Message from the Department Head
Congratulations to all graduates who are receiving degrees in English Language & Literatures this week. This milestone is worth celebrating – it marks the arrival of a degree but also the culmination of how many pages of reading and writing, late nights with laptops, elements of financial and technological and institutional wrangling, conversations and questions and answers and new questions that emerge from those answers…
Your qualification marks something important to the outside world about your skillset, your knowledge, and your ability to get things done. It marks something additional and personal, for each of you: a journey with twists and turns, with unexpected and surprising steps along the way. Surely your degree brings to mind so many people from your life outside UBC, as well as people here. We here in the department have done our part, and you as students have done yours.
Whatever happens from here is up to you. We have no more assignments, no more regulations, and no more reading lists that will guide you as you grapple with the knowledge and skills you have acquired here. We do have hopes and expectations, though, that we send with you into your various futures.
We are living in a time in which the mere production and consumption of language and literatures raise their own questions that are not just about meaning but about ethics and justice: Did a human generate this? Is this fake news? How do I understand the origins and potential uses of this language, word, discourse, narrative or text? Are there ways this text obscures the existence of alternative views? What is a place of art, language, critique, pleasure, or writing in the context of an ongoing climate crisis and human crisis? We know your skill in asking these questions has been honed during your study of language and literatures. Our hope and expectation is that you keep asking questions, not just for yourself but for all of us.
Dr. Alice Te Punga Somerville (Te Āti Awa, Taranaki)
Professor and Department Head
UBC Department of English Language & Literatures
