Courses » ENGL 417: Contemporary Canadian Aboriginal Literature

Description: In this class, students will be introduced to the scholarly study of Canadian Aboriginal literature, dram, non-fiction and poetry as a means to discussing the ways that Canadian Aboriginal writers use, and subvert, genre. To best understand the pleasures and paradoxes of Canadian Aboriginal literature, a central goal of this class is placing each text into its historical and cultural context. The texts that this class addresses will speak to colonialism, poverty, tragedy, and trauma, but they also speak to hope, pleasure, and a desire for change. This class will assume that students will have little to no background in Canadian Aboriginal literature, and will focus on the legal, historical, and ethical dimension of colonialism in Canada. This class will revolve around three questions: Do Canadian Aboriginal texts engage in a resistance to colonialism? Can a poem, for example, or a play be a tool that one uses to deconstruct colonialism or heal fraught relationships between Aboriginal peoples and settlers? How do Canadian Aboriginal texts address questions of resistance, reconciliation, and recognition? What is the relationship between the medium and the message of Canadian Aboriginal literature? Do different forms--poems, plays, non-fiction, fiction, and sculpture-allow for different kinds of resistance?
Credits: 3.0