reading and writing practice that centres Indigenous voices, stories, and histories in relation to the territories on which we reside
6. Develop scholarly research and writing skills.

Grading

Materials

MATERIALS + SUPPLIES:

And additional readings posted on Canvas

REQUIRED READING:

REQUIRED READING NOTES: