ENG1101HS L0101
Cultural Memory / Cultural Organizing
Lai, L.
Course Description:
This course will address Canadian and Turtle Island anti-racist cultural events, movements and debates of the last thirty years and their contributions and impact on Canadian/ Turtle Island literary communities, specifically: Telling It, Writing Thru Race, the 1993 International Dub Festival, It's a Cultural Thing, the Appropriate Voice, and In Visible Colours. Though there are many more that could be addressed, we will focus on these six in order to contain the conversation. We will track the progress of key debates including cultural appropriation, the use of the term "people of colour", the problematics of equity, the concept of revolution, and more. The main question this class asks include: How did the cultural events of the 1980s and 1990s influence contemporary cultural production? What does Canadian and Turtle Island literature look like if we understand it through the lens of cultural gatherings (instead of, for instance, prize culture, or the literary anthology)? What were the key debates, conundrums and contradictions on the table thirty years ago? How and why have they shifted? What were the terminologies of thirty years ago, and how and why have they shifted? How can we understand our own cultural history differently through the lens of these events? What does it mean to remember? How is memory culturally productive?
Course Reading List:
Allen, Lillian. "Lillian Allen Interviews Lenore Keeshig at Wisdom Council." TIA House: The Insurgent
Architects' House for Creative Writing. < https://www.tiahouse.ca/episode-8-lillian-allen-interviews-lenore-keeshi... >
Brand, Dionne. A Map to the Door of No Return: Notes to Belonging. Toronto: Vintage Canada, 2002.
Chrystos. "Chrystos Interview Lillian Allen at Wisdom Council." TIA House: The Insurgent Architects' House for
Creative Writing. < https://www.tiahouse.ca/episode-1-chrystos-interviews-lillian-allen-at-w... >
Cooper, Afua. The Hanging of Angelique. Toronto: Harper Collins, 2006.
---"Dub For Lisa." < https://afuacooper.com/works/performances/ >
--- "Confessions." < https://afuacooper.com/works/performances/ >
Gagnon, Monika Kin. Other Conundrums: Race, Culture and Canadian Art. Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp, 2000.
Goto, Hiromi. Chorus of Mushrooms. Edmonton: NeWest, 2014.
Hassan, Jamelie and Tyler Haller "Sister Speak to Me: A Tribute to Zahra Kazemi". <http://www.jameliehassan.ca/>
Keeshig, Lenore. "Stop Stealing Native Stories."
< https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/cultural-appropriation-sto... >
Lee, SKY. Disappearing Moon Cafe. Edmonton: NeWest, 2017.
Lee, SKY et al. Telling It: Women and Language Across Cultures. Vancouver: Press Gang, 1990.
L'Hirondelle, Cheryl and M'Girl: Eyes Wide Open: < https://amara.org/en/videos/uXnfW6l4lGEz/info/eyes-wide-open/ >
L'Hirondelle, Cheryl. Profile for the Governor General's Award: < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dw25nT2cnt0&ab_channel=CanadaCouncil >
Maracle, Lee. Ravensong. Toronto: Women's Press, 2017.
Miki, Roy. Flow: Poems Collected and New. Talonbooks, 2019.
Moses, Daniel David. Almighty Voice and His Wife.Toronto: Playwrights Canada Press, 1991.
Onodera, Midi. "The Displaced View." (link provided)
Onodera, Midi. "Skin Deep." (link provided)
Onodera, Midi. "Interview with Leila Sujir." < https://www.cfmdc.tv/events/superwomen-2-screening >
Onodera, Midi. "Interview with Zainub Verjee." < https://www.cfmdc.tv/events/superwomen-7-screening/ >
Moses, Daniel David. Almighty Voice and His Wife. Playwrights Canada, 2009.
Tator, Carol et al. Challenging Racism in the Arts: Case Studies of Controversy and Conflict. UTP, 1998.
Sujir, Leila. "India Hearts Beat." (link provided)
Verjee, Zainub. "IN VISIBLE COLOURS: The Making and Unmaking of the Women of Colour and Third World Women International Fim and Video Festival and Symposium." < https://www.otherplaces.mano-ramo.ca/zainub-verjee-in-visible-colours/ >
1993 Funky Revolutions (Radio Program)
< https://ia803209.us.archive.org/18/items/dub-poets-1993-funky-revolution... >
Method of Evaluation and Course Requirements
Term: S-TERM (January 2025 to April 2025)
Date/Time: Tuesday 1:00 pm to 3:00 pm (2 hours)
Location: TBA
Delivery: In-Person
ENG1102HS L0101
Staging Environmental Crisis in 21st Century Canadian Literature
Aguila-Way. T.
Course Description:
In Ecology Without Nature, Timothy Morton argues that, more than simply compelling us to care about a “pre-existing notion of nature,” ecological art should prompt us to think about our own imbrication within the material environment (194). But as many ecocritics and environmental historians have recently argued, this exercise is becoming increasingly challenging in light of climate change and other environmental disasters that are planetary in scope and involve multi-scale interactions between diverse social and ecological systems. In an age in which our “sense of the now” is saturated by an ever--growing awareness of human activity as a geological force that is changing the planet in irreversible ways (Chakrabarty), what strategies are Canadian authors drawing upon in order to both visualize the material conditions that characterize the Anthropocene and imagine alternative forms of futurity? How does the aesthetic representation of environmental crisis intersect with issues of racial and gender justice? Reading across a broad variety of literary genres and mediums (including novels, ecopoetry, theatre, and film), this course will examine the formal and aesthetic practices that 21st century Canadian authors have turned to in order to negotiate the cognitive and affective challenges involved in staging planetary environmental crises such as climate change, colony collapse disorder, neocolonial resource extraction, and the global spread of genetically modified crops. In so doing, we will examine the value – and also the limits – of literary experimentalism in confronting the environmental risks that characterize life in the 21st century.
Course Reading List:
Margaret Atwood, The Year of the Flood
Douglas Coupland, Generation A
Ruth Ozeki, A Tale for a Time Being
Rita Wong, undercurrent
Adam Dickinson, Anatomic
Annabel Soutar, Seeds
Emily St. John Mandel, Station Eleven
Edward Burtynsky and Jennifer Baichwal, Anthropocene: The Human Epoch
Ad Astra Comix, Extraction! Comix Reportage
Plus a course reader with theoretical and critical texts by Lawrence Buell, Ursula Heise, Robert Nixon, Dipesh Chakrabarty, Amitav Gosh, Stacy Alaimo, Larissa Lai, Anna Tsing, and Alexa Weik von Mossner, among other authors. Course texts are subject to change based on availability.
Method of Evaluation and Course Requirements
TBA
Term: S-TERM (January 2025 to April 2025)
Date/Time: Friday 10:00 am - 12:00 pm (2 hours)
Location: TBA
Delivery: In-Person